The American prisoners were pushed and shoved through the surging, boisterous crowd that had gathered in the city. As they were paraded towards the palace, they could hear shouts, exclamations of joy, and clapping of hands. They could hear their captors thanking Allah “for their great success and victories over so many Christian dogs, and unbelievers...”

The Americans were paraded before the Muslim leader, who began berating them, saying that he would never make peace with their country, finishing by saying “now I have got you, you Christian dogs, you shall eat stones.”

The forgoing story of American imprisonment sounds as though it may have occurred in present-day Somalia, Iraq, Afganistan, Iran, or Pakistan. But the story is actually taken from an account written by an American seaman, John Foss, and it tells of his experience with Algerian pirates in 1793. Foss was on the brig Polly out of Newburyport, Massachussetts, bound for Cadiz, Spain when his brig was captured off the coast of Spain.

In 1793, the United States had no navy, and the independence gained just ten years earlier had stripped the fledgling country of the protection of the British navy. And so, the response of the United States Congress in dealing with the Algerian pirates who captured the Polly and who made slaves of American citizens followed the pattern set by European countries: pay a ransom for the release of the prisoners and pay an annual tribute to secure immunity from seizure for American ships. In the fifteen years from 1785 to 1800, Congress made payments of close to $1 million per year to Tripoli, Tunis, Morroco, and Algiers.

The United States agreed to this national extortion while building the navy that would eventually, in 1815, provide the respite from our first taste of Isalmic terrorism (The use of the words “Isalmic Terrorism” are properly considered. By 1800, any seizure of a ship owned by Christians was, by Islamic law, part of jihad against non-believers. For more on this, see Frederic C. Leiner's well-documented book, The End of Barbary Terror). It is interesting to note that, even with the constant threat of Islamic terrorism in the form of the Barbary pirates that faced the Americans in 1793, there were citizens who questioned America's need for a navy, were adverse to the expenditures associated with building the navy, and even went so far as to question the effect that the navy may have on civil liberties. Whether these concerned citizens were the actual founding members of the ACLU could not be confirmed.

At the time of the Napoleonic wars, Greece was part of the Muslim Ottoman Turk empire. In The Ionian Mission, the French have taken possession of the fictional city Marga, and it is Captain Aubrey's responsibility to negotiate with the Muslim beys (tribal chieftains) in the area in order to most effectively accomplish the removal of the French troops from the Grecian peninsula. There are three Muslim beys who are vying for power in the region, and the one factor that will tip the balance of power is the guns that the English are willing to provide to whichever bey is most willing to assist the English in fighting the French.

Jack Aubrey meets with each of the beys, and in the final bey that he meets with, he finds a kindred spirit. This bey, Sciahan by name, is “much more what Jack had expected of a Turk: a plain man, and one that he could trust.” Jack unilaterally determines that he will support Sciahan and tells him that he will immediately send a ship to bring the guns that Sciahan desires.

Captain Aubrey makes his decision about which bey he will support without consulting with the politico who accompanied him, a Professor Graham. When Professor Graham realizes what Captain Aubrey has agreed to, he becomes irate and begins berating Captain Aubrey for being so naïve. Professor Graham insists that “In all negotiation, and a fortiori, all Oriental negotiation, each side was expected to extract all possible profit from the balance of forces: if either did not do so, it was because there was some hidden weakness – a plain unconditional acquiescence in a demand must be taken as the greatest proof of weakness.” Professor Graham goes on to say that Captain Aubrey should have insisted on taking as hostage one of Sciahan's nephews, and should have held the nephew until Sciahan had indeed fulfilled his verbal commitment. Professor Graham goes so far as to intimate that Captain Aubrey was not fully committed by the words that he had spoken to Sciahan, and that he could renege on his commitment by begging a misunderstanding. Captain Aubrey “replied coldly that he regarded his words as wholly binding, that he was convinced that he and Sciahan understood one another.”

Captain Jack Aubrey personifies the English and American spirit. We people of the Western world, especially those of us who are American, are very much attached to the idea that if we can sit down with a person, look that person in the eye, and discuss a mutually beneficial relationship, then we tend to believe that the person into whose eye we are looking will fulfill their end of any agreement that is reached. You may call it American naiveté or English gullibility, but we people of the Western world tend to trust verbal, personal commitments. If we make an agreement without extracting the last ounce of blood from the other agreeing party, we do not care if we are are perceived as being weak for doing so. We tend to accept people at their word, rather than taking their family members as hostage in order to ensure that they will fulfill their word.

