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Just As We Suspected: Pirates Are Heroes
What America Needs Is An Awesome Pirate War
Somali Pirates Getting Stronger, Cooler
It's A Great Time To Be A Pirate

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Smitros
01/05/09

In reply to Just As We Suspected: Pirates Are Heroes
Maybe we've just been a victim of persistent typos and these young Somali heroes are taken with core strengthening exercises.
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Smitros
01/05/09

In reply to Just As We Suspected: Pirates Are Heroes
This sounds like another in a long line of groups (Colombia's FARC, etc.) that started out with a possibly good cause and just ended up making money by any means possible.
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BullfightsOnAcid
01/05/09

In reply to Just As We Suspected: Pirates Are Heroes
From that movie poster, in big letters: "I'll eat the smoke from their cannons" sounds very homo-erotic. Not to be too gay they followed it up with "and steal the woman from the king", although in very small letters since the most important part is eating that delicious cannon smoke.
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Uncle_Billy_Slumming
01/05/09

In reply to Just As We Suspected: Pirates Are Heroes
They're probably living a more rewarding and fulfilling life than most of us.
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Rumpelstilskin
01/05/09

In reply to Just As We Suspected: Pirates Are Heroes
Great bulge on Burt at top.
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Xylo
01/05/09

In reply to Just As We Suspected: Pirates Are Heroes
If they ever actually seize one of those vessels that are dumping nuclear waste and garbage, there will be no end to the glory they reap.
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braak: You are, as usual, completely correct.
01/05/09

In reply to Just As We Suspected: Pirates Are Heroes
It's hard to get mad at the Somali pirates, when you consider how thoroughly Somalia has been shat on by every other god-damn country with a boat.

It's like, yeah, sure piracy and guns are bad news, but when I see them giving the English just a big nasty black eye, I can't help but feel a little proud for them.
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skahammer
01/05/09

In reply to Just As We Suspected: Pirates Are Heroes
Cats and bacon are one thing (actually two things).

But cats with bacon...now you're halfway to a great breakfast.
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BadUncle
01/05/09

In reply to Just As We Suspected: Pirates Are Heroes

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scarletmenace
01/05/09

@BadUncle: THAT's a Somali Pirate? Oh I am so moving to Somalia!
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Kid Twist
01/05/09

In reply to Just As We Suspected: Pirates Are Heroes
It's time we found the right man to confront these pirates head-on.
Someone who has information vegetable, animal, and mineral.
Someone who knows the kings of England and can quote the fights historical.
Somebody who is, truly, the very model of a modern major general.
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Iceland Spar
01/05/09

@Kid_Twist: I never got why Stanley was a modern major general rather than a modern admiral or a captain or some other rank involving a boat or ship.
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Kid Twist
01/05/09

@Iceland_Spar: You need a certain number of syllables to successfully patter against piracy.
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OlMuckyTerrahawk
01/05/09

In reply to Just As We Suspected: Pirates Are Heroes
Well, some of the money does go to funding those destructive inter-clan civil wars... but no matter.

On another note: "I'll eat the smoke of their cannon"?

That's what she said.
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Mount_Prion
01/05/09

@OlMuckyTerrahawk: Yeah, that image couldn't be much better.
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Furious George
11/24/08

In reply to What America Needs Is An Awesome Pirate War
Ya see that, Kiera Knightley? It's really happening now. Everything I said in my second 48-page letter to you (a.k.a., "Exhibit 12") is coming true.
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shostakobitch
11/24/08

In reply to What America Needs Is An Awesome Pirate War
"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."

-Maj. Gen. Smedley "Gimlet Eye" Butler
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Fishnets and Cigarettes
11/24/08

In reply to What America Needs Is An Awesome Pirate War
ARRRGH Mateys! Do they have plank walking on the pirate ship?

I seriously doubt those guys are real pirates. not a parrot, eyepatch or pegleg in sight.
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Smitros
11/24/08

In reply to What America Needs Is An Awesome Pirate War
For a serious moment:

1. Large lawless spaces are a problem for everyone in light of terrorism and organized crime.

2. Freedom of navigation has been a constant of American foreign policy since Independence.

3. If we don't do it, the Chinese may apply their small but growing blue-water navy to the task, getting further props in the world.

4. After last week's actions, we are likely to see a further stage of growth in the US-Indian strategic partnership.

I am going short on parrot and eyepatch futures.
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Weegee's bored
11/24/08

@Smitros: The Chinese have a blue water navy?
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Smitros
11/24/08

@Weegee's bored:
Not too far along yet, but largely paid for by us through consumerism and arguably hard to stop because of Chinese holdings of U.S. debt.
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southernbitch
11/24/08

@Smitros: the best way to deal with the piracy problems off the somali coast is through rebuilding somalia. if we just go in and do smashy smashy, the inherent problem (no laws + extreme poverty + lots of fucking guns) is just going to migrate into another problem, and i promise you it's going to end up seriously strengthening the political capital of the icu on the mainland, ESPECIALLY since ethiopia's talking about withdrawing from the territory.

i say the US needs to politically engage with the icu NOW.
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Smitros
11/24/08

@southernbitch:
Agreed.

Weed and seed, as the law enforcement types say.

Ungoverned spaces are totally not bueno.

One way to do this might be establishing beachheads of order and prosperity rather than attacking head-on (apply directly to pirates).
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Weegee's bored
11/24/08

@Smitros: My connection today is loading very slowly, so I'm not about to go consult a map. But how can China project that power across the Indian Ocean without going through Indonesia etc., which could be an entertaining diplomatic nightmare? I'm not arguing, just wondering. The thought of China as a navel power is terrifying.
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Weegee's bored
11/24/08

@Weegee's bored: As a naval power too.
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Smitros
11/24/08

@Weegee's bored:
Well, China did just get its first aircraft carrier, and naval vessels generally have the right to travel through the high seas and sea lanes of communications.

I might be overstating the case for now, but I fear things like this are coming.
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southernbitch
11/24/08

@Smitros: china currently does not act unless it directly serves their interests, and their international interests (especially in african states) right now only are economic interests. i don't think the pirates are really seriously threatening china's interests enough right now for them to take any action whatsoever in the matter. instead they're just going to quietly continue buying up all of angola and the sudan. when china debuts as a serious military power it's going to be much, much flashier than dealing with somali pirates.
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Smitros
11/24/08

@southernbitch:

Even scarier than I was thinking.

I am also not buying real estate in Taipei.
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southernbitch
11/24/08

@Smitros: taiwan is the real nightmare scenario, with a sino-japanese conflict or a sino-russian conflict in short second place. throw in the fact that we still don't know who's in charge of north korea right now and what "strategy" that wacko little nuclear-armed state is going to choose over the next few years, and the fact that we still have what, 40,000 soldiers in the dmz just chilling? dicey, dicey, dicey.

the economic crisis in china is just beginning, also. so there's that, too.
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Smitros
11/24/08

@southernbitch:

Hold me.

Also, the fact that China now has lots of men without women, in many cases unemployed men without women, makes for a social order time bomb.
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BookishLookish
11/24/08

@Weegee's bored: Hella bad time cleaning lint outta that!
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