A parcel of land here that sold for $12,000 two years ago now costs more than $20,000. The price of a nice pair of men's shoes has gone up from $20 to $50.

The reason: pirates.

Pirates, indeed. An AP report notes that prices of goods in places Somali pirates base themselves out of are going up, as Monsoon Season ends, and Pirate Season begins. Once Somali pirates, having cashed in on being pirates, start spending all of their money, things get wild. This is where the real trouble lies. These guys are going gangster! And what's worse is how they're doing it, right?

''The use of drugs such as cannabis and the drinking of alcohol, sex and other obnoxious misconduct are now becoming common within the pirates, causing social problems,'' said Sheikh Ahmed, a mosque leader in the town of Galkayo. ''That is what is worrying us, a lot more than the risk they pose to the foreign ships and crew.''

Uh, apparently not. Even across the world, the moral majority exists to harsh your mellow and rust your pimp goblet. These guys are just trying to shine, yo. The best is that they're now buying things on hostage-credit:

Pirates don't even have to pay upfront. Those holding ships hostage that haven't yet received ransom can buy goods on credit — at elevated prices — and settle up their debts when the ransom money comes in, villagers say.

Sound familiar? Remember when bankers who were capitalizing off of the misfortune of others by buying their debt, repacking their debt, and re-selling their debt through credit ratings that were essentially lies thought they were rap stars? They'd go and get all that bottle service in the cluurb, and then retreat back to their Tribeca apartment and hang out with their wife who's been doing yoga all day and their baby who's been doing Yoga all day, and be like, word. Also, remember MC Hammer? Right, people are the same everywhere, except Hammer made a more honest living than either of the two aforementioned parties.

So, what happens with Somali Pirates spend all their cash? Let's venture a ride on the slippery-slope, for a second: cost of goods goes up while pirates lose support of the peasants who haven't joined them. Meanwhile, kids who see them want to join their ranks at a young age, because there's nothing better to do. Vessels start equipping themselves with enhanced security (read: something better than what the pirates have, which are anything from handguns to rocket launchers), or they just stop coming, because the people insuring these boats can't afford the payout every time one of them gets jacked. The Somali Pirates now either have to mobilize their "ranks" into further territories, or they just get bored and start causing trouble on land. Which will be great for everybody. Because the region doesn't have enough problems already.

But hey, at least someone's having a good time. And come on, how much different are they than us? New York Times wedding pages, inspect the deck:

Marriage has also been affected by pirates with pockets full of cash. Hundreds of cars escort the bride and groom to the reception, where the house is crammed with expensive furniture, and the bride wears expensive gold jewelry, said Shamso Ahmed, the owner of a beauty salon. Thousands of dollars are paid to brides' families as a dowry. ''Pirates do not waste time to woo women, but instead pay them a lot,'' said Sahro Mohamed. ''They did this to several girls I know.''

The Somali Pirates are coming for you too.

Sure, everyone's an expert after the fact. It's reallllllll easy to look back now and say, "Captain Richard Phillips was warned at least seven times in the week prior to his trip to stay at least 600 miles off the dangerous Somali coast, but he ignored these warnings, and got his ship and crew hijacked." Real easy. So a lot of the crew is saying that, now.

Four of the 20 crew members told the AP that they blame Phillips for the hijacking.

"He caused this, and we all know it," said chief engineer Mike Perry of Riverview, Fla. "All the Alabama crew knows about it."

Look at the bright side, guys. You have a great adventure story to tell your kids one day. You didn't have to hack anyone to pieces. And, most importantly, you'll go down in history as an anonymous crew member who served with Hero Captain Richard Phillips. He got to meet The Rock!
[Pics: AP]

We dare not even speak the thought that America's heroes may have swiped it!

But sources say the SEALs, along with the members of the international anti-piracy Combined Task Force 151, and the crew of Maersk Alabama are being questioned over the missing cash.

