The Big Rock Candy Mountain meets Life

As we usher in the New Year, so much to write about... I just wrote about finance professionals becoming comedians and filmmakers. Now let's watch a trailer for a comedy-action-thriller-farce about the Steel Industry (story at bottom). In a scene right out of Atlas Shrugged, they've boldly gone where no steel executive has ever gone before. Not even Orren Boyle. Proving that bankers must be the common unimaginative pikers of the movie cliche, the Steel exec's have upped the ante to prove who's got more taconite in their scrotum. They've asked the Federal bail bondsman for $1Trillion to rescue them.

That's with a "T". The auto companies must be kicking themselves right now.

For those of you who don't follow such things, the Fed is now renting Monopoly money for 0.25%. The Steel industry is just P.O.ed that the only ones getting a piece of that scrap metal are the banks. So they've decided to cut out the middle-man.

I say we all file the necessary paperwork and set ourselves up as banks to ask for bailout money. The interest on $1M is only $2500 per year! That's one month's payment on a $360k house! Probably on an upside-down loan for a place that won't appraise over $200k right now.

The Federal government has become the Big Rock Candy Mountain... and we're all going to be burly bums before long.
Robb

http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/lyrics/bigrock.htm

On a summers day in the month of May a burly bum come hiking
Down a shady lane through the sugar cane, he was looking for his liking
As he strolled along he sang a song of a land of milk and honey
Where a bum can stay for many a day, and he won't need any money

Ohhhh.... the buzzin' of the bees and the cigarette trees
the soda water fountain,
where the lemonade springs and the bluebird sings
in that Big Rock Candy Mountain

In the Big Rock Candy Mountain, the cops have wooden legs
the bulldogs all have rubber teeth, and the hens lay soft-boiled eggs
The farmer's trees are full of fruit, the barns are full of hay

I want to go where there ain't no snow
Where the sleet don't fall, and the wind don't blow
In that Big Rock Candy Mountain...

Ohhhh.... the buzzin' of the bees and the cigarette trees
the soda water fountain,
where the lemonade springs and the bluebird sings
in that Big Rock Candy Mountain

There's a lake of gin we can both jump in, and the handouts grow on bushes
In the new-mown hay we can sleep all day, and the bars all have free lunches
Where the mail train stops and there ain't no cops, and the folks are tender-hearted
Where you never change your socks and you throw no rocks,
And your hair is never parted...

Ohhhh.... the buzzin' of the bees and the cigarette trees
the soda water fountain,
where the lemonade springs and the bluebird sings
in that Big Rock Candy Mountain

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, there's a land that's fair and bright,
The handouts grow on bushes and you sleep out every night
Where the boxcars all are empty and the sun shines every day
The birds and bees and the cigarette trees,
The lemonade springs where the bluebird sings
On the Big Rock Candy Mountain...

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008581699_steel020.html

Steel industry hopes for big stimulus shot

The steel industry, having entered the recession in the best of health, is emerging as a leading indicator of what lies ahead. As steel production goes, and it is now in collapse, so will go the national economy.

By Louis Uchitelle

The New York Times

A worker watches at Nucor Steel Seattle as the lid on the electric arc furnace is lifted so that more metal can be dropped into the furnace to be melted. Minimills like Nucor's can be operated more efficiently than big integrated mills likes those of U.S. Steel.

The steel industry, having entered the recession in the best of health, is emerging as a leading indicator of what lies ahead. As steel production goes, and it is now in collapse, so will go the national economy.

That maxim once applied to the Big Three car companies. Now they are losing ground in good times and bad, and steel has replaced autos as the industry to watch for an early sign that a severe recession is beginning to lift.

The industry itself is turning to government for orders that, until the collapse, came from manufacturers and builders.

Its executives are waiting anxiously for details of President-elect Obama's stimulus plan and adding their voices to pleas for a huge public investment program — up to $1 trillion over two years — that will lift demand for steel to build highways, bridges, power grids, schools, hospitals, water-treatment plants and rapid transit.

"What we are asking," said Daniel R. DiMicco, chairman and CEO of Nucor, a giant steelmaker with a Seattle plant, "is that our government deal with the worst economic slowdown in our lifetime through a recovery program that has in every provision a 'buy America' clause."

Economists in the Obama camp said the proposals to Congress will include significant infrastructure spending that draws on heavy industry.

New spending should provide an immediate jolt to the steel business, which has already gone through the painful makeover now demanded of the Big Three.

Mills were closed, companies were consolidated, hundreds of thousands lost their jobs and the survivors agreed to concessions. As a result, productivity shot up and so did profits, to record levels in the first nine months of this year.

But then the recession hit in force.

Steel goes into nearly everything made in America, and as construction and manufacturing wound down, so did steel output, plunging 50 percent since September.

The steel industry's collapse closely tracks the alarming late-autumn swoon in the national economy, as the housing bust and the credit crisis converted a mild downturn into "a severe one that has much further to run," says Nigel Gault, chief domestic economist at IHS Global Insight.

Through August, steel production was actually up slightly for the year. The decline came slowly at first, then with a rush in November and December.

By late December, output was down to 1.02 million tons a week from 2.1 million tons Aug. 30, the American Iron and Steel Institute reported. The price of a ton of steel is also down by half since summer.

"We are making our steel at four mills instead of six," said John Armstrong, a spokesman for U.S. Steel, explaining that two mills were recently idled and the four still operating are at less than full capacity.

"The third quarter was one of the best in U.S. Steel's history," Armstrong added. "And it has been a very precipitous drop from there."

The cutback has been particularly hard on workers at the big integrated mills like those at U.S. Steel and Arcelor Mittal USA, with their blast furnaces and coke ovens converting coal and iron ore into steel.

Nucor "minimills"

Operated at less than full capacity, these mills are less efficient than the equally large "minimills," like Nucor, whose electric arc furnaces can be operated efficiently at lower speeds.

So the plant closings have been mostly at the integrated mills, whose 50,000 workers — roughly 40 percent of the nation's steelworkers — are represented by the United Steelworkers of America. The union says that by early this year it expects 20,000 workers to be laid off.

Ten thousand already are. Kathleen Loepker, a millwright and mechanic, is among the most recent to join their ranks. She was laid off Dec. 19 from the U.S. Steel plant in Granite City, Ill., which shut down, putting more than 2,000 people out of work.

