Not sure if anyone has been following the news off the coast of eastern Africa of late, but the United States Navy is in the middle of a battle against pirates in and around the waters of Somalia. 

Apparently some modern day pirates have been hijacking and pirating foreign merchant vessels, doing what with them I can’t imagine.  Due to this, the Somali government has recently decided to allow the United States Navy to follow hijacked vessels into its territorial waters in a bid to rid the area of modern day pirates.* 

navy-ship.jpg

btw, my grandfather used to work on those tugs with the “M” markings.

Low and behold, after about a day of searching and chasing a hijacked North Korean vessel, the U.S. Navy has finally found its ship (full of seafaring men) and has boarded the ship to have a swashbuckling gun, grenade, and laser fight - a far cry from the good ole days of pirating

See now, when I was a kid, pirates didn’t have guns, grenades, or even lowly lasers. 

hareblower.jpg 

Back then, if you were a pirate and wanted to storm another ship you would have to scare them real good with cannons that could easily be turned around to point at you when you weren’t looking, you would have to take smalls steps (because all pirates were really short) to board via planks of wood, and then whip out your comedically large sword in a threatening manner.  Then to top it all off you wouldn’t have to deal with a Navy, you just had to deal with a wascally wabbit or two.

They just don’t make pirates like they used to, ya see, ya see.

*Wikipedia refuses to acknowledge the meaning of the term “butt pirate”.