Hero captain Richard Phillips has already sold the movie rights to his story. He seems pretty money-hungry. Has anybody checked his pockets? Has anyone contacted the Hardy Boys?
[NYP. Pic: Getty]

"YOUNG BUC'S NEW RAPS."

Take a moment to appreciate the double entendres-squared at work here. Abduwali's young. He's a buccaneer. Young Buc is a rapper. A rap is also a criminal charge. It's a complete circle of subtext in four short—but meaningful—words.

A worthy follow-up to the last story about Abduwali crying, which used the now-classic term "PRIVA-TEARS." Now if only Andrea Peyser could just find some way to get Andrea Peyser to break into Abduwali's cell and scream at him about how he'll never see his mother again, and then laugh maniacally, and then write about it, leaving out the maniacal laughing, the Post would totally win this BUC WILD story.

Ideally the Somali pirates would go around, swashbuckling, but not actually killing people, and they wouldn't mess with Americans, because America kicks ass all over the world, thank you very much. Then we could keep the Pirate Folk Hero thing alive, no big deal. But look guys, how can we secretly idolize your unrestrained manliness when you are not really beating anybody at anything?

Example A: Five pirates who hijacked a Yemeni ship were killed by the special forces of Yemen—a nation which we did not even know had special forces.

Example B: Pirates tried to jack an Italian cruise ship but the captain had his security guys shoot back and then the pirates ran away. Um.

Hey Somali pirates, get with the program or get out. You guys are totally wrecking the fantasy lives of pirate re-enactors:

"Most of us don't consider what's going on there true piracy. They sound more like terrorists. Or thugs," complained Christine Markel Lampe, who edits No Quarter Given, a pirate re-enactor newsletter.

Christine is the only person that the pirates defeated today.
[Pic via]

"SOMALI PIRATE IN PRIVA-TEARS." Yes! That is a once-in-a-lifetime pirate pun there, people! How many Post readers even know what "privateer" means? Well I guess now they can Edward 'Blackbeard' Teach themselves some vocabulary, amirite? Eh?

Let's be serious: they brought Muse in court and decided that he is 18 so they can try him as an adult, and he cried and wept and said "I don't have any money." Clearly, a terrorist. Angry lady Andrea Peyser is now covering his trial, which should make for some awesome examples of human empathy in action. Starting today!

He looked more like an urchin seeking adoption by Madonna than a swashbuckling Somali pirate [Ed. note: He's a black African, see?]...sobbing and sniffling like a little girl...he swatted at his dribbling nose, like a child facing punishment...he cried and cried...
Muse, so recently jolly, looked miserable and confused, though I don't know why. He faces up to life in prison if convicted. If he does, he'll achieve his dream.
He told his captors he always wanted to go to the United States.

Andrea's doing okay so far on the raw hatred of humanity, but just wait until the barely-contained sexual subtext bursts forth. That's when the real fun starts.

Muse, who weighs, I'm guessing, about 120 pounds, and is the walking incarnation of evil, came into NYC last night surrounded by a dozen federal agents, and smiled for the cameras, which is a perfectly normal reaction for a teenager from Somalia, I guess, and may end up being a smooth PR move for him as well. He's a human, you see!

The Post only dubbed him "Jolly Roger," rather than, say, "Laughing Satan From the Land of Darkness," which is a fair indication that his press could be not all that bad. Muse is reportedly facing life in prison. Unless Barack Obama saves him:

''I appeal to President Obama to pardon my teenager; I request him to release my son or at least allow me to see him and be with him during the trial,'' [Muse's mother] Adar Abdirahman Hassan said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from her home in Galkayo town in Somalia.

Now is the time when Hussein Obama shows his true pirate colors! The ideal outcome of this case would be that Muse gets sympathetic press, a short sentence, and comes out smiling and vowing to change his ways, then becomes a man-about-town here in NYC, fawned over by downtown club kids and UWS intelligentsia alike. Worst case scenario: the Post loses its sense of bemusement. If so, watch out for the lynch mobs.