With nearly 30 years seniority, Loepker, 48, has worked through bankruptcies, union concessions and consolidations that saw her mill acquired by U.S. Steel in 2003.

Her income is tied more to incentive bonuses than in the past. On layoff, she is collecting $20 an hour, which is 80 percent of her base pay of $25.12 an hour.

That base pay, rather than rising significantly, is fattened by incentive bonuses tied to amounts of steel produced and to profits. It had been averaging an additional $7 an hour — money now gone until the mill reopens.

"No one knows when that will happen," said Loepker. "The company tells us the end of March, but they don't know either. The uncertainty has everyone fearful."

Not since the 1980s has American steel production been as low as it is today. Those were the Rust Belt years when many steel companies were failing and imports of better-quality, lower-cost steel were rising.

Foreign producers no longer have an advantage over the refurbished American companies. Indeed, imports, which represent about 30 percent of all steel sales in the United States, also are hurting as customers disappear.

Lobbying Obama

The industry, in response, is lobbying the Obama transition team for infrastructure projects that would require big amounts of steel. Mass-transit systems are high on the list and so is bridge repair.

"We are sharing with the president-elect's transition team our thoughts in terms of the industry's policy priorities," said Nancy Gravatt, a spokeswoman for the American Iron and Steel Institute.

The Obama team has not revealed details of the president-elect's soon-to-be-announced recovery plan other than to indicate most of the package will probably go into infrastructure spending rather than tax breaks.

"If the president-elect really follows through, he'll fund a lot of mass-transit projects," said Wilbur L. Ross Jr., the Wall Street deal maker who put together the steel conglomerate known today as Arcelor Mittal USA.

"All the big cities have these projects ready to go."

Finance meets Flashdance

In the story below, some bankers are starting to use the Left side of their brain. Or is it the Right side? You know. The Creative side.

They are putting down their Wall Street Journals and picking up Variety as they try their hands at comedy, filmmaking and writing.

I'm just an engineer, but I'm finishing my latest screenplay.... does that count?

Harry B. Weiner, a partner at On-Ramps, a recruiting and consulting firm that works with financial professionals, says the economic downturn is creating a new psychology of career transition. “People feel there’s nothing to lose in terms of taking a risk and pursuing a new direction, especially when you have a résumé that says ‘banking’ and no banks are hiring,” Mr. Weiner said.

Certainly true that a lot of bankers didn't feel there was anything to lose before things went to hell in a money basket. Why should they be risk-averse now? And my new script is about risk-takers and high-tech flim-flam artists trying to bilk people. Perfect.

Richard Florida, author of “Who’s Your City?” and director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto, sees the gravitational pull away from Wall Street and toward more creative industries as part of a necessary economic recalibration.

“The economy couldn’t survive on speculation and what really amounted to advanced financial alchemy,” he said. “We are now realizing it is our human creativity that is our real capital.

I dunno. Some of them were pretty creative before the good times went south.

WHILE most bankers and lawyers who pursue careers in comedy, writing and filmmaking say they are somewhat anomalous, the situation could change quickly.

“Things look so bad in finance that if you think the difference in salary multiple isn’t as big as it used to be between doing what you are viscerally interested in versus a job that’s just about money, it puts a whole different spin on it,” Mr. Terry said.

“Everyone seems to have something else they would rather be doing than their 9-to-5,” he said. “I think that people who are losing their jobs are being forced to pursue their dreams and, in a way, are being liberated from the golden handcuffs of Wall Street and venturing into something that might fulfill them.”

Remember the movie "Flashdance"? Beautiful young girl working as welder in a steel mill and a sleezy club dancer at night fulfills her life's ambition to audition for the ballet. Let's send them all the DVD. My feet are already tapping out the theme song.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/jobs/28bankers.html?_r=1&8dpc

Former Bankers Turn to a Creative Plan B

Katie Orlinsky for The New York Times

Michael Terry, left, a former banker, and Patrick Dall’Occhio performing with Party Central USA at the Peoples Improv Theater in Manhattan.

By HANNAH SELIGSON

Published: December 26, 2008

MICHAEL TERRY led a double life for many years.

“During the day I worked at Morgan Stanley as an executive director, overseeing a group that raised money for hedge funds,” he said, “and at night I performed in comedy shows.”

Then, last February, his company announced a round of layoffs. Mr. Terry, motivated to pursue his goal of becoming a “Daily Show” correspondent, raised his hand.

“At the time, I figured the severance package would give me a couple of years to try comedy, something that was getting increasingly hard to balance with my day job.”

Since leaving Morgan Stanley, Mr. Terry, 37, has shot two pieces as an on-the-scene reporter for the Onion News Network, and his sketch comedy group, Party Central USA, has been given a prime spot at the coming Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival.

With Wall Street hemorrhaging jobs, bonuses disappearing and the financial sector going through a seismic shift, some bankers and lawyers are switching lanes to more creative career paths. They are putting down their Wall Street Journals and picking up Variety as they try their hands at comedy, filmmaking and writing.

Harry B. Weiner, a partner at On-Ramps, a recruiting and consulting firm that works with financial professionals, says the economic downturn is creating a new psychology of career transition.

“People feel there’s nothing to lose in terms of taking a risk and pursuing a new direction, especially when you have a résumé that says ‘banking’ and no banks are hiring,” Mr. Weiner said.

That was certainly the calculus for Benjamin Cox, 33. After leaving his job as a vice president at Goldman Sachs in August, he immediately began incubating his plans to work on his screenplay — he calls it a cross between “Swingers” and “Annie Hall” — and start a production company.

Mr. Cox said that with the upheaval on Wall Street, he feels relieved to have a backup plan. “I’m seeing a lot of people who never thought of an alternative to banking.”

Shaun Gatter, 38, left his position as a vice president and counsel at a large investment bank last year to work on his novel about a Jewish South African family, a story set against the backdrop of apartheid.

Mr. Gatter says that the decision has meant a huge financial adjustment, but that the payback — having more mental energy for his book — has been worth it.

“It’s been euphoric to be able to think mainly about the book and less about equity derivatives and client risk.”

Greg Collett, 37, left his job as a director in the commodity exchange-traded fund business at Deutsche Bank in June to explore a career in stand-up comedy.

