Still a very dangerous situation, but I think this is cool – and it seems to be working.

The Phillippine government refused to negotiate with the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf, and flatly told them to sod off when they demanded a multi-million dollar ransom for the return of three kidnapped Red Cross workers. ‘Give them back or we will hunt you down,’ seemed to be the government line. One of the hostages was released, another was rescued.

Last week Sulu provincial Governor Abdusakur Tan ordered troops to rescue the final hostage, Eugenio Vagni.

Troops clashed with terrorists in the days following. Then, on Thursday, in a move reminiscent of the Mel Gibson movie ‘Ransom’, National Police Chief Jesus Verzosa offered P500,000 to anyone who provided information leading to Vagni’s recovery.

Governor Tan says information has been pouring in from locals who are fed up with the terrorists anyway.

Outstanding! I hope it works, not just for Vagni, but as an example which will cause Abu Sayyaf and others like them to think again about future kidnapping plans.

At least, she never complained then. This was the year after 9/11 after all.

The three prisoners who were waterboarded were Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, Abu Zubaydah, an Al Qaeda operative also involved in 9/11, and Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, a Saudi believed to have had a leadership role in the bombing of the U.S. Navy destroyer Cole in Yemen in 2000.

Nancy Pelosi was briefed, along with a number of other Democrats, on methods of interrogation being used and proposed to be used:

Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, who in 2002 was the ranking Democrat on the House committee, has said in public statements that she recalls being briefed on the methods, including waterboarding. She insists, however, that the lawmakers were told only that the C.I.A. believed the methods were legal — not that they were going to be used.

By contrast, the ranking Republican on the House committee at the time, Porter J. Goss of Florida, who later served as C.I.A. director, recalls a clear message that the methods would be used.

“We were briefed, and we certainly understood what C.I.A. was doing,” Mr. Goss said in an interview. “Not only was there no objection, there was actually concern about whether the agency was doing enough.”

Current House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) agrees Pelosi knew what was happening and raised no concerns at the time.

“All of this information was downloaded to congressional leaders of both parties with no objections being raised,” he told reporters, specifically citing Pelosi as someone who received the briefings. “Not a word was raised at the time, not one word.”

So what’s the story with her now vitriolic denunciations of what she at least tacitly approved at the time? And is she including herself when she demands that those who knew about or carried out those high-level interrogations be prosecuted?

Well, duh, no, because now she is saying she didn’t know. Not really. Sort of. Just thought it was talk, you know. Not that anyone was actually, you know, doing anything.

More from former CIA Director Porter J Goss:

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, members of the committees charged with overseeing our nation’s intelligence services had no higher priority than stopping al-Qaeda. In the fall of 2002, while I was chairman of the House intelligence committee, senior members of Congress were briefed on the CIA’s “High Value Terrorist Program,” including the development of “enhanced interrogation techniques” and what those techniques were. This was not a one-time briefing but an ongoing subject with lots of back and forth between those members and the briefers.

Today, I am slack-jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed; or that specific techniques such as “waterboarding” were never mentioned. It must be hard for most Americans of common sense to imagine how a member of Congress can forget being told about the interrogations of Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. In that case, though, perhaps it is not amnesia but political expedience.

Indeed.

A B-50 Superfortress, a plane that went out of service in the late fifties, and which matches the description of a plane lost in 1948, lands in a storm near Thule Air Force Base in Greenland in 2001.

If the King Bird 50 story is true, then some very weird things are going on in our universe, and there are some very weird questions that need answering.  Former astronaut Edgar Mitchell thinks the US government already has the answers.

Edgar Mitchell is no idiot. Well, he has degrees in aeronautics and astronautics, so he shouldn’t be an idiot.

Mitchell has never made a secret of the fact he believes we are being visited by aliens. But last week he claimed the US government has also known this for many years, and that it was time they shared their knowledge and research with the world.

It would be silly to think there was no other life in our galaxy. We know that anywhere on Earth there is liquid water, there is life. We are reasonably certain there is another planet with large amounts of liquid water about 20 light years from us.

Some scientists have estimated there are at least 360, and possibly many more, civilisations in our galaxy.

I don’t believe any alien species advanced enough to visit us will be out to destroy us or raid our planet’s resources. Based on Earth’s history, any civilisation capable of extended space flight has to have high level skills in co-operation and resource management. Raiding or dictatorial civilisations simply never get to the point where they are sufficiently stable, and able to organise and work together on a large enough scale, to develop the technology and resources needed for long space expeditions.

Nor do I believe that older alien species are out there watching and waiting to see if we are sufficiently peaceful and advanced to be able to join the galactic federation, or whatever it is. That is cargo cult thinking.

We are not alone. We know the galaxy well enough to be certain of that now. But are we being visited by aliens, and is the government covering it up?

That’s a whole different question, and well above my pay grade!

From Rasmussen Reports.

President Barack Obama’s approval ratings are virtually identical to those of George W Bush at the same point in his presidency.

Changes in President Barack Obama's Approval Rating

Interesting.

Pakistan is one of at least five Muslim countries in which the number of Muslims deliberately murdered by Islamic fundamentalists in the past year exceeds the number of Palestinian civilians killed in the Hamas conflict with Israel.  In the last 12 months, Islamists killed over thirty Muslims for every civilian casualty of Cast Lead.

Monthly Jihad Report for March 2009  Jihad Attacks: 169. Countries: 19. Religions: 5. Dead Bodies: 686. Critically Injured: 953

ReligionofPeace.com has announced its Dhimwit of the month for March 2009 is President Barack Obama.