[Also: the AP finds out the kid's actual name while the tabloids go with the court documents' spelling of "Abduhl Wal-i-Musi," which reeks suspiciously of "Hick American sounding out a foreign language."]

Weep at the classic, cinematic story of Ilka Ase Mohamed, a poor honest man in Somalia who finally saved up enough cows to marry his sweetheart, only to have her stolen away by a dastardly, disrespectful pirate!

The woman Mohamed still calls "my beloved girl" was betrothed to a Somali pirate who wears a black cowboy hat, drives a Land Cruiser and paid $50,000 cash in what Mohamed described as a soulless deal with her mother...
Mohamed said he watched in horror as the pirate sat on a carpet without taking off his shoes, a sign of disrespect. In the following weeks, Fatima married him and was whisked off to Europe.

In the movies, Mohamed would then learn karate and/ or win a game show and give the pirate his rightful comeuppance, but in this case he just moved to another country and is all like, "Dang." But he may have the last laugh; international policy experts are commiserating on how to stop these dudes from stealing more girlfriends, not to mention ships. There's even a conference! But the best idea so far, from the UN's former chief security officer in Somalia: get the women mad at them.

In 1995, for example, the water supply for Mogadishu, the capital, was shut off by the United Nations humanitarian agencies until a hostage who worked for another aid organization was released. On the first day of the shutoff, the women who collected water from public distribution points yelled at the kidnappers; on the second day they stoned them; on the third day they shot at them; on the fourth day, the hostage was released.

Oh women, is there any scourge that it's not your job to fix while men sit around chewing khat? I think not!
[WP, NYT. Pic via]

The crew members have arrived back here in the USA, and they're telling their tales—tales of swashbuckling, high seas marauding, and murderous, bloodthirsty rage. By them! Here's the story of how they snatched one of the pirates (the one still alive) who was trying to hijack their ship:

"I pulled a knife on his face and said, 'We are going to kill you,' and my supervisor said, 'Don't do anything to this guy,' " deckmate Miguel Ruiz, 46, of The Bronx, recalled.

"We could have killed the hostage, but we didn't have the orders to do it. We are not killers. We try to help other nations."

Miguel displays just the type of benevolent American power that extends our nation's influence to the far corners of the earth. Even our merchant seamen are helping other nations, not killing them! That wretched pirate is now coming to stand trial in America and serve as a proxy for the sins of his entire nation, dang. We promise to only imprison him in a foreign country for a mind-boggling number of years, not kill him. USA!
[NYP. Pic via]

The crew of the Maersk Alabama arrived back in the US, to "the gratitude of a nation," reportedly, although it's unclear why that would be the case. Captain Richard Phillips, the hostage-in-chief, reached dry land in Kenya, with "Sweet Home Alabama" playing at the dock. For real!

Hillary Clinton, our secretary of state who has, disappointingly, never been pursued by pirates, said the international community is planning on freezing the assets of pirates, to fight them. Is that some sort of "Freezing your ass—in the morgue!" joke? Let's hope so. Because it doesn't sound all that scary. Especially when said "assets" are two million dollars in cash bricks, dropped by a helicopter onto the deck of a hijacked freighter in international waters. Anyhow. The media continues to have success goading brash young Somalians into saying dumb things:

A pirate said Wednesday that his gang was targeting American ships and sailors.

"We will seek out the Americans, and if we capture them we will slaughter them," said a 25-year-old Somali who gave only his first name, Ismail.

Anything some 25 year-old dude says to impress a foreign wire reporter might as well be pirate national policy, and we must fight back, with patriotic insanity.
[Pic via]

We must start out with the most important development of all: dolphins have joined humanity in the fight against piracy:

Thousands of dolphins blocked the suspected Somali pirate ships when they were trying to attack Chinese merchant ships passing the Gulf of Aden, the China Radio International reported on Monday.