“I had this gnawing feeling that things were only going to get worse and that Wall Street was not the place to be,” Mr. Collett said, adding that it was easier to leave knowing that compensation packages were going to be a fraction of what they were a few years ago.

Richard Florida, author of “Who’s Your City?” and director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto, sees the gravitational pull away from Wall Street and toward more creative industries as part of a necessary economic recalibration.

“The economy couldn’t survive on speculation and what really amounted to advanced financial alchemy,” he said. “We are now realizing it is our human creativity that is our real capital.

“The economic downturn is going to free up top talent to do other things that are going to change the metabolism of cities like New York in a very good way.”

According to a 2005 report by the Center for an Urban Future, the creative work force of New York City comprised 8.1 percent of all those employed in the five boroughs, and has been on one of the strongest areas of economic growth for the city. Between 1998 and 2002, employment in New York’s creative core grew by 13.1 percent, adding 32,000 jobs, while the city’s overall job totals increased by 6.5 percent.

Carmen Scheidel, director of education, events and multimedia at MediaBistro.com, a Web site for artists and media professionals, says that while most industries are contracting, MediaBistro added 93 online courses in the last year to meet the demands of people who want to take courses in writing, multimedia and design.

Still, Jonathan Bowles, director of the Center for an Urban Future, says that while there is no question that creative fields are not faring as badly as Wall Street right now, they are hardly immune to the economic downturn. The advertising, publishing and newspaper industries are all cutting jobs, he noted.

The bright spot that Mr. Bowles sees is for the free agent. “There’s a good chance,” he said, “that there will be more work for independent contractors and freelancers.”

WHILE most bankers and lawyers who pursue careers in comedy, writing and filmmaking say they are somewhat anomalous, the situation could change quickly.

“Things look so bad in finance that if you think the difference in salary multiple isn’t as big as it used to be between doing what you are viscerally interested in versus a job that’s just about money, it puts a whole different spin on it,” Mr. Terry said.

Mr. Gatter said that many of his colleagues at the bank commended his choice to leave, telling him that they also nursed ambitions to be chefs, photographers, writers and artists.

“Everyone seems to have something else they would rather be doing than their 9-to-5,” he said. “I think that people who are losing their jobs are being forced to pursue their dreams and, in a way, are being liberated from the golden handcuffs of Wall Street and venturing into something that might fulfill them.”

The Miracle of Cuba, Part 3

Copied below, two more sympathetic articles on Cuba in AP and NYTimes over the last three weeks. (A third is "Viva La Revolution!", a post further down from December 7.) The second includes a letter sent to the Denver Post a few days ago (as well as various other venues), to point out that *someone* is noticing what they are doing.

You'll note this most recent article ("Cuba celebrates Revolution's 50th Anniversary"), which just appeared tonight, is the most positive of the three towards Cuba:

Over a half-century, the rebels erased illiteracy and crafted a universal health care system. ...The Havana-based non-governmental Cuban Commission for Human Rights and Reconciliation last counted 219 political prisoners on the island, down from as many as 15,000 in 1964.

"Crafted". Ah, yes. The old-world skill that went into it. Wait till the few days before Obama takes the oath -- I bet the papers are fairly swooning with the wonder that is Kooba.

...''I hope he gets rid of the blockade,'' 42-year-old Ana Luisa Mas ''...We are very hopeful that with Obama our relatives will be able to visit us more, and send us more money.''

Proving my point raised previously, though I wasn't so explicit before that a P.R. campaign has been orchestrated for normalizing relations with Cuba after Obama is sworn in. As this last story shows, the band is still playing some kind of Soviet Polka.

It's remarkable how well organized they are. The Communists, I mean. It gets you amused scorn from almost anyone to refer to the threat of them in Cold War terms these days, but they really are out there, they really are quite well infiltrated into positions of influence and power, they really are quite commited to their agenda, and they really are quite effective at what they do. One has to admire effectiveness, if nothing else.

Robb

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/01/01/world/AP-CB-Cuba-Revolution-at-50.html

Cuba Celebrates Revolution's 50th Anniversary

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: January 1, 2009

Filed at 10:23 p.m. ET

SANTIAGO, Cuba (AP) -- Fifty years after triumphant armed rebels descended from the mountains, communist Cuba celebrated the revolution's anniversary Thursday with toned-down festivities following a trio of devastating hurricanes and under the enduring public absence of Fidel Castro.

Although the ailing Castro continued convalescing in private, the festivities were filled with praise of the bearded rebel known as the ''Leader of the Revolution.''

''We know that a man alone doesn't make history. But some men are indispensable, as they can have a decisive influence in the course of events. Fidel is one,'' President Raul Castro said of his older brother in a speech given beneath the balcony where Fidel declared victory over dictator Fulgencio Batista's government on Jan. 1, 1959.

The austere celebrations, including concerts across the island, belied the start of a year infused with possibilities for reforms that might ease Cubans' daily hardships. Many here hope for improved relations with the United States when President-elect Barack Obama takes office Jan. 20 following declarations he would talk directly with Raul Castro and lift severe restrictions on family travel and remittances to the island.

''I hope he gets rid of the blockade,'' 42-year-old Ana Luisa Mas said earlier at a Havana farmers market as she bought a pork leg for her family's New Year's celebration, referring to decades-old U.S. trade sanctions. ''We are very hopeful that with Obama our relatives will be able to visit us more, and send us more money.''

Raul Castro, who succeeded his older brother in February, quoted extensively from Fidel as he spoke for less than 40 minutes on a small, leafy plaza to 3,000 Communist Party faithful.

He cited from his brother's 2005 speech at Havana University, warning ''this revolution can destroy itself'' and that if it occurred, ''it would only be our own fault.''

The rebels' victory a half-century ago was doubly important ''for it has been attained despite the unhealthy and vindictive hatred of the powerful neighbor,'' Castro said, referring to the United States.

He cited the Bay of Pigs invasion by U.S.-trained exiles, the U.S. embargo, the Cuban missile crisis and assassination attempts against his brother.

''One way or another, with more or less aggressiveness, every U.S. administration has tried to impose a regime change in Cuba,'' he said.

No foreign leaders attended. Bolivian President Evo Morales, who originally was to attend, saluted the Cuban revolution and the older Castro from La Paz, declaring ''my respect, my admiration for Fidel.''

