Here is a suggested Song for Friday: http://youtu.be/KqZ95a249p0

Oooh, not just bedding, but bedding a winch! Aarrrh!

Well, water rescue is what Newfies were originally bred for. Nice to see these haven't lost touch with their heritage.

Myth Busters did a test of motion-sickness remedies some time back. Most of the remedies they tested didn't work at all. The two remedies that did work were over-the-counter pills and ginger. They were equally effective; the pills had the disadvantage of causing drowsiness. I now keep ginger cookies on hand -- they may not be as effective as straight ginger, but they're more convenient.

Looks like both boats were on starboard, though.

What surprises me is how many people think this song is metaphorical -- either describing a quasi-religious transcendental experience or a drug-related state of altered consciousness. NO, it's literal. It's about sailing a boat, a real one, into the Mystic River. Hello-ohh?

Lovely. And it's interesting how the boats are all color-coordinated. Was this an occasion on which bright blue was part of the festivities, or is it just that nearly all of the boats had a sunshade made of Sunbrella in Catalina Blue?

The Declaration is one of the most masterful pieces of rhetoric ever written, and Jefferson does a superb job of combining inductive and deductive reasoning to make a powerful argument. OTOH, since I espouse such views, my blog has been banned in China. Meanwhile, that previous comment shows one positive aspect of having been banned in China -- almost no comments of that sort.

I'm not seeing any video ... but the images I see are disturbing. I am especially distressed by the photo of the surfer. Here is a natural creature, pursuing his native instincts and engaging in his inborn behavior, and here he is, coated with toxic sludge. It's just dreadful. I hope where he came ashore there were wildlife rescuers who could trap him and take him to a cleaning station, where he could be scrubbed with gentle but oil-cutting detergents (in Britain, it's Blue Fairy; in the U.S., it's the more prosaic Dawn), given treatment for any toxins he might have absorbed, and then, once the spill is cleaned up, released back into the wild.

Need to get some cachaca. I have all the other ingredients -- the Rose's is in Jimmy Buffett's margarita recipe. Meanwhile, my brother once dated a Brazilian bombshell -- she was an exchange student at our high school. That was a long time ago.

Sentences in the imperative voice have an implied subject -- it's really there; you just don't see it. Elliptical constructions often have implied predicates. In this photo, you have an implied fish.

Um, OK, before I even saw Shawn's comment, my response was ... Whoa. Awesome. GMTA? Meanwhile, I like that music, too. I'd love to have in in my iTunes. And this also got me thinking about Hokusai, and wondering what would have been in his prints if surfing had been invented in Japan and not Hawaii.

Heart wrenching. In past oil spills, there has always been at least one dramatic shot of an oil-coated cormorant keeling over -- for some reason, cormorants' final death throes have been especially gripping. This time around, it's the pelicans. The way the oil coats their wings and weighs them down is painful to watch. I am reminded of the John Grisham novel and subsequent movie, The Pelican Brief. The plot of that story involved a Great and Mighty Corporation that was engaging in illegal practices that would threaten wildlife, including pelicans, along the gulf coast. I seem to recall that the Great and Mighty Corporation was part of Big Oil.

Yech. That stuff can't be any good for SCUBA gear either.

Duuuuuuuude!

Doc, there is that one across the right upper torso ... But yeah, those other warning labels should be tats, not stickers.

I have to agree -- this is a nightmare. At least the Exxon Valdez had a finite (if large) quantity of oil. This just keeps on coming.

Gives new meaning to the term "foundation garments."

Interesting. You and Edward return to the blogosphere on the same day. Coincidence? Or not?

Pat and I have noticed this when we travel to the ocean -- the engineers managing the water level seem rather capricious. We will note that the water level is down, but then a few hours later, they've shut off the dam and the water's up again.

Number One is sooooo important. Look for details on my blog in a few days; right now, that's something our friend's family can't deal with. After the memorial service, maybe they'll be better able to cope.

I haven't had that type of spam on my blog -- maybe Blogger's anti-spam system works better. I was, however, getting about 5 emails a day offering to enhance my performance, up until a week or two ago, when I changed email providers.

The year I lived in England, we rented a house from a heavy-duty Dr. Who fan.

Well, you can build your own force to counteract that in the third picture ... look at the last two comments on this blog item.

On the Etchells, in heavy air, tightening the backstay reduces weather helm, rather than increasing it. That's one of the many strings I can pull to depower if things get hairy -- Etchells don't reef, but they have a whole lot of other options. One option for depowering that doesn't always work well is dropping one of the sails -- that sometimes results in the boat going backwards.