Congressman Proposes Blowing Stuff Up to See What Happens

Say what you will about Somerville Congressman Michael Capuano's questionable policy on accepting gifts and trips. When it comes to blowing stuff up, he and Bostonist are on the same page. The Herald reports today that Capuano is arranging with "an unnamed liquefied natural gas company" to shoot a missile at a huge tanker in the ocean, "to see what happens."

We realize that this may be useful in terms of planning for terrorist attacks, but it appeals to Bostonist on a much more basic level. We can remember quite well the days in our youth when we pondered questions like, "What happens when you set a plastic milk jug on fire?" (very bad smell + serious punishment from Pa Bostonist) or "What happens when you pitch a water balloon that is almost too full to hold off the roof of a five-story building?" (car windshield breakage). Our only hope is that Capuano et al. will have the good sense to arrange for a live, pay-per-view showing of the missile-meets-tanker experiment, because that would be totally awesome.

Photo: The Herald swears it's so fancy and journalistic just 'cause it has a "file photo" of an enormous green boat moored in Boston harbor. Well, two can play at that game, Herald!