The Democratic Party has hired a group named Voting is Power (VIP) to register voters for the upcoming Presidential election. Voting is Power is under investigation by the Louisiana Secretary of State Jay Dardenne for voter fraud. So who is Voting is Power and why does that mean anything?

VIP is actually a Muslim American Society (MAS) organization. So who is the Muslim American Society?

The Muslim American Society is a front group for the Muslim Brotherhood whose militant credo states: "God is our objective, the Koran is our Constitution, the Prophet is our leader, struggle is our way, and death for the sake of God is the highest of our aspirations"

In May 2005, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross reported in The Weekly Standard that [the Muslim American Society] MAS is a U.S. front group for the Muslim Brotherhood -- a claim supported by a September 19, 2004 Chicago Tribune story -- and, as such, wishes to see the United States governed by sharia, or Islamic law. "The message that all countries should be ruled by Islamic law," writes Gartenstein-Ross, "is echoed throughout MAS's membership curriculum. For example, MAS requires all its adjunct members to read Fathi Yakun's book To Be a Muslim. In that volume, Yakun spells out his expansive agenda: 'Until the nations of the world have functionally Islamic governments, every individual who is careless or lazy in working for Islam is sinful.'"

Closely linked to MAS is the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, whose Executive Director is Mahdi Bray, a former Students for a Democratic Society activist now affiliated with International ANSWER, an anti-war front group for the Communist World Workers Party. "Our mission," Bray has written, "is to build an integrated empowerment process for the American Muslim community." Toward this end, Bray and MAS have been involved in a voter-registration drive and an effort to train 1,000 "activists" in the "skills necessary for effective activism."

MAS also has close ties to Islamic American University, an unaccredited university in the Detroit suburb of Southfield, which teaches Islamic law and other subjects. (One IAU faculty member is Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, who until at least June 2003 was also the Chairman -- in abstentia -- of the university's Board of Trustees. )

In addition, MAS operates programs for educating the young, providing fellowship for Muslim youth, creating its own network of Islamic schools, and sustaining a nationwide Council of Imams.

MAS was a signatory to a February 20, 2002 document, composed by the radical group Refuse & Resist, condemning military tribunals and the detention of immigrants apprehended in connection with post-9/11 terrorism investigations.

MAS strongly opposes the Patriot Act, which it says “strips away the fundamental checks and balances that safeguard many of our basic civil liberties,” and has “drastically infringed upon every American's rights by giving the government expanded powers to invade privacy, imprison and deport people without due process, and punish political dissent.”

Book Review: Medical Myths That Can Kill You And 101 Truths That Can Save, Extend, and Improve Your Life, by Nancy L. Snyderman, M.D. Published by Crown Publishers, 2008.

There are currently over 800,000 physicians practicing in the United States. By definition, some of these physicians are mediocre. That is to say, if we are to accept the idea that a particular physician is a superior physician, then we must also accept the idea that he or she is superior to other physicians who would, of necessity, be considered to be mediocre. But our acceptance of the idea of the existence of mediocre physicians within our health care system should in no way imply that we also accept, without challenge, the idea that these mediocre physicians should be allowed to write mediocre, irresponsible, and ill-informed books, and in Medical Myths That Can Kill You, And the 101 Truths That Will Save, Extend, and Improve Your Life we have just such a book. The book is written by Dr. Nancy L. Snyderman, the Chief Medical Editor of NBC News, and based upon the book's content, viewers of the NBC Nightly News may want to avoid taking seriously any advice that the doctor may provide.

The irresponsible writing actually makes it's first appearance on the dust jacket of the book, where one finds the following statement: “Fact: Donating blood may lower your risk of heart disease.” It is understood that Dr. Snyderman is not the author of what is written on the dust jacket, but she should certainly be cognizant of what is found there, and one would hope that a medical doctor would have knowledge of the meaning of the word “fact.” Maybe in Dr. Snyderman's touchy-feely world of medical care, a doctor is allowed to state that a “possibility” is a “fact,” but here in the real world we draw distinctions between the two words. In the real world, I am not allowed to say “Fact: The Phoenix Lander may find three-eyed aliens on Mars tomorrow,” because I am not stating a fact. Some may say that I am being a bit too severe in a criticism that is largely semantical, but I would respond with a question: Are we not to expect a proper adherence to semantics in a book that is written by a physician and is purportedly written for the unwashed masses in an effort to set us misguided souls on the correct path to avoiding the medical myths that will kill us? I would think that a book about medical myths should be very clear and concise about what is an actual fact. If Dr. Snyderman is allowed to say that “possibilities” are “facts,” then are we not allowed to conversely treat the so-called “facts” in her book as mere “possibilities?”

