The Last Word   |  February 26, 2013

Rat-filled boat lost at sea

Forget about that gross Carnival cruise ship that broke down. An abandoned Russian cruise ship has been lost at sea for nearly a month, and the only passengers aboard have whiskers and a tail. Last Word guest host Ezra Klein explains

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This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.

>>> some interesting legal news in the wake of that carnival cruise incident weeks ago. on behalf of every passenger on board when the triumph broke down at sea, but we found out the fine print. guest agrees that any arbitration or lawsuit against carrier whatsoever should be litigated individually and not as a part of any class action . so that may make a class action suit a little tough. instead we could see more lawsuits from individual passengers, maybe even more fake ones like this.

>> recently, the carnival cruise lines used the name "triumph" without my permission. on their disastrous cruise, in doing so they have cast negative dispersion on my persona, from now on, people will only associate me with poop. one thing is for certain, the shopping on board the triumph was definitely not -- conan, are you ready? you know it is coming.

>> yeah.

>> international waters ? duty-free.

>> but there is a new drama making out on the high seas involving yet another broken down cruise ship . it is not carrying any people. that doesn't mean it is not without passengers. this ship has rats, according to one report, which in terms of horribleness is probably higher than snakes on a plane .

>> enough is enough, i have had it with these blank snakes on this blank plane. everybody step in. we're about to open some windows.

>> the latest case of maritime malfeasance is a vessel being towed in happier times, before it was lost. it was taken by authorities in 2010 in canada, because the russian owners were accused of skip i skipping out in $250,000 of unpaid fees, 20 months ago it was sold to buyers in the caribbean. a ship left the canadian harbor towing the craft to the dominican republic where it was to be scrapped. the ship broke from its towing cable the very next day. a week later, it was secured by the supply vessel. it got away again. the officials say it is out of their waters, and no longer their program. they say the gps system is broken, they don't know where it is. meanwhile, we heard the last word from the intelligence agency which is part of the defense department . and on friday, the canadian coast guard informed them that the rat ship was spotted here off the newfoundland coast. so we have a ship with rats heading east, about 1300 nautical miles from the irish coast. for reference point, here is where the wreckage of the titanic is. so way to go, rats, you get to go see where the titanic wrecked. yo, ho, ho,