The Chinese merchant ships escorted by a China's fleet sailed on the Gulf of Aden when they met some suspected pirate ships. Thousands of dolphins suddenly leaped out of water between pirates and merchants when the pirate ships headed for the China's.

The suspected pirates ships stopped and then turned away. The pirates could only lament their littleness before the vast number of dolphins. The spectacular scene continued for a while.

It's about time these marine mammals got off the sidelines! In somewhat more depressing news: the three pirates killed by HERO NAVY SEAL SNIPERS who fired the three most accurate shots in the history of war (SPECIAL SECTION: Navy SEAL Snipers and How Accurate Their Three Shots Were, P. 14-32) turned out to be teenagers. They were all from 17-19 years old. Jesus Christ. Also they were all grumpy and irritable like you, when you're out of cigarettes:

As they bobbed in the ocean near the USS Bainbridge, a Navy destroyer sent to rescue Phillips, the teenage pirates were experiencing withdrawal after days without khat, a mildly narcotic leaf chewed in for its stimulant effects. "They were realizing they were in a no-win situation," said a senior U.S. military official. "They were floating around in rough waters, they were tired. . . . These guys didn't have their chew with them."

Even people going in front of a firing squad usually get a last cigarette. That's just sad. In the meantime, three more ships were attacked by pirates. And since Somali Pirates are a monolithic group in constant communication with one another this means they are PROVOKING America, time for war war war war war. War on Piracy. We can model it on the War on Terror. It'll be a weary nation's great ego-booster!

• Do not fuck with America any more: If you do, you will be totally wiped off the map, okay? Just don't.
• More hippie, less terroristy: The reason you pirates became folk heroes in the first place was, 1. you weren't fucking with Americans (see above), and 2. because you embodied a certain sort of free-living ideal that appealed to average Americans trapped by American suburban luxury. If you can believe it! The guns and things should be props, just for show, not something you use to actually shoot people. Be the new Merry Pranksters, not the new Al-Qaeda.
• You must regain the affection of the media: Look, the US media is by and large a big herd of sheep, led by a few wolves. Everyone in the media is afraid to be a contrarian, except for the handful of professional contrarians, who are ignored. When some shit like the kidnapping of the Captain incident happens, it becomes a contest to see which media outlet can most strenuously condemn you. For chrissake, even the NYT and the New Yorker have lost their sense of bemusement and bleeding heartism about the pirate situation. They're agreeing with Glenn Beck, like this was 9/11.
  Well, fuck that. What you must do, pirates, is to cultivate a few loud voices who aren't afraid to steer the rest of the sheeplike media back towards a more understanding point of view. It's a classic PR strategy. Turn one reporter and watch the rest follow. Make friends with some of those ragged East African correspondents. Give some exclusives. They'll love you for it! The rote rewriters stateside will defer to those on the scene—your new friends. So play nice.
• Think like a 21st century capitalist, not an 18th century one: Piracy, really? It's cool and everything, but the money in piracy is not in holding boats for ransom. Your time has run out on that. Nations are now officially pissed. Soon you will start getting dead from doing the hijacking thing. So think bigger: exploit the pirate fantasy for cash. Look how well Disney's done with it. And you're much cooler than Disney.
  The time has come to move into pirate merchandising, pirate experiential tourism, pirate speaking tours, and all the other lucrative spinoffs of your pirate "brand" that don't involve being shot by Navy SEAL snipers. Hello, US college campus speaking tour, complete with t-shirt sales, a hastily recorded CD of pirate songs, and a pitch for weeklong excursions on a genuine pirate boat off the Somali coast, only $3,999? And television, guys. Television! Spike TV just ordered up a reality show called Pirate Hunters about the US Navy hunting you down. A reality show starring the pirates would get five times the ratings. There are plenty of Hollywood agents willing to fly to Somalia to make this happen. You guys can corner the pirate fantasy market in a year. Get off those skiffs and get on it.
• Smile: You're pirates. Just be nice ones, and you'll be able to rip off Westerners with no machine gun necessary.