One of the reasons: Backing the Swat Valley ‘Peace for Sharia’ Deal with the Taliban.   Actual peace lasted about five minutes.  That’s how long it took the Taliban to explain how Islam requires the implementation of Sharia in all parts of Pakistan.

I’m not sure ‘Backing the Swat Valley ‘Peace for Sharia’ Deal’ is a fair summary of the Obama administration’s view, but given Obama’s enthusiasm for opening discussions with terrorists and dictators, Pakistani authorities may have thought they were taking a leaf from his book.

Instead of laying down their arms as promised, the Taliban used the stand down of Pakistani forces in Swat to take over ever-larger areas. The 6,000 to 8,000 fighters even came within 60 miles of the nation’s capital this week.

Given how fragile the situation in Pakistan is, and how dangerous radical islamist control of power in that country would be, any legitimisation of islamist forces by Obama’s administration, whether disguised as negotiations, discussions, or anything else, would be disastrous.

Sulu provincial Governor Abdusakur Tan has ordered troops to rescue kidnapped Red Cross worker Eugenio Vagni.

Vagni was kidnapped with two other Red Cross workers, Filippina Mary Jean Lacaba and Swiss man Andreas Notter on the island of Jolo on January 15th. The terrorists released Lacaba on April 2nd. Notter was rescued last Saturday.

The order to rescue Vagni was given in the light of after growing concerns for his health – he has a hernia and suffers hypertension – and after talks with Abu Sayyaf  failed following the refusal of the Red Cross and Philippine authorities to negotiate the payment of a ransom.

Refusing to pay a ransom was a scary decsion, but was absolutely the right thing to do. Paying terrorists encourages an industry of kidnapping, and enables them to purchase arms and support.

As at Saturday, troops have already clashed with Abu Sayyaf, but there have been no sightings of Vagni.

One hopeful sign. Governor Tan said said he was grateful to “a great number of local residents” who have been providing information on the movements of the Abu Sayyaf.  He said they wanted to end the crisis as soon as possible. Even the civilian volunteers who joined the operation said they already want to put an end to the Abu Sayyaf and get Vagni safely.

Support for Abu Sayyaf has come from the largely Muslim local population. If the locals have had enough of terrorists in their midst, their time is coming to an end.

Yes, there is a general increase in the number of people around the globe seeking new and safer homes. But as Andrew Bolt has shown, this general increase is not sufficient to account for the dramatically higher number of illegal immigrants heading to Australia in recent months.

Kevin Rudd and his posse of experts are all saying it is nothing to do with the government’s loudly proclaimed ‘nicer’ policies on immigration. The experts all seem pretty confident because, among other things, how would potential immigrants know about changes in Australian policies?

But why do these enlightened and nicer experts and politicians assume that potential immigrants, even the illegal ones, are so stupid they cannot read a paper, watch TV, use the internet, or even talk to friends or family?

Especially when the immigrants themselves say they are coming, or plan to come, because they have heard that things are different now:

One refugee from Iraq says he’s heard from family in Australia that things have changed under the Rudd government.

“Kevin Rudd, he change everything about the future,” he’s told ABC Radio. “If I go to Australia now, different, different. Maybe accepted. But when John Howard (was the prime minister of) … Australia he said come back to Indonesia.”

Surely it is time think again about the message we are sending.

I’m amazed but pleased by this obviously commonsense decision from the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

Fiona Dickie, of mixed Zulu and English background, complained that she had been subjected to a ‘campaign of racism’ at the Melbourne school where she was employed as a teacher.

For example, she claimed to be shocked when a fellow teacher complimented her by saying ‘You look lovely today, you remind me of that Negro Australian singer, Marcia Hines.’

 Senior Tribunal member Noreen Megay said there was no evidence of racism at the school.

 “To say that the complainant’s allegations turned out to be entirely unsupported would be an understatement,” Ms Megay wrote. She said it was important to understand that conduct considered unfair by certain people was not necessarily discriminatory.

“Put simply, just because someone does not warm to you and does not like you and does not agree with you and does not share your particular passions, it does not follow that his or her conduct is unlawful.”

Ms Megay said an emotionally fragile Ms Dickie believed that anyone who did not agree with her was against her, discriminatory and racist.

Cor!

The Australian Navy has released photos of before and after the explosion on board the boat of illegal immigrants north of Australia a week ago.

The boat exploded after passengers doused it with petrol in an attempt to force the Navy to escort them to Australia rather than the immigration centre on Christmas Island.

Navy personnel were on the boat at the time of the explosion, and were injured. Five of the passengers were killed.

What stands out from these photos is the instant and compassionate response of armed forces personnel as they rescue and give first aid to illegal immigrants who had no right to be in Australian waters and had deliberately set fire to their own boat.

It is the courage, care, efficiency and self-sacrifice of young men and women like this that we celebrate on ANZAC Day.  Well done. And thanks.

Hilary Clinton also has a few kind words to say about ANZAC Day:

“Anzac Day is a day of respect and remembrance, a day to mark a defining event for Australia and New Zealand – Gallipoli – where courage and loyalty demonstrated the intrepid character of two young nations, whose heroes now rest in peace in the soil of a friendly country,” Senator Clinton said in a statement on Friday.

The US recognised the significance of the Anzac tradition and Americans joined with Australians in remembering those lost in battle, she said.

“Along with you, we pay our respects and express gratitude to your dedicated troops,” Senator Clinton said. “Most importantly, along with you, we remember.”