MARK STEYN ON THE SOMALI PIRATES: Our Reprimitivized Future. “As it happens, Somali piracy is not a distraction, but a glimpse of the world the day after tomorrow. . . . Half a century back, Somaliland was a couple of sleepy colonies, British and Italian, poor but functioning. Then it became a state, and then a failed state, and now the husk of a nation is a convenient squat from which to make mischief. . . . It’s also a low-risk one. Once upon a time we killed and captured pirates. Today, it’s all more complicated. The attorney general, Eric Holder, has declined to say whether the kidnappers of the American captain will be ‘brought to justice’ by the U.S. ‘I’m not sure exactly what would happen next,’ declares the chief law-enforcement official of the world’s superpower. . . . Meanwhile, the Royal Navy, which over the centuries did more than anyone to rid the civilized world of the menace of piracy, now declines even to risk capturing their Somali successors, having been advised by Her Majesty’s Government that, under the European Human Rights Act, any pirate taken into custody would be entitled to claim refugee status in the United Kingdom and live on welfare for the rest of his life.”

Related: “Ron Howard Yearns for Less Powerful America Not ‘Driven by Militarism’.” I think we’re there.