Yes, Seth, people can still be killed by pirates.

But the most humorous thing about the story, is the quote, "In March of 2000, Blake said he had received letters from someone threatening to kill him and harm his family. . . We've always got crank mail, but it has been going beyond that recently.'' Uh, hey, dead guy, I don't get mail like that. In fact, no one I know gets mail like that. Methinks you should have been a bit more concerned about it, instead of just "taking precautions."

And now you're dead.

Of course if that happened to me I couldn't read the letter anyway, then I'd find the guy, hide on the ceiling with my spidery legs, and eat his spleen! (if that doesn't make any sense, please check the post directly below).