Re: Pirates attack cruise ship
 

This pirate walks into a bar with a big ship's wheel down his pants. The bartender says, "Excuse me, sir, but do you know you have a ship's wheel down the front of your pants?"
And the pirate says...
Aaargh, it's driving me nuts!!

Re: Pirates attack cruise ship
 

15 incidents between March and August. Sheesh.

I read an interesting article on piracy last year. Apparently it's pretty big in southeast Asia. Very scary too, since the normal thing is to kill everyone on board, though sometimes they'll hold people for ransom. But basically they're after the ship and its cargo. And they'll paint the ship at sea with a new name, different colored smokestacks, whatever. Getting false papers isn't a big deal. And there's always someone who will buy the cargo. Register the ship in some out of the way country and it's not very hard to get away with.

There are terrorist worries to this, too. A nuke in a big port could cripple a county and a state, and have substantial effects on the whole country. And there's virtually no way to be sure that ships coming in are relatively safe.

Re: Pirates attack cruise ship
 

[ QUOTE ]
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9932838/

Arrrrrrrr; it would be priceless if they had a graphic of some dude with an eye patch firing a grenade launcher from an inflatable raft.

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL I clicked on the link and the advertisement was for Prevacid and it said "Feels like a fireball in your chest."

Now that is funny!

Big Steve [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

best quote in the article:
 

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“Our suspicion at this time is that the motive was theft,”

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[rant]
THEY ARE [censored] PIRATES YOU IDIOTS...WTF DID YOU THINK THEIR MOTIVE WAS???[/rant]

Barron

Re: best quote in the article:
 

For pirates? Buggery, of course.

Re: Pirates attack cruise ship
 

My thought is that is many (American & European) tourists were murdered, it would not be as easy for them to get away with it.

Re: Pirates attack cruise ship
 

Not really true. Pirates in Asia have been around for years and many are very successful and have bribes going with local officials. They're as much a part of their communities as anyone, and that's where they spend a lot of their loot. Piracy has since time immemorial been a big boost to local economies. And most people overlook the murders of people of different skin colors or religions pretty easily. I don't doubt in Somalia the situation is no different. They hate us there. Americans could raise all the stink they want and it would only make them hate us more.

But even if the local officials want to try to stop piracy, it takes a ton of funding. Most places don't have the money to commit to that sort of thing. The ocean is just too vast and out of control to really monitor well even for the most powerful countries in the world.

Re: Pirates attack cruise ship
 

[ QUOTE ]
A hurricane in a big port could cripple a county and a state, and have substantial effects on the whole country.

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This is true.

Re: Pirates attack cruise ship
 

Cruiser liners should seriously consider arming themselves. If a cruise ship gets hijaked and everyone is slayed it would be catastrophic to the industry. It wouldn't take much to defend the ships. Three browning 50 cal machine guns or three M242 Bushmaster's (one for port, starbard, and aft) would be more than enough I would think. The guns are too big to use against the crew (especially the bushmaster) and they could easily sink small ships.

Something like this could be easily hidden and broken out when needed:

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/4268/250pxmk3811gn.jpg
or this
http://img331.imageshack.us/img331/8...alcrewl8fz.jpg

Then again, arming the ships may be bad for the industry but still. If they are going where there is even a remote chance of pirates, give they could use some form of defense other than speed.

Re: Pirates attack cruise ship
 

[ QUOTE ]
Cruiser liners should seriously consider arming themselves.

[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
There are more weapons an a cruise ship than you would think.

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