Don't Pester My Drilling Rig.

       Have you heard about the Greenpeace ship that was boarded by fifteen armed Russian security agents back in September? The folks on board the arctic Sunrise were peacefully protesting against a Russian drilling rig owned by Gazprom. They were taken to Murmansk and charged with piracy. Now, Putin's people have added the dreaded HOOLIGAN charge to the offenses against the prisoners.
       Well, I don't know what you may think of Greenpeace, whether busybodies or interferers or just plain old fashioned tree huggers, but I'm aghast to learn these interlopers have taken to piracy on the high seas. Can you imagine a crew of unarmed environmentalists turned pirates attacking a drilling rig in the Arctic ocean? I presume the plan was to take this 'prize' to the nearest port and seeking to outfit it into a stealth attack drilling rig in order to sally forth to capture additional drilling rigs for the treasure chests on board these Russian Galleons.
       But for these peaceful pirates to actually have turned into HOOLIGANS is reprehensible. Why I'm surprised that it only took fifteen armed agents to subdue the thirty people from around the world. To capture that many HOOLIGANS I'd have expected a fleet of warships complete with no less than fifteen hundred marines. Russian Security Agents must be far more scary than I had previously thought. Especially when fully armed and ready to match up with unarmed pirates.
       That's the part I don't understand. Unarmed pirates? Where were these pirates' combat signs? You know, NO DRILLING IN THE ARCTIC, or OIL IS BAD or DRINK VODKA NOT GASOLINE. But no such weaponry was mentioned. Unless the mere charge of HOOLIGANISM is sufficient to explain the danger they presented to the crew of that ill-fated drilling rig under full sail. How fast did the Arctic Sunrise had to travel to catch up with that drilling rig? Were they flying the skull and crossbones or were they sneaking up on the unsuspecting crew? This would be the stuff of a new piracy on the high seas thriller if it weren't for the fact that a nation member of the United Nations, Permanent Security Council is actually using these silly charges against a pesky environmental group simply because the group was, well, pesky.