The thunder of Zeus be upon me this time, mortals.  I have failed you.  And I’m a big enough god to admit it. It is difficult for me to do this, but my sponsor, Demeter, has convinced me that the path to recovery begins with honesty.

And so I must confess that while the ships of men were engaged in a life-or-death struggle on my seas, I was nowhere to be found.  In fact, I only knew about it after the battle was done.  The fact is, mortals, that I, the great and terrible Poseidon, was on a bit of a bender.  I had drunk deep from the nectar of Bacchus and breathed heavily from the smoke of the oracle, and was pretty much out to lunch the whole time.

The divine truth is this: I have a problem.

O, cursed fate!  That this immortal life should yield such despair, such weakness!  I used to be bigger than Jesus.  I used to be Jesus.  Men worshipped me, prayed to me.  Lived and died at the mercy of my whims.  And then, in an eye-blink of eternity, it was all suddenly gone, leaving me holding the bag.  (I keep the fates in a bag since my divorce.)

Then, the millennia of waiting.  The silence, the banal, evil, crushing silence of mankind.  Some of we Olympians began to doubt the very existence of your souls, leaving a great void in our spiritual life.  For what meaning can there be to a world of clockmakers without clocks?  What is a god without his creations?  If men did not exist, it would become necessary to invent them.  And who wants to go through that whole business again?

But I chose faith.  I chose to see what was clear before my eyes, that your souls were indeed there—only astray.  Your prayers were not absent; they were simply directed elsewhere.  And with a little patience, a little grace, I might hear them again.

I wish I could say that my faith has been unwavering.  But I have been tested, mortals.  And your silence fills me with a sadness so deep I can only fill it with wine, and an anger so hot I can only cool it with bong water.  I am omnipotent, mortals, but I’m not perfect!

So I was not there to see your standoff.  But it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.  I was not called upon.  No prayers reached me.  Even in a crisis on the seas seen round the world, no one saw me, the one true god of the deep.

But I do not ask for your pity, mortals.  I still rule the oceans.  I am still master of all things wet.  I still carry your pitiful lives in my hands.  I am a great and terrible god, and you shall soon learn to worship me as of old!

In the meantime, though, my name is Poseidon, and I’m an addict.

I’m happier than a parrot in a cracker factory! Our great Navy SEALS rescued that ship’s captain – and killed three of the pirates, too! (Isn’t it amazing how they train those things to shoot guns? Must be some tasty sardines they give them for treats…)

The bad news is: one of the pirates is still alive. He’s coming back here to go on trial. That’s crazy!

I can tell you just what’ll happen. First, he’ll complain that the Navy didn’t read him his rights in whatever language they speak in Oongaboongaland. Then some famous lawyer will take his case and say the poor guy was driven to a life of crime because he came from a broken home – his father only had TWO wives!

The trial will cost us millions of dollars. Sure, the jury will find him guilty (unless he get’s O.J.’s) but so what? Spending your life in an American prison will seem like heaven or whatever those people believe in, compared to his old life in Oongaboongaland!

College kids will wear FREE THE PIRATE t-shirts with his face on it. Then he’ll get released on a technicality. Every university in America will want to make him a professor, like they did with all those hippie bombers.

Hollywood will make a movie about the pirate’s life, about how he was framed. Will Smith will play him cuz he’ll be good at waving the machine gun around, then looking all sad and misunderstood, reading books in his cell.

That pirate will end up with a cushier life than the ship’s captain! If that doesn’t make you yell “ARRRGGGHHHH!”, then your peg leg’s not screwed on straight!

CAIRO—The Egyptian government is calling on the gentle giants of the sea to take out pirate ships, and the whales are getting the job done.

Somali privateers operating in the Indian Ocean have been robbing trade ships in the region and taking hostages, sometimes with political overtones.  Egypt has responded with an elite fighting force of ramming whales trained to neutralize the vessels through headlong collisions.

So far, the unit of whales—code-named Moby Hit—has successfully engaged Somali pirate ships on at least four occasions, although some information surrounding their operations remains classified.  But it seems clear enough that the whales are unstoppable commandos of the deep.

“They’re not human!” wailed a captured Somali pirate, after an engagement that left his ship a wreck and his crew prisoners.  “I mean, I know they’re not human, but like…I mean it in the superlative sense, like they’re not bound by human limitations.”

“It’s an expression,” the man intoned dully as he was led away by Egyptian authorities.

The whale trainers, a best-and-brightest team culled from marine parks all over the world, are as rigorous in their standards as they are unwavering in their pride.

“We expect a lot from our whales, and they never let us down,” said Dr. Ramon Gutierrez of Sea World in Orlando, Florida.  He crouched over the tank holding the whales, absently feeding fish to his favorite as she splashed around excitedly before him.  “It’s like I always say.  You want to engage a shadowy, nationless enemy, you got to go with Dora.  She’s a humpback, you know.”

DJIBOUTI – The Somali pirates, renegade Somalis known for hijacking ships for ransom in the Gulf of Aden, are negotiating a purchase of Citigroup.

The pirates would buy Citigroup with new debt and their existing cash stockpiles, earned most recently from hijacking numerous ships, including most recently a $200 million Saudi Arabian oil tanker. The Somali pirates are offering up to $0.10 per share for Citigroup, pirate spokesman Sugule Ali said earlier today.

The negotiations have entered the final stage. Ali stated, “You may not like our price, but we are not in the business of paying for things. Be happy we are in the mood to offer the shareholders anything at all.”

The pirates will finance part of the purchase by selling new Pirate Ransom Backed Securities.  The PRBS’s are backed by future ransom payments from hijackings in the Gulf of Aden.  Moody’s and S&P have already issued their top investment grade ratings for the PRBS’s.

Head pirate Ubu Kalid Shandu said, “We need a bank so that we have a place to keep all of our ransom money.  Thankfully, the dislocations in the capital markets have allowed us to purchase Citigroup at an attractive valuation and to take advantage of TARP capital to grow the business even faster.”

Shandu added, “We don’t call ourselves pirates. We’re coast guards. This will just allow us to guard our coasts better.”