(1)  I guess the big news was that the U.S. Navy rescued that skipper from the pirates.  Skipper?  Pirates?  This sounds like a bad episode of "Gilligan's Island". 

But no, it happened.  Obviously, it is a good thing since (1) Obama's first serious military rescue operation was a success [guess those concerns about the 3 am call were unfounded]; (2) it shows that the Navy (which — let's face it – hasn't had a lot to do with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) has still got game. 

Right-wing pundits had spent most of the weeken denouncing Obama for being a wuss about the whole thing….

….and righty bloggers called Obama "our Eunuch-in-Chief" and accused him of "intend[ing] to hobble the United States of America" through his policies of "accommodation and capitulation".

After the succesful mission, do they credit Obama?  Of course not.

This is the first time that the Somalian pirates have taken over a U.S.-flagged vessel, and the outcome (i.e., dead pirates) means that they're going to think hard about doing it again.

Also, these Somalian pirates aren't really "pirates" as we think of them.  They really are remore extensions of the al Qaeda arm.  So, that's good.

On the other hand, it was 5 guys and a boat against the U.S. Navy.  I mean, it would have been embarrassing if it hadn't ended up positively.

(2)  The Obamas finally got their dog and named it after one of my dogs.

(3)  Amazon.com came under fire this weekend for removing the sales ranking for adult gay-themed books. 

The end result is that certain not-very-racy-nor-very-gay books have been banned from Amazon rankings….

Ellen DeGeneres' autobiography, Heather Has Two Mommies, "Running with Scissors" by Augusten Burroughs, "Rubyfruit Jungle" by Rita Mae Brown, "Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic" by Alison Bechdel, "The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1" by Michel Foucault, "Bastard Out of Carolina" by Dorothy Allison (2005 Plume edition), "Little Birds: Erotica" by Anais Nin, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" by Jean-Dominque Bauby (1997 Knopf edition), "Maurice" by E.M. Forster (2005 W.W. Norton edition) and "Becoming a Man" by Paul Monette, which won the 1992 National Book Award.

…. while other very racy (but heterosexual) books remaing in the sale ranking pipeline — books such as:

"Naked" by David Sedaris, "Tropic of Cancer" by Henry Miller, "American Psycho" by Bret Easton Ellis, "Wifey" by Judy Blume, "The Kiss" by Kathryn Harrison, the photobooks "Playboy: Helmut Newton" and "Playboy: Six Decades of Centerfolds," "Naked Lunch" by William Burroughs, "Incest: From 'A Journal of Love'" by Anais Nin, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" by Jean-Dominque Bauby (2007 Vintage International edition), "Maurice" by E.M. Forster (2005 Penguin Classics edition)

Amazon has a serious PR problem on its hands, and they're being a little slow to react.

This all strikes me as odd, as I always assumed that Bebos was gay.

And speaking of teh gay, this is soooo last week, but the anti-gay-marriage ugga bugga scare tactic advertisement has been improved upon: