Thursday Thinking, November 4th

Chinese Navy is Learning the Game

An Indian Kilo class submarine spooked Chinese warships that were sent to patrol pirate infested waters in the Gulf of Aden and the two navies engaged in an hour long game of 'hide and seek' in international waters last month according to Chinese media reports. "It is a routine procedure. We do keep track of warships transiting near Indian waters through all means possible. However, the reports of the Indian submarine having surfaced are incorrect," a senior Navy Officer said. The Chinese report, which first appeared Tuesday, had been picked up by numerous mainland Chinese websites a day later. Chinese warships have been patrolling in the waters off the Gulf of Aden, one of the world’s busiest sea routes, to prevent piracy attacks. China has not officially commented on the incident, which reportedly ended when the Indian vessel left without further confrontation. The Chinese ships had picked up sonar signals of an unidentified submarine, which the Chinese navy identified as a submarine armed with around 20 torpedoes belonging to the Indian navy, the South China Morning Post said in its report on the incident. The submarine moved into deeper waters but was tracked by an anti-submarine helicopter, cornered and forced to surface. The submarine had been trailing the Chinese ships since they entered the Indian Ocean on its way to the Gulf of Aden, the paper said. Welcome to the big leagues, China. I would guess the Indian navy was not the only group monitoring your deployment . . .

Still wondering what to get that special someone for the holidays?  
Why not "earrings with giraffe tail slices" from German anatomist Guenter von Hagens' new online shop for euro41.53 ($57.55)? Von Hagens, famous for his "Body Worlds" traveling exhibition of preserved human bodies and body parts, said Friday his new Internet shop is going online Nov. 3. The shop will sell a wide range of his creations - from animal-part jewelry to entire human corpses. But he says any human body parts will only be sold to places like universities and hospitals for research purposes, as he already does. German Archbishop Robert Zollitsch is criticizing the plans, saying von Hagens is desecrating corpses to create "a spectacle under the guise of medical research."


On this day in history in 1862 Gatling gun patented (Richard J Gatling) and in 1979 500 Iranian "students" seize US embassy, take 90 hostages (444 days) 


Stopped For Speeding

An Irish priest is driving down to New York and gets stopped for speeding in Connecticut.

The state trooper smells alcohol on the priest's breath and then sees an empty wine bottle on the floor of the car. He says, "Sir, have you been drinking?"

"Just water," says the priest.

The trooper says, "Then why do I smell wine?"

The priest looks at the bottle and says,
"Good Lord! He's done it again!"

Live Long and Prosper...