Cops seize Occupy Boston's sink, spawning flood of bad puns

When riot police invaded the Occupy Boston encampment on Thursday evening and carried off a kitchen sink that had recently been donated by MIT, the initial reaction was one of outrage.

As described by Brad Johnson at Think Progress, "Police seized the newly donated graywater sink and tossed it into the back of a police wagon, as other police with flex cuffs blocked occupiers. Dozens of motorcycle police arrived. A brief skirmish ensued as some protesters linked arms to block the wagon from leaving. In the ensuing sink seizure chaos, occupier Suzi Pietroluongo was stepped on by a police officer. When the police wagon sped off, the back doors were open and the sink was hanging out."

Very quickly, however, the great sink raid became a source of humor, both on Twitter and at message boards, and the incident spawned such hashtags as #sinkgate and #occupythesink. Within a few hours, the sink even had its own Twitter account at @OccBostonSink.

"America is in a sad state when a #sink is a political prisoner... FREE THE SINK!" one supporter tweeted. Another philosophized, "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they take your #sink, then you win."

Meanwhile, posters at the Democratic Underground message board were chiming in with criticisms such as "Who would have thought that they could sink this low..." and slogans like "We are the 99 persink, the whole world is washing!" They also repeated some of the best lines from the live chat at globalrevolution.org, including "Are they waterboarding the sink?" and "It was running when they caught it."