And Now, In Pirate News

I can't tell you how much I would rather read about fearless Pirates, having commandeered a Ukranian ship full of guns grenades, and 33 Soviet Tanks, are yet demanding $35 Million ransom while surrounded off the coast of Somalia by both American and Russian warships sent in a multinational sea chase to crush this grave danger to the freedom of the seas, than the U.S. financial bailout package. Russian press video here.

Also, a weird story here in the same waters about a ship seized by pirates recently, and soon after, the pirates' hair began falling out and they started dying. A more detailed but fascinating story here, from a suspect source, "the Long War Journal"( ?), which appears to have an internally focused pro-Bush foreign policy agenda. Of course, there is hardly anything more fun in news that the implication of a broad international crisis hidden within a pirate story reported on suspect news sites.

Although there are parallels between the financial bailout and evil pirates with balls the size of LNG tanks demanding money while surrounded by missile destroyers. Maybe a lot of them. Pretty good metaphor actually. But at least the financial bailout package might temper this particularly noxious era of pirate capitalism, while actual pirates, and the real danger, are only getting worse.