These are not Gilbert and Sullivan's pirates

Those Somali pirates are getting more brazen. Today, we get reports that they attacked a cargo ship off the coast of Tanzania. So they're branching out from the waters just off Somalia. Earlier attacks had gone as far south as Kenya, the country immediately to the south of Somalia. Tanzania is the country immediately south of Kenya.

The pirates attacked the cargo ship with rocket-propelled grenades. That sounds like it would be pretty scary for the crew. So far this year, pirates have attacked 100 ships in this area, successfully hijacking 40 of them. I think I would much rather be attacked by Captain Jack Sparrow than by these guys. This situation is just nuts. I hadn't realized there were still pirates in the world. I guess it really doesn't affect me as I don't plan on trolling the waters off the east coast of Africa anytime soon, but still, I'd rather live in a world that didn't have pirates, except my nice happy, basically good guy pirates, like Captain Jack or the Pirates of Penzance who were always too busy singing lustily to be any good as pirates and who really didn't want to hurt anyone anyway.

You may also have heard about the luxury cruise ship that was attacked by pirates, but successfully outran the bad guys. My dad was very eager to point out to me that when he and my mom take their cruise around Australia and New Zealand later this winter, they will be on that very ship. I kind of like knowing that my parents will be in the hands of a captain and crew that took on pirates and won.