Unfortunately, the book is not an improvement upon it's dust jacket. One of Dr. Snyderman's “truths” that is found in the book proper is the following: “Truth: Statin drugs help fight cancer.” The foregoing statement demonstrates that either Dr. Snyderman is an irresponsible person or that she has a rather vague understanding of the word “truth.” In explaining this “truth,” Dr. Snyderman says the following: Taking statins “may halve your risk of developing colon and advanced prostate cancer while reducing the risk of pancreatic and esophageal cancer more than 50 percent.” Once again, Dr. Snyderman provides us with a possibility masquerading as a fact. Does she not see the difference between the definitive statement, “Statin drugs help fight cancer,” and the follow-up statement that they “may” decrease the risk of certain cancers? Dr. Snyderman cannot say definitively that statin drugs help fight cancer because even the National Cancer Institute is unwilling to make such a ridiculous statement.

Liar, liar, pants on fire! The lies about off shore drilling and other environmentalist tall tales.

Help lower gas prices - support H.R. 3089

This article is from Freedom's Watch.

Rising oil prices are playing havoc with our economy. Continental Airlines just announced it's laying off 3,000 workers; Ford is considering slashing about 2,000 jobs. And now what you pay for electricity is going up as much as 29 percent. If you've had enough, please sign our petition and email your representative.

Since the new majority took control of Congress in January 2007 on a pledge to bring down gas prices, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have not sent a single bill that would lower fuel costs to the President. Just the opposite. Reid tried to get the Senate to pass a "cap and trade" bill that could have actually raised the cost of gasoline by as much as $1.10/gal.

Meanwhile, Senator Chuck Schumer's solution to skyrocketing gas prices is to bully Saudi Arabia into increasing production and lowering their price of oil.

It doesn't have to be this way. Believe it or not, America may hold more oil than Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Venezuela - but it is closed off to exploration by our own government. So why bully Saudi Arabia when, in terms of oil production, we could become Saudi Arabia?

The good news is that Congressman Mac Thornberry has introduced the No More Excuses Energy Act (H.R. 3089), which would allow for more oil drilling here at home, increase wind energy, encourage the construction of new refineries, and expand clean nuclear power. If 218 House members sign the discharge petition on the bill, it will be brought to the floor for a vote.

As often happens, I did not notice the trend until it affected me, personally. A few nights ago, in a game against the Cincinnati Reds, Albert Pujols had to be carried off the field due to a strained calf muscle. He pulled up lame in the seventh inning.

This affects me personally because I am an Albert Pujols fan. I should also point out that, while I was a St. Louis Cardinals fan for many years, and I hope to be a Cardinals fan again in the future, I will not be a Cardinals fan as long as they have as their manager Tony LaRussa, the guy who personally ushered in the steroids era by turning a blind eye to what was demonstrably happening with the players that he managed. But we will devote another article to an invective against Tony LaRussa. For now, I will just say that I wish Albert Pujols all of the success in the world, but I root for the failure of the Cardinals, because one more year of failure might cause the permanent exit from baseball of the vegan lawyer who fancies himself a manager, but who is truly a blight upon Major League Baseball.

Referring back to the first paragraph, the injury to Pujols caused me to think of all the similar injuries that have recently occurred. Here are just a few, with links to the web articles on each of them:

Alfonso Soriano of Chicago Cubs Injures Calf

Sean Casey of Detroit Tigers Injures Calf

Thomas Jones of New York Jets Injures Calf

Ronnie Belliard of Washington Nationals Injures Calf

Moises Alou of New York Mets Injures Calf

Jack Wilson of Pittsburgh Pirates Injures Calf

Maria Sharapova Injures Calf

Felix Hernandez of Boston Red Sox has Tightness in Calf

Anthony Thomas of Buffalo Bills Injures Calf

Brent Barry of San Antonio Spurs Injures Calf

The potential list of all of the calf injuries in professional sports could fill several pages.  Indeed, my Google search, which I limited to just professional baseball, basketball, and football, returned over three thousand results.  We all know that some of those returned results are duplicates, but the search does demonstrate that there is something of a trend, if not an epidemic, in calf muscle injuries.  Why are the calves of athletes attracting so much attention?