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KALININGRAD, Russia — On a cloudless spring afternoon when the Gulf of Aden was a sheet of blue, the Somalis piled into two speedboats and drew a bead on the Lehmann Timber as the freighter, laden with 7,000 tons of cargo, made a vain attempt to veer away.

They carried with them the modern-day pirates’ arsenal —Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers. To keep alert, they brought bundles of khat, leaves East Africans chew as a stimulant.

The survey of 800 women likely voters said Obama holds an 11-point lead on McCain, and that women Hillary voters in particular flooded the Illinois senator’s way.

Before the Palin pick, Obama led McCain by 44 points among female Clinton backers. That jumped to a 54-point lead afterward, 75% to 21%, the poll said.

Those kinds of numbers have the activists thinking that if Palin lives up to her schoolgirl basketball nickname of Sarah Barracuda, she’ll be less aquatic predator and more filet-o-fish.

United States counter-terrorism policies and support for the Ethiopian(Woyanne)-backed transitional federal government in Somalia have helped create an increasingly desperate humanitarian and security situation in the East African nation. More on US policy risks terrorism blowback in Somalia