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced in Caracas that in honor of the 50th anniversary, the Cuban flag would fly permanently outside the Venezuelan tomb of South American independence leader Simon Bolivar.

For Raul Castro's speech, a huge red banner was hung from a colonial hotel on the plaza featuring a photograph of a 32-year-old Fidel Castro in guerrilla uniform and backpack. The celebration began with a short documentary featuring historic and more recent video clips of the revolutionary leader.

Fidel Castro's health is a state secret, and he remains out of sight after major intestinal surgery almost 2 1/2 years ago. But the 82-year-old still writes essays suggesting he maintains some say in government affairs.

On the anniversary's eve, he released a brief statement congratulating ''our heroic people.''

The 77-year-old Raul Castro, meanwhile, has yet to introduce any major reforms.

Officials initially planned a bigger celebration but scaled back after three hurricanes this year caused $10 billion in damages.

Over a half-century, the rebels erased illiteracy and crafted a universal health care system. But after Fidel Castro embraced communism in 1961, opponents were jailed.

The Havana-based non-governmental Cuban Commission for Human Rights and Reconciliation last counted 219 political prisoners on the island, down from as many as 15,000 in 1964.

Cuba's revolution was nevertheless admired by many in the developing world as Castro stood up to the ''Yankee imperialists.'' And the communist system persevered after the Iron Curtain collapsed, and communist China and Vietnam embraced free markets while still maintaining their political systems.

When President George W. Bush leaves office, the revolution will have outlasted 10 American presidents who maintained strict U.S. sanctions aimed at overthrowing the Cuban leadership.

While Castro's foes argue to maintain sanctions, others think rapprochement would be better.

''Engagement may show how weak (Cuba's) hand really is,'' Marifeli Perez-Stable of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington wrote in December. ''Which one is the real hard line?''

--------------------

From: Robb
Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2008 2:49 PM
To: 'openforum@denverpost.com'
Subject: Cuba No Big Rock Candy Mountain

It's rather odd that I'm seeing articles in the last few weeks pumping up the warm, friendly vacation spot of Cuba. I'm guessing this is a trial balloon for all those who want normalized relations as soon as Obama takes over. But even in this story from AP, some reality seeps through:

Juan Gonzalez loves Fidel Castro. But he is also a realist. ''The people do what they can. They don't just sit around and wait for the government to give them everything,'' the 59-year-old said, standing on his dusty front porch. ''If they waited for the government to keep all its promises, they would have to wait a long time. Fifty more years, maybe.'' ...as the revolution turns 50... electricity, running water and phone service are relatively new here.

There's a glimpse of our own future if we finish socializing medicine and banking and automobile manufacturing and insurance and... well, you get the idea. But people can read in this tropical paradise,

...said the 73-year-old, who fought in Castro's rebel army, ''Education is a gigantic weapon. Most people don't understand that, but Fidel does.''

Me, too. And the teacher's unions and politicians and lobbyists and activists and anyone who wants government control of education and everything else on which my life depends.

Shades of Atlas Shrugged.

Robb

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2008/12/31/world/AP-CB-Cuba-Where-Revolution-Began.html

In Communist Cuba, a Whiff of Rugged Individualism

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: December 31, 2008

Filed at 12:11 p.m. ET

SIERRA MAESTRA, Cuba (AP) -- Juan Gonzalez loves Fidel Castro. But he is also a realist.

''The people do what they can. They don't just sit around and wait for the government to give them everything,'' the 59-year-old said, standing on his dusty front porch. ''If they waited for the government to keep all its promises, they would have to wait a long time. Fifty more years, maybe.''

It sounds like the kind of rugged individualism that would resonate with Americans, but this is the mountainous Sierra Maestra of eastern Cuba, the cradle of the revolution that brought Castro to power 50 years ago New Year's Day, ushering in a communist era of promised egalitarianism under big, all-controlling government.

Here, more than 500 miles from Havana, people tend to speak their minds more freely, even grumble openly about their privations.

They also see a growing generation gap -- between elder Cubans who wholeheartedly support the communist system, and youngsters yearning for change, at a time when the ailing, 82-year-old Castro has been replaced by his younger brother, Raul, and Barack Obama is about to move into the White House.

The Sierra Maestra is where Castro and his guerrillas prevailed over 10,000 soldiers sent in by dictator Fulgencio Batista in May 1958 and eventually forced Batista to flee Cuba on Jan. 1 of the following year.

Gonzalez, from the village of Santo Domingo, was 9 when the rebellion Cubans universally call ''la revolucion'' triumphed.

Now, as the revolution turns 50, how does he feel about it? ''The people here feel good, but not everyone has the same amount of pride,'' he said.

That's because the promises of a shining future have not come as fast as they may have hoped. Electricity, running water and phone service are relatively new here. Some families still live in dirt-floored shacks and wash their clothes in rivers. Carts pulled by oxen, donkeys or horses outnumber cars and trucks.

Gonzalez is charged with the upkeep of his grandfather's homestead, now a historical site. The biggest problem, he says, is a lack of public transport. The area had a single ambulance but a few years ago ''it broke and some people died because of that.''

Soviet engineers only brought electricity to the area in 1986.

South of Santo Domingo lies Comandancia de la Plata, the hideout where Fidel Castro directed the final rebel push. He lived in a wooden hut with a roof of palm leaves. Outside, still encrusted with bullet fragments, is the tree on which he practiced his marksmanship.

Luis Angel Segura, 55, is a guide who leads tourists up a muddy mule trail to the hut. Spend a few hours with him, and long-held complaints begin to bubble to the surface. What makes him angry is not too little government but too much -- farmers can only grow what the state tells them to, and only sell their produce back to the government.

''There should be more autonomy,'' he said. ''But, as they tell us, 'we're all Cuba.'''

Still, no one here misses Batista. Like many Cubans in these parts, Segura calls the pre-Castro era ''the tyranny.''

About 600 people live in the isolated mountains around Comandancia de la Plata. Solar panels power tiny schoolhouses and health clinics. In the farthest regions, teachers live with pupils' families and doctors make house calls. Like nearly all Cubans, people here live rent-free and get monthly rations of basic food.

The government expanded a two-lane mountain highway through the area, but there's so little traffic that farmers dry their coffee beans on the asphalt. Goats, pigs, donkeys and dogs sleep on it undisturbed.

