Word: ragtag
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...months ago, when Somali pirates captured a Ukrainian vessel carrying 33 battle tanks, the temptation may have been to laugh them off as a bunch of ragtag local gunmen who had improbably gotten lucky. But the pirates of Somalia proved they have more than dumb luck going for them last Saturday, when they seized the Saudi supertanker MV Sirius Star and its cargo of more than $100 million worth of crude oil. This occurred despite the attention of navies from the U.S., NATO and others that were patrolling the area to protect shipping. (The Ukrainian vessel, MV Faina, remains...
...Less than a mile away from the inquiry, outside of the Stockwell Tube station where de Menezes died, a ragtag memorial of family photos, newspaper clippings and candles still hangs between a newsstand and a convenience store. This morning, fresh roses adorned the sidewalk along with new messages of support. "For Jean Charles and all of his family, our sorrow and anger are still with you." At least in this neighborhood, the anger is squarely directed toward the police. Regardless of their best intentions, by killing an innocent man, they did what the would-be suicide bombers had mercifully failed...
...McCain White House, saying he wants to return to California, where he hopes one day to finish college so he can teach high school history and coach teenagers. Like nearly everyone else on McCain's virtually all-male senior staff, the two men have fashioned themselves as ragtag outsiders, buddies and true believers in McCain who will play hard and play to win. Then after hours, instead of sipping martinis, they seek out beer to drink like college kids. Like nearly everything else in McCain's life, Salter and Schmidt are a team that can seem haphazard, a tad risky...
...essay The Private History of a Campaign That Failed, he describes how he knocked about from one position on the war to another, evidently following in the footsteps of his buddies. One striking aspect of his tale is the groping inability of any of the several members of his ragtag militia to assign a reason for their struggle. The essay is in that sense better understood as a part of Twain's significant antiwar oeuvre, a category in which, for example, his essay The War Prayer also belongs. So does Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven, in which we discover...
When the Civil War broke out, Twain may have briefly entertained pro-Union sentiments but at length decided to serve with a ragtag bunch of Confederate irregulars. After a couple of weeks, "hunted like a rat the whole time," he thought better of that commitment and, as Huck Finn did, lit out for the territory. This territory was Nevada and California, where he prospected for silver without luck and practiced scurrilous journalism and general drunkardry with zest...