Hah! Funny.

[randomness]

Roger Simon, in a piece about the pirate rescue in the Politico:

In any case, even as dramatic as it was, Obama’s pirate adventure probably will be quickly forgotten. Oh, yes, it will. Anybody remember the Hainan Island incident? It happened during George W. Bush’s first 100 days in office. On April 1, 2001, a Chinese jet fighter rammed a U.S. military surveillance plane, forcing it to make an emergency landing on the Chinese island of Hainan. The 24 U.S. crew members were held hostage for 10 days and released only after the Bush administration issued a letter of regret for entering China’s airspace.

We got the crew back unharmed and eventually even got the plane back (in pieces), but we had to pay China $34,000 for the food and lodging of the hostages. But then China is a little tougher to deal with than pirates. (Today, the Chinese wouldn’t even bother to ram the plane. They would just start selling U.S. Treasury bills until we promised never to invade their airspace again.)

Okay, that's enough procrastination. Back to work.

Comments

[belfrynotes.livejournal.com]

The latest issue of Popular Science has an article about Chinese hackers that refers to the Hainan incident. It set off a major DOS attack on whitehouse.gov, the navy's website, and others. So it isn't really forgotten, but the significance has changed, and slipped below most people's radar.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Tellingly, it's slipped below more Americans' radar than Chinese.