Many families have TVs bought with government credit, but few channels reach deep into the mountains. To fill the void there are ''video clubs,'' shacks that show pirated movies. Internet access is tightly controlled.

As in the cities, rural areas have ''Committees for the Defense of the Revolution'' which meet to discuss community problems. Public attendance is mandatory.

''Everything here is well organized,'' said Julia Castillo, a housewife in the Sierra Cristal, another eastern mountain range that was a rebel stronghold. ''But people complain and nothing happens.''

Ask Cubans to rate their education and medical care systems, and many will talk instead about Batista's day -- though few are old enough to have experienced it. An exception is Ruben La O.

''Before the revolution, I couldn't read,'' said the 73-year-old, who fought in Castro's rebel army. ''Education is a gigantic weapon. Most people don't understand that, but Fidel does.''

La O was 23 and from a reasonably well-to-do family of coffee farmers when the rebels recruited him as lead singer for a quintet that performed on Radio Rebelde, a propaganda station that Ernesto ''Che'' Guevara founded in the Sierra Maestra in 1958.

The musicians still don olive-green rebel uniforms and play songs denouncing Batista for tourists. They live in a row of concrete houses Castro ordered built for them in 1981, and, to honor the 50th anniversary of the revolution, each has been given a new mo-ped.

''In capitalism there are no schools. Socialism has solidarity, education, health and societal development that capitalism can't fathom,'' said Alejandro Molina, the quintet's 69-year-old founder and guitarist.

But La O's brother Alcides, a fellow quintet member, said the lesson is lost on many younger Cubans.

''There are lots of schools and lots of people who don't want to study,'' he said. ''They don't take advantage of all they have.''

Alejandro, a farm worker who lives nearby, says the problem is not apathy but a lack of freedom.

''Solidarity? Fine. But it is no substitute for political change,'' said the 26-year-old, who lives with his parents and didn't want to cause them problems by giving his surname. ''People are ready for new things. There's a lot of frustration.''

"Pravda" doesn't equal "Truth"

Submitted another pointlessly long LTE to the pointless denizens of the Times, but sometimes activism requires catharsis simply to go on.

------
Re: White House Philosophy Stoked Mortgage Bonfire

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/business/21admin.html?hp

Like bad marksmen or Wrong-way Corrigan, the famous aviator who accidentally flew from New York to Ireland instead of California, the Leftists at the Times unerringly end up, once again, in Moscow instead of Main Street. For anyone who wants to look at the facts without Red-tinted glasses; consider

"...for much of Mr. Bush’s tenure, government statistics show, incomes for most families remained relatively stagnant while housing prices skyrocketed. That put homeownership increasingly out of reach for first-time buyers like Mr. West."

Not that you would know it from the Times' story, but the reason for the skyrocketing prices which preceded Bush was skyrocketing demand created by Democratic programs -- easy money from the Federal Reserve, easy rates, easy sub-prime payments, easy borrowing qualifications for unqualified borrowers, easy confidence the government would never let anyone fail, and full assurance the government would help banks fail if they didn't lend to the people government wanted them to lend to.

While there's no question political pandering and outright stupidity by the fools in the Bush Administration bears part of the responsibility for the mortgage crisis, it is also unquestionable the preponderance of the problem started with Democratic Administrations promoting housing programs, beginning with the creation of Fannie Mae during the Great Depression, under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, expanding with the Community Reinvestment Act under Jimmy Carter, and culminating with the apotheosis of corruption under Franklin Delano Raines, appointed under Bill Clinton.

How ironic that our next Depression may be caused by a program from the last one. But the pattern is always the same -- the "solutions" government offers are always guaranteed to make the problem return in the not-so distant future, as they are now with the "bailout" of everyone who is guilty and so much more.

But the truth is greater than absolution or blame of Democrats or Republicans, who differ little in principle or in practice today. Whether the Times will admit it or not, the mortgage crisis and meltdown was 100% a creation of *government* interference in markets, in the name of politicians promoting "social justice", buying votes, and lining their own pockets. It can't be whitewashed by blaming Wall Street, Main Street, or any street except both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

The truth is: the people in Congress possess a power they should never have had: control of the economy. Corruption in the private sector is inevitable under such conditions -- because power doesn't corrupt just politicians, it corrupts *everybody*. That is the real reason for any failures of "Main Street". The only proper solution, the only solution that will prevent the problem from occurring or recurring, is to take away that power.

Alan Greenspan betrayed Ayn Rand's ideals of laissez faire capitalism long before the housing crisis, and long before he blamed those ideals in a lie before Congress. But as Rand used to say, reality is its own avenger, and the attempt to whitewash facts is one reason the Times itself has now had to mortgage their own building. Burying the truth doesn't make a dead body go away, and when a once reputable newspaper becomes more enamored of its own political agenda than informing, it has to become decaying carrion in a society where only a "news" organ such as the old Soviet "Pravda" (Russian word for "truth") can succeed.

Global Warming, the World is Growing Cool to Ya...

From a friend:

------ start message -------

I had an interesting conversation with a neighbor at a block Christmas party last week. He is a very highly paid private environmental consultant, and does work for governments around the world. He's been an ardent supporter of the UN IPCC global warming predictions, Al Gore, etc. I've avoided talking to him about global warming for several years because it turns into an argument that spoils the party - but I couldn't resist this year. I said I'd been reading some very creditable information that nature, not man, is causing warming. He said, "interesting, tell me what you've read."

So, I mentioned that increased solar output was primarily warming the earth, that warmer oceans were releasing dissolved CO2 & contributing more than burning fossil fuels, and that recent models including the effects of water vapor and clouds show their influence to be 20X greater than that of CO2. He said "wow, you read that, I'm surprised! I just happen to have spent the last week at a scientific conference where those and other results were reported - it appears the previous dire warnings of man's influence have been really overstated!"

He said this was a very mainstream scientific meeting, not something funded by petroleum or groups in denial. He said in addition, two other factors were in play: 1) the earths orbit, tilt, and wobble were all aligned to bring the earth closer to the sun than it has been for 30k years, 2) the solar warming was melting large areas of permafrost in Siberia, and the decaying peat was generating huge amounts of methane, which of course is 23X more potent than CO2.

He said despite this trend in the scientific community away from anthropogenic warming, it was not likely you'd hear much about this in the media anytime soon. In fact, he said the scientists were not eager to make it widely known, because as long as they can tie their research to global warming it is much easier to get research funded.

