At viewzone:

Using volumes of data from the Two-Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), a major project to survey the sky in infrared light led by the University of Massachusetts, the astronomers are answering questions that have baffled scientists for decades and proving that our own Milky Way is consuming one of its neighbors in a dramatic display of ongoing galactic cannibalism. The study published in the Astrophysical Journal, is the first to map the full extent of the Sagittarius galaxy and show in visually vivid detail how its debris wraps around and passes through our Milky Way. Sagittarius is 10,000 times smaller in mass than the Milky Way, so it is getting stretched out, torn apart and gobbled up by the bigger Milky Way.

Except--as the article goes on to reveal--"our" Milky Way (or Mutter's Spiral, as some know it) is not "ours."  We are actually part of the Sagittarius Dwarf galaxy.

Interesting.

It's not often that I read an article that reminds me of H.P. Lovecraft and James McMurtry at the same time.  In fact, I think this would be the only time.

This post at Baboon Pirates reminded me of something I saw once.

Back when I was a teenager I was fishing in the Cibolo Creek down south of Stockdale.  It was one of those hot summer days so I wasn't interested in doing much moving.  I hooked a small leopard frog and ran the float out so the bait would be several feet deep and let it drift into a big hole, going for a good blue cat or maybe a yellow.  So I was sitting there just watching the cork float when I noticed a squirrel walking out on the limb of a pecan tree nearby.

This limb was already hanging very low, just above the water, and as the squirrel got farther out on the end of the limb, his weight made the tip of the limb dip into the water a little.  He backed up, I guess not wanting to get himself wet.  I watched him for a few more minutes, and finally noticed what had gotten his attention.  A pecan had somehow gotten lodged in a fork between two twigs sticking out of the end of this branch.  Seemed like the squirrel had his heart set on that pecan.

But the trouble was, every time he walked out on the limb, it would dip down into the water again, and he would run back toward the trunk.  And then out of the water would come the end of the limb and that pecan.

Finally he must have screwed up his courage enough and went for it.  All the way to the end of the limb he went, and when he finally grabbed that pecan he was a good two inches or so deep in the water.

And that's when it happened.

An enormous blue cat erupted from the water and took that squirrel off that limb.  It wasn't much of a fight.  A big splash, a few bubbles, and that was all.

I was astounded.  I had never seen anything like it.  I had never heard of anything like it.  If anyone else had been there to talk to, it wouldn't have mattered, because I was speechless.

Well, I didn't have anything else to do so I just stayed there and left my hook in the water, although I didn't hold much hope of catching anything with a skinny little frog after seeing that catfish eat a squirrel.  And then something even more amazing happened.

That blue cat swam back up to the surface and stuck that pecan back into the fork on the end of that limb.