Somali pirates win the year! The edgy folk heroes of the high seas have seized a Greek cargo ship and a British tanker, closing out the year on a strong, piratey note. They're in the record books, folks!

WaPo writer Anne Applebaum has emerged from her cocoon of Polish Secret Service agents to assure everyone that her car explosion yesterday was simple mechanical trouble, not an assassination attempt. (Are you writing under duress, Anne? Blink twice.) The details!

Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum is A) married to a high-ranking Polish politician, and B) critical of Russia's shady government, which makes it—in the most general way—kind of alarming that her car blew up yesterday. [Update: She's okay!]

Somali pirates free Spanish hostages, then take North Korean hostages. The World Cup of piracy.

Pretty quiet summer monster season this year, right? Wrong, mi amigo. A distant cousin of the Montauk Monster emerged from its cave in Panama. Then terrified kids beat it to death.

Current TV journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee automatically became heroes after being snatched up by the North Korean government, because that's just how things work, in America. But some activists overseas think the women hurt more than they helped.

Mother Jones has released a statement from a traveling companion of the three Americans arrested in Iran last week detailing how the trio—one of whom is a freelancer for the magazine—accidentally wandered across the Iranian border.

ABC News has come up with video purporting to prove that Barack Obama did not lasciviously check out a woman's ass in Rome yesterday. We undertook a Zapruder treatment and determined that he probably did, but had no choice.

China's having some wee riots by a few troublesome dead-ender Uighurs. Hundreds are dead. The media always wants to "cover" things like this. China has a new media management strategy, though: savvy PR! The Uighurs have a counter-strategy: breaking shit.

Current TV reporters Laura Ling and Euna Lee are two days into a 12-year North Korean prison sentence. There's not much to do except wait for Al Gore to save them. In the meantime, have you watched their actual journalism?

Break out the confetti and American Flag sheet cakes, because the heroic crew of the ship jacked by pirates is back in the USA! A nation celebrates, on instinct. Meanwhile, the pirates are talking shit!

Pirates versus America in a cutthroat battle for survival! Hero Captain America's escape attempt! A pirate flotilla races to reach its desperate pirate brethren! Killer Navy SEALs lock and load! Joe Biden!

Former French president Jacques Chirac was, as the gleeful British press puts it, "mauled by his own 'clinically depressed' pet dog." He — and French stereotypes — are expected to make a full recovery.