Morality versus the Arbitrary, and the Individual vs. the State

This is an exchange with a friend concerning the source of morality that came out of a discussion of the financial crisis and Alan Greenspan's horrible dishonesty in testimony before Congress, where he stated, in effect, that Ayn Rand's advocation of laissez faire capitalism was the cause of the financial collapse, rather than Greenspan's own betrayal of her philosophy over decades. My friend had read some limited writings of Rand decades ago, and I was rebutting his objections.
Robb

---------

X---,
I meant to reply sooner, but I've been very busy.

Greenspan's remarks to Congress simply demonstrated his ignorance of Ayn Rand's philosophy and the "virtue of selfishness" (which Obama, of all people, was mocking the other day). Rand's point isn't that selfishness automatically brings about "best outcomes", even for oneself. As she discussed many times, the primary issue is moral, not practical -- we have a right to pursue and preserve our own values based on our own judgment. That's selfishness, in her view. Put another way, that's simply freedom. Put another way, it's simply the most fundamental human requirement for survival and happiness.

I copy below something from http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_advessays to illustrate my point. As she says,

"Just as the notion that “Anything I do is right because I chose to do it,” is not a moral principle, but a negation of morality—so the notion that “Anything society does is right because society chose to do it,” is not a moral principle, but a negation of moral principles... "

Greenspan, however, appears to have wrongly believed that self-interest is primarily a "practical" necessity of market operation rather than a moral one. "Self-interest" doesn't automatically guarantee the market will do what's best for itself, which is nonsense, of course -- particularly in what Rand calls our "mixed economy", a mixture of freedom and controls. The very nature of government intereference in markets (apart from legitimate functions of prosecuting actual crime and fraud) is that it corrupts everything and everyone, including the people Greenspan was apparently counting on to keep things going.

However, to address your point, it is certainly true that even honest people vary in their ability to reason and act correctly, but my answer is two-fold -- first, that in a truly free market, cataclysmic events like the collapse we've witnessed simply couldn't happen, and I'm not taking Greenspan's point of view here. Greenspan somehow seemed to believe, naively, I think, that a mixture of freedom and controls can work via the miracle of "self-interest". I don't, nor would Rand have claimed it, either. It can't. One (controls) poisons the other (freedom, of which free markets are simply an expression).

If you simply consider the scope of the federal involvement in the crisis, I think that bears me out. The Community Reinvestment Act grew and morphed over the years, particularly under Clinton, to openly encouraging "shakedown" operations of the type Obama was part of with Acorn -- threatening banks with demonstrations or worse if they didn't lend to inner city people.

The scale of fraud at Fannie Mae was much worse than Enron under Franklin Raines and his cronies, as they openly encouraged the issuance of sub-prime loans to even honest borrowers who could never make rapid increases in payments. The Federal Reserve, too -- printing money en masse. And the fact that the mere presence of the Federal government in the home-mortgage business created a widespread psychology among everyone in the private sector that even if loans or related businesses went bad (banks and insurers), they would be bailed out -- so people took risks they never would have taken in the absence of government involvement and just closed their eyes to the consequences.

I don't want to make a litany here -- it just goes on and on, and I only scratched the surface (I think as you know), but it illustrates how it corrupts everyone, and why you can't rely on their "self-interest" in that kind of political environment -- because people start factoring the government actions into all their thinking. Their "self-interest" of the moment no longer aligns with their real self-interest in the long-haul.

My second answer is that, people must be allowed to make their own mistakes, and other people have to be more cautious (caveat emptor) about the possibility [of fraud]. What's the alternative? There's no way any bureaucrat or political appointee is going to be wise enough, omniscient enough, or even care enough to enact and administer laws to the self-interest of 300 million people. All he has at his disposal is good intentions (maybe), the point of a gun (if you don't obey) or political pull (lobbyists and cronies).

But even with good intentions, there is no amount of regulations that will prevent people from making mistakes or committing fraud, and the more regulations there are, the more crippled businesses are by things such as Sarbanes-Oxley, and the more opportunities for fraud there are among the real crooks, and the more you will therefore see real crooks (like Paulson) elevated in the private sector to positions of influence over the economy -- their claim to fame is "working" the system, after all, and exploiting political pull, which is a power they can *only* draw on if there are government favors to be had, which can only be had if the government is involved in the economy.

The situation is either-or, as Rand says. You can have total control of everyone, or you can have freedom with the government out of the economy entirely. Anything in between will eventually lurch to towards statism, and that's the roost all these chickens are coming home on right now. The only role the government should play in the economy is to protect our rights by enforcing contracts and prosecuting crimes, but beyond that, the effect is entirely destructive.

------ Friend's Reply ----------

I thought Rand's statement on individual rights, societal rights, and moral negation was interesting but she doesn't answer the question of who has the right to decide what is moral. Her decision to proclaim the fundamental right as pertaining to the individual, the right to life and the fruit of one's labor, seems reasonable, but about as arbitrary a choice as those proclaiming societal & collectivists rights.

I don't think the US Constitution is quite as focused on the individual as she claims - whatever issues proved too thorny to deal with were relegated to States rights - the State being a societal entity, not an individual - so it tries to walk a line between individual and society. Our Declaration of Independence ascribes the rights it mentions as God-given. I think God is a pretty good basis on which to build upon, but then my god and someone else's god are likely to be quite different, so you can't prove anything by it. The best we can do in determining which system is right is to ask people which country and system of law they'd prefer to be governed by - then I think the US wins hands down.

--------My reply --------------

It isn't who gets to decide what is moral, but what. The view you describe ("The best we can do in determining which system is right is to ask people which country and system of law they'd prefer to be governed by") is essentially the view of Aristotle, whom Rand admired greatly (in a profound sense, actually), but disagreed with on a number of important points.

Rand's view is that morality has traditionally been defined by either subjective standards (eg, society), or intrinsic standards (eg, God). Her own view (and mine) is that there is a third alternative, reality (an objective standard, hence the name of the philosophy). That is, on the objective view, a moral code arises from the requirements of the life of Man. They are a necessity for his survival and happiness. In her words,

"Whether one believes that man is the product of a Creator or of nature, the issue of man's origin does not alter the fact that he is an entity of a specific kind -- a rational being -- that he cannot function successfully under coercion, and that rights are a necessary condition of his particular mode of survival."

