Word: skiffs
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...also did time at Guantánamo. "The President's continual release of Guantánamo Bay detainees presents an unacceptable risk to American lives," said retired U.S. Navy commander Kirk Lippold, who was captain of the U.S.S. Cole when a pair of al-Qaeda operatives blew up their skiff alongside it, killing 17 of Lippold's crew in 2000. "We cannot rely on so-called reform camps in places like Saudi Arabia to prevent terrorists from striking again...
...fact, Yemen itself offered one successful approach to the problem Obama now faces. Ever since a pair of al-Qaeda suicide bombers in a skiff attacked the USS Cole in Yemen's Aden harbor in 2000 and killed 17 U.S. sailors, Washington had been looking to punish the ringleader of the attack, Qaed Sinan Harithi. More than two years later, after learning he would be traveling across the country in an SUV, the U.S. launched a Predator drone. Once in the open countryside, safely away from any civilians, the drone fired a Hellfire missile into the vehicle, instantly dispatching Harithi...
...Wednesday, four would-be pirates in a skiff approached the Maersk Alabama some 650 miles off Somalia. This time, however, the crew aboard the Maersk Alabama had a brand new line of defense: a Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD). It's a $30,000 loudspeaker that is used to first verbally warn an approaching vessel that it is getting too close. If the intruder continues towards the ship, the LRAD can be cranked up, generating a painful high-pitched screech that can be aimed at the approaching vessel.(See photos of dramatic pirate-hostage rescues...
Despite the expensive new weapon, the pirate skiff plowed right through sound waves that should have sent the privateers scurrying in the opposite direction. Ultimately it took gunshots fired by a four-member security team to drive the pirates away after they came within 300 yards of the Maersk Alabama. The lesson: lead still beats loud...
...York Public-School system, we read Huck Finn in the eighth grade. For a kid from the suburbs, the picaresque story of Huck and Jim was wonderfully exotic. Who wouldn't want to live along the Mississippi and drift down the river on a skiff? The buddy story of Huck and Jim was not only a model of American adventure and literature but also of deep friendship and loyalty. It's not hard to see why Ernest Hemingway said all of American literature can be traced back to Mark Twain. Plus, Twain was funny, the hardest trick...