Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Somali Pirates on a Hijacking Spree

In the wake of the successful rescue of the American hostages (Berman Post: Americans Captured by Pirates, Freed by SEALs/Marines), pirates have been on a spree of sorts. They have captured four boats and more than 60 people, none of them American (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090414/ap_on_re_af/piracy). At least one more was attempted, but in a bizarre twist a massive school of dolphins saved the ship (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-04/14/content_11184581.htm)

This problem is going to get worse until something is done to stop then. I threw in my '2 cents' in the last related post (linked to above). More thoughts on stopping piracy can be found at http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/04/pirate-latest.html.

In a semi related point, there is an interesting article over at http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/04/super-snipers.html regarding the sniper scopes of the future. Bullets that change course in flight, scopes that compensate for air turbulence, and scopes that can compensate for heat haze may be around the corner.

Then again, who needs more advanced scopes and ammo if as Matthews seemed to suggest, the snipers just "got lucky".

Video embedded below.

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