By that standard he has to use his mind (reason) to apprehend reality, and all the rest follows from that, including individual rights to protect him from coercion, as she discusses in the second article I copied you ("Man's Rights").

"The principle of man's individual rights represented the extension of morality into the social system -- as a limitation on the power of the state, as man's protection against the brute force of the collective, as the subordination of might to right. The United States was the first moral society in history."

So, neither individual rights, nor a morality of rational self-interest on which they are based (in principle), are arbitrary, because the basis is a referent in reality -- the nature of Man, including not just his mind, but his capacity to value, and his need to survive, ultimately, by his own effort.

As a side note, Rand's concept of "rational self-interest" is definitely not of the "dog-eat-dog" variety, which she roundly criticized. A man who uses people and defrauds them is, in her view, the mostly profoundly selfless person (explicitly made clear in "The Fountainhead", in the character of Peter Keating), because he's sacrificing any hope he has for long-term happiness. This type of person tries to evade the fact that human happiness requires much more than material wealth.

Man's nature requires spiritual wealth (in her sense of the term) in the achievement of values by earning them, whether in a productive career, friends or family of high character, and the integrity to stay true to those values and defend them if necessary, even with one's own life, because betraying one's values would make life as a rational human being (what she terms "Man's Life") unbearable. Material wealth on this view, is the reward of integrity (to a rationally self-interested man, that is), and an effect of his virtue, but not the cause nor the primary goal of his existence.

Blackbeard tapdances while the West reprises the Follies Bergere

Yarr, here 'tis -- another riveting tale of Pirates Gone Wild. Yo Ho! I know I comment on these too much, but they're so damn entertaining in demonstrating how utterly toothless the Western powers have become...

"“They can’t stop us,” said Jama Ali, one of the pirates ...He explained how he and his men hid out on a rock near the narrow mouth of the Red Sea and waited for the big gray ships with the guns to pass before pouncing on slow-moving tankers. Even if foreign navies nab some members of his crew, Mr. Jama said, he is not worried. He said his men would probably get no more punishment than a free ride back to the beach, which has happened several times. “We know international law,” Mr. Jama said."

Well, someone knows the law. Why don't we set this guy up as a shyster chasing ambulances in... oh, wait. I'm thinking of Senator John Edwards.

"...This seeming impunity is especially infuriating to the new cadre of private security guards, fresh from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, hired to tag along on merchant voyages to add a layer of protection. ...They have their own ideas for dealing with seafaring outlaws. “We should make ’em walk the plank,” one British security guard said.

I'm for that. Arrrhhh.

"Despite tough talk, the guards are unarmed (because most countries do not allow them to bring weapons into port), so they are often forced to confront machine-gun-toting pirates with fire hoses. There was even a recent case, according to several security contractors, in which Filipino crew members pelted pirates with tomatoes in an attempt to stop them from scaling the hull of their ship. It did not work."

You gotta laugh. Really. Now here's where the bleeding heart reporter wants us to feel sorry for them:

" But the end of piracy could be an economic catastrophe — for many Somalis. Their country exports almost nothing these days, and more legitimate forms of business have largely died off. Entire clans and coastal villages now survive off piracy, ..."

And here's how the Italians deal it...

"Italian officers on pirate patrol seemed uncomfortable at the thought of actually capturing a real live pirate. There is not even a brig or place to hold the pirates on the destroyer. For visitors on board, lunchtime was the highlight. The officers summoned up from the oily bowels of the destroyer a banquet of homemade pasta, marinated eggplant sliced paper thin, prosciutto-wrapped dates and tiramisu, finished off with cool glasses of spumante. It seems that when Italians hunt for pirates, they hunt in style.

I think I'm going to re-write my pirate screenplay as a comedy. Something in the vein of "Operation Petticoat meets The Mouse That Roared", about a fleet of pirates on pink dhows who declare war on the world and win, while the world is at the U.N. debating the law of the sea.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/16/world/africa/16pirate.html?_r=1&hp

Pirates in Skiffs Still Outmaneuvering Warships Off Somalia

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

Published: December 15, 2008

ON THE ARABIAN SEA — Rear Adm. Giovanni Gumiero is going on a pirate hunt.

Jeffrey Gettleman/The New York Times

Italian sailors on patrol on the Arabian Sea. Pirates based in Somalia are still able to operate in the area.

An Italian naval destroyer, foreground, escorted a merchant vessel that was carrying a cargo of humanitarian aid to Somalia in November.

From the deck of an Italian destroyer cruising the pirate-infested waters off Somalia’s coast, he has all the modern tools at his fingertips — radar, sonar, infrared cameras, helicopters, a cannon that can sink a ship 10 miles away — to take on a centuries-old problem that harks back to the days of schooners and eye patches.

“Our presence will deter them,” the admiral said confidently.

But the wily buccaneers of Somalia’s seas do not seem especially deterred — instead, they seem to be getting only wilier. More than a dozen warships from Italy, Greece, Turkey, India, Denmark, Saudi Arabia, France, Russia, Britain, Malaysia and the United States have joined the hunt.

And yet, in the past two months alone, the pirates have attacked more than 30 vessels, eluding the naval patrols, going farther out to sea and seeking bigger, more lucrative game, including an American cruise ship and a 1,000-foot Saudi oil tanker.

The pirates are recalibrating their tactics, attacking ships in beelike swarms of 20 to 30 skiffs, and threatening to choke off one of the busiest shipping arteries in the world, at the mouth of the Red Sea.

United Nations officials recently estimated that Somali pirates had netted as much as $120 million this year in ransom payments — an astronomical sum for a country whose economy has been gutted by 17 years of chaos and war. Some shipping companies are now rerouting their vessels to avoid Somalia’s waters, detouring thousands of miles around the Cape of Good Hope, at the southern tip of Africa.

The pirates are totally outgunned. They continue to cruise around in fiberglass skiffs with assault rifles and at best a few rocket-propelled grenades. One Italian officer said that going after them in a 485-foot-long destroyer, bristling with surface-to-air missiles and torpedoes, was like “going after someone on a bicycle with a truck.”

But the pirates — true to form — remain unfazed.

“They can’t stop us,” said Jama Ali, one of the pirates aboard a Ukrainian freighter packed with weapons that was hijacked in September and was still being held.

