You Have to Go Out, But You Don’t Have to Come Back

This sent to me by my friend Jim in Pennsylvania. The seagoing equivalent of plowing your minivan into a state trooper’s car:
BARGE HITS MOORED U.S. COAST GUARD SHIPS
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A tug pushing two barges drifted into two U.S. Coast Guard ships at the north side of the Corpus Christi Inner Harbor at 4 p.m. Wednesday.
One of the barges struck both the Coast Guard Cutter Mallet , a 75-foot inland construction tender, and the Coast Guard Cutter Brant , an 87-foot patrol boat, both located at the Coast Guard harbor facility here.
No one was injured and neither of the ships or barges are taking on water. Though the two damaged ships will need to be repaired, no Coast Guard mission will be affected.
Personnel from Coast Guard Marine Safety Office Corpus Christi are investigating the cause of the accident.

From a U.S. Coast Guard Press Release.

As they come into the backstretch it’s Pork Chop and Rasher…

I don’t know why, but the first photo in the BBC Day in Pictures just slays me.

Swains of Syntax

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

They find cover among small patches of natural vegetation, agricultural fields, and tree plantations to the south, near the seacoast.
Monster of God: The Man-Eating Predator in the Jungles of History and the Mind by David Quammen

From silvertide and curmudgeon

Say Goodnight, Gracie

If, say, a Japanese government had performed as badly as the Bush administration has, there would be no one left to turn out the lights.
“The Buck Doesn’t Stop,” by Richard Cohen, The Washington Post, Tuesday, April 6, 2004

The Earth is Still Round, Too

The Devil went down to Georgia, and put anti-evolution stickers on biology textbooks. Now parents are suing to have them removed. Where is Daniel Webster when you need him?
Associated Press