Rich People With A Death Wish
By: Money makes some people crazy. And no one can exploit that better than the Russians. According to an Austrian newspaper called Wirtschaftsblatt, which I thought at first was a joke name but it's apparently real (they've got Warren Buffett on the front page today!), Russian luxury ocean liners are offering customers "pirate hunting cruises".
Instead of becoming a victim of pirates, pirates become the victims.
The article was translated at Ananova.com, which says passengers are paying about $5,700 a day to patrol the waters off Somalia in heavily armed private yachts, hoping to attract the attention of pirates. Then, when the bad guys get close, the badder guys open fire with grenade launchers, machine guns, and rocket launchers. The yachts come with body guards, who are allegedly "a squad of ex special forces troops," and, for about $20 a day extra, you can use an AK-47 and 100 rounds of ammo.
"They are worse than the pirates," the article quotes a Russian yachtsman named Vladimir Mironov. "At least the pirates have the decency to take hostages, these people are just paying to commit murder."
I've got an idea! Let's pool our money together and rent a luxury yacht to hunt CEO's of TARP-receiving money caught vacationing on company-subsidized yachts! We won't shoot them, just moon them.
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