Am I the only one that LOVES this whole pirate thing? 

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,515535,00.html

it's against everything that modern society stands for and.... is yet so frikking cool

I was pretty impressed with the 3 sniper shots, taken from a moving boat to another bouncing moving boat


3 out of 3


but i'm into that kind of shit

i don't get why it's gone on so long.

It's gone on for years. Some of the people on the blue water cruising forum where I post have been through that area but they only go past the Gulf of Aden at night, without lights, 300+ miles offshore and they have at least two .50 cals on board. Some people had their boats taken and didn't make it back. It wasn't an issue to W because Somalia is of no real importance.

But apparently lives are to O.

I was pretty impressed with the 3 sniper shots, taken from a moving boat to another bouncing moving boat


3 out of 3

Well the life boat was tied to the navy ship and was less than 100 yards out. I'm not terribly impressed. They were professionals.
But I suppose they deserve credit.

This is really the only life they have, their country doesn't belong to them.

I'm all for piracy in the open waters

I'm all for piracy in the open waters

What about on the interwebs, fizzyjuice?

I just downloaded a cracked eyepatch.

Got a whole bunch of shanties on pirate bay...

Yo ho ho and a bottle of Tequila. I don't care for rum.

I'm all for piracy in the open waters

What about on the interwebs, fizzyjuice?

oh hell yea
i'm all about the infringement of copyrights on the intatubez

Interesting article.

interestingly enough, i just ordered a book on Pirates and Economic theory...the article slightly touched on it

Yeah it's basically, the Somalis are starving and fucked and turning to piracy only because their social order has completely broken down and their water is being raped by foreigners.

The first world has large financial interest in making sure these waters are free from... basically being controlled by Somalis.

The sad part is that it won't take much US Firepower to put down these pirates, and it will be heralded as a great victory when really it's pretty tragic.

I don't know what to think about it, but one thing I do know is that in the United States we value the life of one American citizen over an infinite number of Africans and our foreign policy routinely speak to this kind of calculus.  I think a lot of this goes back to the 1993-1994 Mogadishu Somali shit that went down (a la "Black Hawk Down").  Americans would rather bomb & burn Somalia from one end of the country to the other than offer a single piece of help to them or risk a single American life.  The pirates should have known better than to take American hostages.

I don't think either side is really in the right here.

It wasn't an issue to W because Somalia is of no real importance.

But apparently lives are to O.

Yeah. O.K.
see: iraq, afghanistan, gaza

oil, revenge, tradition

The European Union should be sorting this shit out.

The EU doesn't sort shit out, they have American-led NATO to deal with all their problems.

Yeah. O.K.
see: iraq, afghanistan, gaza

Dear asshat. Sarcasm, sarcasm, sarcasm. Learn it, live it, know it. Carry on, Spiccoli.

Fast Times has been good to you, yeah?

Since the Somalians are completely incapable of protecting their own protected waters, commercial fishing boats have been illegally fishing the Somalia's protected waters, overfishing the area and leaving the Somalian fishermen fucked

There are also claims that some EU countries have been using Somalian water to dump nuclear waste and other toxic waste.  Since Somalia has long been unable to protect its own waters, I have no doubt that the claims are true. 

It's easy to see why fishermen would turn to piracy if the waters are fished dry and poisoned.  What else are they going to do?  And since the shipping companies have been willing to pay out the relatively small amounts that the pirates demand, there really has been no deterrent to piracy.

Fighting pirates is probably a losing battle over the long term, just like fighting insurgents in the other messes our retarded leaders have led us into.  I wouldn't be surprised if the US suffers some heavy casualties trying to chase pirates ashore.  They're also going to put crews at greater risk when pirates do take ships - knowing that the US Navy is going to chase them, pirates aren't going to sit around waiting for ransoms anymore.  They'll murder the crews and make off with what they can.  I read somewhere a while ago that a lot of the piracy that goes on in the indo-china area is of that variety, because the pirates know what would be in store for them if caught by the Chinese.

Exactly, Emp.

This is very much a "fighting the symptom" situation.

Not being a smartass. Fuck I love the way it takes 24-36 hours for these kinda threads to pop. It gives me time to think about my position on the subject.  Then somebody goes and posts my thoughts. Stay the fuck out of my brain people.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D97J00JG1&show_article=1


sounds like a really lucrative business...

One thing I didn't realize until today when I was discussing it with someone in class, is that these pirates make the majority of their income from the ransoming of people, not from the actual cargo.  As far as I can tell the cargo is unmovable because no one will purchase cargo stolen from these int'l merchant ships.

They also ransom the ships themselves. The cargo, the replacement cost plus insurance hikes plus the downtime while waiting for delivery of a new ship is phenomenal compared to the ransoms.

I can't believe there are still pirates out there and that they actually think they can just do their pirate thing without anybody blowing the shit out of them...



and I love this game...
http://www.nitrome.com/games/mutiny/

Pirates have been doing their thing since man started using boats to transport stuff for trade.  And they'll still be doing their thing until mankind manages to drive itself into extinction. 

It's just another one of those features of civilization like prostitution that isn't going anywhere.

and they're getting all the hot chicks:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/04/16-9

I can't believe there are still pirates out there and that they actually think they can just do their pirate thing without anybody blowing the shit out of them...

I thought the "pirate thing" WAS blowing the shit out of other pirates...