1. Q: how do poor Somali fishermen suddenly acquire million-dollar speedboats? Did their Bank of America VISA credit cards suddenly have their limits greatly increased? The US Congress needs to investigate into the funding and the operation of the Somali pirates.

2. Cargo ships, container ships and freighters need to have small arms aboard so that the crew can defend themselves against pirates. If the UN law of the sea rules currently forbid ships from defending themselves against pirates, then the UN law of the sea rules need to be modified. Situations change, and so people have to change their responses to new situations. Ships can put away their arms once they have passed through piracy danger zones, currently, the Gulf of Arabia, the ocean around the Horn of Africa and parts of the South Asian waters east of India.

Ships with some small arms for self-protection will not pose a threat to seaports anywhere in the world. They may have two hundred years ago, but it is a different world now… Armored trucks with armed guards do not present a threat to citizens of cities across the world.

The US needs to get out of Afghanistan and Iraq now. All nations need to arm their cargo vessels as protection against piracy on the high seas.

The favoritism shown Maersk has engendered deep resentment among some genuinely American shipping companies. A couple of years back, Maersk was lambasted by a congressman (I can’t remember the name) for having shipped Soviet arms to North Korea for use in killing American soldiers. Reaching even further back, I have heard grumbling that Maersk was never held accountable for its collaboration with the Nazis during the German occupation of Denmark in World War II.

Unions were responsible for creating a large middle class (especially those without college educations). that is why the rich fat cats generally don’t like unions. Unions gave the peasants a voice…and that’s against the power elites rules.

Borlag huh? Fantastic. That guy is a gift that keeps on giving, a true hero that ought to be much more well known.

While each congress there are major efforts on the part of lobbies to change the law, part of Public Law 480 requires that food relief from US Agricultural surpluses, be carried in “American Bottoms” — and US Flagged and owned ships, all have union crews. This ship is owned by Moller/Maersk, which is a vast international Danish Company, but which bought an American Shipping Company, and thus is a bi-national corporation. When it carries American Humanitarian Relief Supplies, they must use a ship chartered in the US, US Flagged, and American Crew. Moller/Maersk is perfectly capable of changing the charter, flag, and crew if it is hired to deliver a non-restricted cargo. For instance, this is the Danish Shipping Company that “sold” Ollie North his ship for shipping the anti-tank weapons to Iran back in the middle of Iran Contra — the ship he took back to Denmark and parked once the story broke, and left the crew without paying their wages. Not covered in the US Press at all — the Danes had a nice little trial in a public court on the Island of Fyn, and took public testimony of all the seamen (all Danes) who were unpaid, and out spilled all the cargo’s they had hauled, and all their ports of Call. Not sure whether North ever paid his fines and got right with the Danish Seaman’s court. Moller/Maersk also was the primary contractor hauling arms to Central America back in the Reagan Days. They’ve done covert stuff for CIA for years.

(Why keep up with a story like this — well back in my days of being an Exchange Student in Denmark, I acquired a Danish Boyfriend, who over the years worked his way up the ladder in the Seaman’s Union. — I have vaguely followed his career as a political odd-ball and “pound the table” sort of Union Officer. Ollie North drove him to distraction — and he would not let the story go, giving radio talks and having TV appearances and all that back in the late 80’s. Friends made some audio cassettes of his stuff and sent them to me, clipped the papers and all — and I tried to interest reporters following some of the going’s on in Central America in it — to no avail. Anyhow, he won the Seaman’s lawsuit.)

And Oh yea — why are we sending food relief to Kenya? Two reasons. Some of it is for the Somali in refugee camps in the north of Kenya, but some may be because of a new Wheat Fungi that has appeared in Kenya, and is spreading North and South in Africa, and has recently appeared in the Middle East — working its way toward Pakistan and India. The US and India have a huge project underway to breed around the Fungi — they even brought 94 year old Norman Borlag out of retirement to work on the effort. The Indian Press has been reporting this — US Press not at all. But it could be a huge crisis if the Iranian, Pakistani and North Indian Wheat Crops were to fail, and when the fungi infests, it destroys entire fields in a matter of days. Anyhow, I assume relief wheat from the US could be the cargo here, as a significant part of Kenya’s Wheat Crop went down this year.

And I yield to no one in my high regard for the men and women of the merchant marine.

Works that way too except it creates a nasty after-image you really don’t want.