Be Prepared

One mystery of the Bombay attacks is why the police just stood around and didn't return fire on the Jihadists. Now this story from the Times of India sheds some light:

In the absence of a firing range and of ammunition for practice, members of the law enforcement agencies have not opened fire in the last ten years. ‘‘I’ve been in the police force for a long time, but I had no occasion to open fire for practice,’’ a senior inspector of police said.

Good Lord.

Bombay Blast

The news out of Bombay (Or "Mumbai", as the press insists on calling it even though the inhabitants rarely do so) has been horrific. A fishing boat hijacked; the crew missing or dead; over a dozen Jihadists attacking 20 targets in Bombay–including two hotels, a railway station, a hospital and a Jewish community centre; some two hundred known dead and maybe another two hundred before this is over; Americans and British hunted down; the involvement of Al Qaeda, the Indian Mafia, elements of the Pakistani military; and all of it converging in a three-day firefight that ended with one captured terrorist admitting that the goal was to slaughter 5000 people.

This ghastly episode is the worst Jihadist attack we've seen since Breslan and the truly frightening thing isn't the scale, but the change in tactics. In 2001, we thought that the ultimate in terrorism was suicide bombers ramming planes into buildings and maybe following it up with bombings and anthrax attacks. Now we see a paramilitary raid against multiple targets over a matter of days before the last barbarian could be ferreted out of his hole. With enough men and guns plus a bit of organisation it's a tactic that is impossible counter by x-raying shoes or setting up bollards and makes anyone who thinks that this is a law enforcement matter look like someone waiting for the happy, fluffy fun-bunny express to arrive.

As Mark Steyn said in a recent column,

What’s relevant about the Mumbai model is that it would work in just about any second-tier city in any democratic state: Seize multiple soft targets and overwhelm the municipal infrastructure to the point where any emergency plan will simply be swamped by the sheer scale of events. Try it in, say, Mayor Nagin’s New Orleans. All you need is the manpower. Given the numbers of gunmen, clearly there was a significant local component. On the other hand, whether or not Pakistan’s deeply sinister ISI had their fingerprints all over it, it would seem unlikely that there was no external involvement. After all, if you look at every jihad front from the London Tube bombings to the Iraqi insurgency, you’ll find local lads and wily outsiders: That’s pretty much a given.

In other words, even though we've had remarkable success in fighting the Jihadists, including recently driving them from Iraq, this war is very far from over and there is no guarantee that it will stay "over there" for very long.

Office in a Box

The Swiss Army Knife of workstations.

As depressing as it is efficient.

Lesson Learned

Proving once again that the "courage" of the artistic community does not apply when actual courage is required, a feminist author in India has agreed to censor her latest book in hopes that the Jihadists will allow her to "live peacefully."

Good luck with that.

Pickled Pachyderms

What could be worse than drunken hooligans roaming British town centres on a Friday night?

Try drunken elephant hooligans running around Indian villages.

Colonel Taylor, Call Your Service

From the BBC:

The deputy mayor of the Indian capital Delhi has died a day after being attacked by a horde of wild monkeys.

Some stories need no comment.

Oh, Yeah. That.

Miss Seema Parihar, Indian Justice Party's candidate for Bhadoi, is facing some difficulty in her bid to win a seat in the Indian Parliament.

It might have something to do with the 29 murder and kidnapping charges she faces.

Cabin in the Sky

If you're flying from London to Delhi, are not claustrophobic and have £4,422 rattling around loose in your pocket, you can forego even the first-class cabin in favour of your very own 26-square foot stateroom complete with seven-foot bed and complimentary Dom Perignon.

Meanwhile, yours truly will keep making do with the equivalent of a flying third-class railway carriage with complimentary nothing and a fervent prayer that the toilet is still operational.

No Big Thing

BBC headline:

Condoms 'too big' for Indian men

Must... resist... joke.