He explained how he and his men hid out on a rock near the narrow mouth of the Red Sea and waited for the big gray ships with the guns to pass before pouncing on slow-moving tankers. Even if foreign navies nab some members of his crew, Mr. Jama said, he is not worried. He said his men would probably get no more punishment than a free ride back to the beach, which has happened several times.

“We know international law,” Mr. Jama said.

Western diplomats have said that maritime law can be as murky as the seas. Several times this year, the Danish Navy captured men they suspected to be pirates, only to dump them on shore after the Danish government decided it did not have jurisdiction.

The American warships surrounding the hijacked Ukrainian freighter have intercepted several small skiffs going to the freighter, but let the men aboard go because American officials said they did not want to put the freighter’s crew in danger.

This seeming impunity is especially infuriating to the new cadre of private security guards, fresh from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, hired to tag along on merchant voyages to add a layer of protection. Burly men with tattooed forearms and shaved heads sipping Heineken and checking their watches are now common sights on the beaches of Oman, Kenya and Djibouti. They have their own ideas for dealing with seafaring outlaws.

“We should make ’em walk the plank,” one British security guard said.

Despite tough talk, the guards are unarmed (because most countries do not allow them to bring weapons into port), so they are often forced to confront machine-gun-toting pirates with fire hoses.

Or worse. There was even a recent case, according to several security contractors, in which Filipino crew members pelted pirates with tomatoes in an attempt to stop them from scaling the hull of their ship. It did not work.

The Italian naval officers say the piracy patrols are helping — already the Italians have rescued several merchant vessels surrounded by pirate skiffs. The Italian destroyer is part of a NATO mission that began in October.

“But the answer is to have a good, strong government on land,” Admiral Gumiero said. “That’s the only way to end this, for sure.”

That said, strong government is nowhere to be found. The piracy epidemic is not so much a separate problem as a symptom of the failed state of Somalia — a place crawling with guns, gangs and criminals that has not had a functioning central government since 1991.

The New York Times

In Xarardheere, much of the economy is based on piracy.

Many Somalia analysts think that it is about to get even worse. The Ethiopian military, which has been shoring up a weak and unpopular transitional Somali government, says it will pull out within a month.

The transitional government, split by poisonous infighting, seems on the brink of collapse. Islamic militants with links to Al Qaeda are poised to take over. Famine is steadily creeping toward millions of people, many withering away in plastic huts that are no match for the intense sun or the drenching rains.

United Nations officials are swinging into crisis mode, calling high-level meetings in East Africa and New York to address piracy and the greater Somali mess. Some United Nations officials are pushing to send in peacekeepers, but no countries are rushing to offer troops.

Some American officials have proposed chasing the pirates on the shore and raiding their dens, which are well known but so far untouched. Somalia’s transitional leaders, anxious for any help, said they would welcome that.

“This is a cancer and it’s growing,” said Abdi Awaleh Jama, an ambassador at large for the transitional federal government. “We have to extract it once and for all.”

More than 100 ships have been attacked off Somalia’s coast in 2008, far more than in any previous year on record. The economic costs are piling up, with higher insurance payments for shippers, higher fuel costs because of detours and new private security bills, not to mention the million-dollar ransom payments.

The cash-starved Egyptian government is poised to lose billions of dollars if ships from the Middle East and Asia stop using the Suez Canal, one of Egypt’s biggest foreign-exchange earners, and go around Africa instead.

But the end of piracy could be an economic catastrophe — for many Somalis. Their country exports almost nothing these days, and more legitimate forms of business have largely died off.

Entire clans and coastal villages now survive off piracy, with women baking bread for pirates, men and boys guarding hostages, and others serving as scouts, gunmen, mechanics, accountants and skiff builders. Traders make a nice cut off the water, fuel and cigarettes needed to sustain such oceangoing voyages.

Pirates are known as the best customers of all.

“They pay $20 for a $5 bottle of perfume,” said Leyla Ahmed, a shopkeeper in Xarardheere, a notorious pirate den on the Somali coast.

Maritime experts say that the naval efforts will take time. “Let’s wait and see,” said Pottengal Mukundan, director of the International Maritime Bureau in London. “You must appreciate it’s a very large stretch of water, a massive area,” he said, referring to the several hundred thousand square miles of sea where the naval ships are patrolling.

Then there is the nettlesome question of what to do with the pirates. Italian officers on pirate patrol seemed uncomfortable at the thought of actually capturing a real live pirate. There is not even a brig or place to hold the pirates on the destroyer.

“Our main goal is providing safe passage,” said Fabrizio Simoncini, the destroyer’s captain.

So far, they have done a decent job at that, escorting at least eight humanitarian ships, with 30,000 tons of badly needed aid for Somalia.

The Indian Navy recently announced that it had arrested 23 pirates, though it is not clear where the suspects would be prosecuted. Last week in Nairobi, Kenya, at an antipiracy conference, British officials outlined a plan for their navy to capture Somali pirates and hand them over to Kenyan courts.

But according to Kenneth Randall, dean of the University of Alabama School of Law and an international law scholar, “Any country can arrest these guys and prosecute them at home, under domestic laws that apply.

“I’m actually surprised people think it’s unclear,” he said. “The law on piracy is 100 percent clear.”

He said that international customary law going back hundreds of years had defined pirates as criminals who robbed and stole on the high seas. Because the crimes were committed in international waters, he said, all countries had not only the authority but also the obligation to apprehend and prosecute them.

The Italians clearly have the resources. Out on the front lines, or front waves, beefy Italian marines prowl the decks with machine guns. Radar screens blip and beep. Sailors make announcements over the destroyer’s radio, telling nearby cargo ships to put out an S O S with their position as soon as they spot any pirates.

The Italians said that, deep down, pirates were creatures of the sea, no matter how many navy ships were hot on their tail. “When the sea is calm, the moon is bright, the weather is good, it’s easy to see how the pirates are encouraged,” said Enrico Vignola, a lieutenant on the ship.

For visitors on board, lunchtime was the highlight. The officers summoned up from the oily bowels of the destroyer a banquet of homemade pasta, marinated eggplant sliced paper thin, prosciutto-wrapped dates and tiramisu, finished off with cool glasses of spumante.

It seems that when Italians hunt for pirates, they hunt in style.