We salute you, Henry Biggelsworth

An American Coast Guard captain put a message in a bottle, which traveled all the way to England, where one Henry Biggelsworth sent back a note scolding him for littering. There will always be an England as long as someone reacts in precisely that way to a message in a bottle and as long as that someone is named Henry Biggelsworth.

Speaking of messages in bottles, this blog experienced a 9-hour outage Saturday. I trust it was not too painful.

In case you were unable to figure it out in my absence, this is a Bad Thing: the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Syria and the Danish embassy in Lebanon have been burned down in protest against Cathy Ziggy Garfield The Family Circus, because it makes a circus of the family those Danish cartoons (and rumors that Danes were planning to burn the Koran publicly, possibly in front of the Little Mermaid statue). Christopher Hitchens, gin-soaked apostate that he is, has it more or less exactly right in Slate. He thinks that Muslims who “claim to possess absolute truth and demand absolute immunity from criticism” today will not become more tolerant tomorrow if appeased today, such as when the US government pronounces the cartoons “unacceptable.” He says of the protesters, “I refuse to be spoken to in that tone of voice”.