The news is that I’m still alive, despite some extensive evidence to the contrary. This blog has been quiet not because I have been quiet, but because I’ve been devoting all my spare time to barking orders at movers, muttering to other harried co-workers and wheezing with manual labor. As that is not news that’s fit to print - and as I only just got cable restored - this blog has had to watch the world go by with nary a snide stitch of print to show for it.

I’m still not entirely capable of higher brain function, so I’m going to use this time and space to pound out a quick review of what news caught my eye in between dusty boxes of Miracleman comics and Foreign Affairs Quarterly. The rabid, razor-tusked elephant in the room is, of course, the controlled calamity in Pakistan. The mask is really starting to slip over there, showing the inhabitants of what was believed to be a free-wheeling, free-speaking first-world country is really the reactionary military junta everyone in the know said it was. That, however, is a whole other article. We have punchy headlines to sort through. On with the show - our week in review:

First and foremost to cause me joy, Hillary Clinton is finally getting notice for being the evasive, establishment, empty-suit corporate shill that she is. Naturally, all her press handlers and pals tried to turn this seachange into a pity party predicated on a supposed “dog pile” during the debates on the 30th, but there’s not much too that. The debate might’ve catalyzed the change, but it was really Russert who was concerned with putting the screws to her, and as for the other Democrats taking shots at her, that’s nothing new. They swing away at whoever’s a convenient target - as the top slot usually is. Check out my past articles on the debates for a review of that.

In any event, she’s becoming more vulnerable. Her decidedly half-baked solutions to urgent issues are getting more light cast on them - albeit light that begins as pinpricks on non-issues like driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants, but spreads to matters like her shady Chinese money, her stance on gay marriage and gay rights, and her thuggish, bland posture on defense strategy in Iraq and Iran. Now there’s enough blood in the water that the media’s decided to spin a new story: After setting her up as a Superman in a tasteful pantsuit, they’re now going to tear her down. If there was any question it’s official, there’s a new, snazzy term - alliteration and all - doing the rounds on the political wires: The Clinton Collapse.

And by contrast, the only decent candidate with double-digit polls, Barack Obama, is getting due recognition again. He gave a bang-up speech at the Iowa caucus, according to the DesMoines Register, setting himself ahead of the herd while delivering a back-kick to Senator Clinton:

The passion he showed should help him close the gap on Hillary Clinton by tipping some undecided caucusgoers his way.

His oratory was moving, and he successfully contrasted himself with the others — especially Clinton — without being snide or nasty about it.

That was an important thing for him to do. Historically, the Iowa party’s “JJ” dinner is a landmark event in Democratic presidential caucus campaigns. All the key party activists, donors and players are present. This year, about 9,000 of them showed up.

Meanwhile, as the quaint forces of cause-and-effect continue to align, we can expect the pendulums to keep swinging: Barack Obama getting more gold stars next to his name, and Clinton more black marks. Already there’s news of Clinton repeatedly - despite promises not to - planting questioners in crowds to control Q&A sessions and taking yet more shady money. And as the weight of these nasty tales accumulates, and her grip slips, more attention’s going to be paid to one of the more critical and disturbing traits of the Clinton campaign: A ruthless, negative, scary media control that makes Bush’s campaigns look like an era of openess.

As my least favorite rag, The New Republic, reports:

Reporters who have covered the hyper-vigilant campaign say that no detail or editorial spin is too minor to draw a rebuke. Even seasoned political journalists describe reporting on Hillary as a torturous experience. Though few dare offer specifics for the record–”They’re too smart,” one furtively confides. “They’ll figure out who I am”–privately, they recount excruciating battles to secure basic facts. Innocent queries are met with deep suspicion. Only surgically precise questioning yields relevant answers. Hillary’s aides don’t hesitate to use access as a blunt instrument, as when they killed off a negative GQ story on the campaign by threatening to stop cooperating with a separate Bill Clinton story the magazine had in the works. Reporters’ jabs and errors are long remembered, and no hour is too odd for an angry phone call. Clinton aides are especially swift to bypass reporters and complain to top editors. “They’re frightening!” says one reporter who has covered Clinton. “They don’t see [reporting] as a healthy part of the process. They view this as a ruthless kill-or-be-killed game.”

