The children in one Cayuga Heights family can no longer spend their days stealing chests of gold or shooting cannonballs into British ships, now that a large wooden pirate ship was stolen from their backyard. Police are on the lookout for the swashbuckling outlaws who stole it, in what the homeowner says must have been a carefully planned operation.

Long gone are the days of Blackbeard; however, in the last two decades piracy has risen again as a serious concern to the global community. In the last few months dozens of ships have been attacked or seized. Last week a ship bound for New Orleans was seized in the Indian Ocean. Many ships languish off the coast of Somalia as floating booty.

Some people debate politics. Some people debate religion. Some people debate whether or not it is justifiable to spend $40 for a Johnny Cupcakes t-shirt. Fortunately for our generation, these questions have been answered for us by greedy, conniving marketing executive fat-cats for MTV. In case you are still wondering, the answers are Ross Perot, Pastafarianism, and no, of course not, it’s a fucking t-shirt Matt. However, there’s one great debate that is so controversial, so crucial to the health and well-being of society that it continues to tear friendships apart and make babies cry. I’m talking about pirates versus ninjas. Journey along with me to make sense of the gritty, sordid and, at times, erotic history of this argument.

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — With an alarming number of tankers and cargo ships getting hijacked on the high seas, the nation's maritime academies are offering more training to merchant seamen in how to fend off attacks from pirates armed not with cutlasses and flintlocks but automatic weapons and grenade launchers.

Colleges are teaching students to fishtail their vessels at high speed, drive off intruders with high-pressure water hoses and illuminate their decks with floodlights.

Anti-piracy training is not new. Nor are the techniques. But the lessons have taken on new urgency — and more courses are planned — because of the record number of attacks worldwide in 2008 by outlaws who seize ships and hold them for ransom.

Overview

Tensions are escalating in the Gulf of Aden off the Somali coast, where 20 Somali pirates have hijacked a Ukrainian vessel loaded with 33 Soviet-era tanks, rocket launchers and ammunitions on its way to Kenya. The pirates have demanded a $20 million ransom for the safe return of the cargo and 20 crewmembers. Somalia has authorized foreign powers to free the ship by any means necessary; currently six U.S. warships are monitoring the situation, and the European Union is staging an attack with help from over 10 countries, including Britain, Germany and Russia.

Origin

These piracy acts are not a new occurrence; over 26 ships have been hijacked in the last year, with ransoms totaling nearly $30 million according to the Associated Press.