That kind of attitude is extremely dangerous for an executive to have, as the past seven years of shiftless Presidency and a steel-bunker VP have shown. We don’t need someone to barge into the White House by way of being /worse/ behaved than their predecessors. And while I generally detest ad hominem coverage of candidates - focusing on their foibles rather than the faults in their policy - I have to say that this criticism of Clinton is due. As much as true blue lefties bearing Hillary’s banner might wish that the jabs at their Leading Lady are just the same as when Gore was sneered at for having claimed he “invented the internet”, it is not so.

Gore’s coverage did indeed make a whole lot of something out of nothing - the media leapt on missteps in his speeches, on minor inaccuracies in statements that had nothing to do with his presidency. In Hillary’s case, the attention is being paid to a dangerous, steady trend of awful behavior: Deciding that the best way to beat ‘the bad guys’ is by becoming worse. Thing is, her policies aren’t such that she’s much better than the outgoing ‘bad guys’ to begin with, and, frankly, we don’t need to do worse. Not when candidates like Obama prove we can do better.

Oh, and I almost forgot…

…the most important story of this week…

…Supermouse!

A GENETICALLY engineered “supermouse” has stunned scientists with its physical abilities.

The mouse can run up to six kilometres at a speed of 20 metres per minute for five hours or more without stopping, British newspaper The Independent reports…

Everybody’s favorite villains are again ravaging the high seas, as failing nations throughout the world heave out a new generation of pirates. Now America’s first and fabled foreign entanglement - the much-sung “shores of Tripoli” from the USMC anthem, referring to the Barbary Pirates - has come under our gunsights again. As the foremost bluewater Navy in the world, it’s the US that usually runs afoul of these rogues, the exploits of who have gone from being echoed in sea chanties to being Excel entries on the spreadsheets of the International Maritime Bureau.

From Africa to Southeast Asia, pirate activity is on the rise. Maritime pirate attacks worldwide shot up 14 percent in the first nine months of 2007 from a year earlier, with Somalia and Nigeria among the biggest increases. The total economic cost is incalculable, the maritime bureau said.

A total of 198 attacks on ships were reported between January and September, up from 174 in the same period in 2006, the bureau said. It said 15 vessels were hijacked, 63 crew kidnapped and three killed.

Though a rising tide of piracy is reflective of the growing threat of failing states spreading their problems regionally, the presence of pirates is nothing new. Europe’s first officially-recognized civilization, the Minoan culture, was annihilated by pirates, known definitely only as “The Sea People”. And though the severity of technology’s changed, the techniques and aims of piracy remains tried and true: Overtake a ship, pillage and plunder, exploit for personal gain, repeat until the law books an appointment with Davy Jones for you.

And the law has begun to take a significant interest. In both the capital hotspots of piracy - Indonesia and Somalia - the US’ concern over Islamic extremism has alloyed with its resolve to keep maritime routes secure. It’s no coincidence that the zones from which pirates are pouring are those that have become cauldrons of Islamic terrorist activity. Lawlessness poses an opportunity for all breeds of rogues, and just as there’s no honor among thieves, they tend to ally opportunistically as well. For instance, the case in Indonesia:

Al-Qaeda, an international terrorist network, is involved in the rising piracy against ships carrying radioactive materials through the Malacca Straits, an expert of regional affairs said.

Panithan Wattana, a Thai scholar, was quoted by Monday’s the Bangkok Post newspaper as saying that the terrorist group’s aim isto obtain substances such as uranium and plutonium oxide for making deadly chemical weapons.

The response in Indonesia was an aggressive campaign by local and international - read, “USA” - efforts to grind down pirate domination of the Straits. Now, since two high profile attacks near Somalia - the first on a cruise liner in 2005, the most recent last week against a North Korean vessel - the United States Navy finds itself being sucked back towards the notorious Horn of Africa hot zone.

There’s no telling how this showdown will play out in terms of a victory. Pirates can be notoriously elusive, and the USN is famously adept at fixing and eliminating its targets. But given that it’s pirates involved, this much of the outcome is certain: It won’t be pretty.