In Search Of Amelia Earhart

Last night, the Travel Channel broadcast “In Search Of Amelia Earhart”. Earhart was a famous aviatrix, who during her attempt to fly around the world in 1937, disappeared on her trip to tiny Howland Island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The show put forth a theory promoted primarily by former pilot Elgen Long, that Earhart ran out of fuel 20 hours and 13 minutes into her flight and crashed into the ocean near Howland Island.

There are numerous logical errors in the show, and some factual errors as well. Naturally, take away to logical errors and the factual errors, and the conclusion that Amelia crashed into the ocean seems somewhat shaky. Given that there were no eye-witnesses, how can anyone be sure it happened 20:13 into the flight?

Amelia’s last known broadcast was 20 hours and 13 minutes into the flight. In that broadcast, she stated that she would re-broadcast her message on another frequency, 6210 kilocycles. But she was never heard from again. Long’s conclusion: the plane ran out of gas right then. Other possible conclusions, unmentioned by Long or the Travel Channel show: radio malfunction, or perhaps Earhart had trouble broadcasting and being receiving on 6210 — in fact, at no time during her flight to Howland was she heard broadcasting on 6210.

But, now that Long knows when Earhart crashed, he then finds a way to calculate her fuel consumption that indicates the plan ran out of fuel at — you guessed it — 20 hours and 13 minutes of air time. The calculations, of course, must be based upon guesswork and assumptions, as there is really no way to know how Amelia flew the plane during her flight to Howland. Even when the famous Chater Report turns up 60 years later, giving some actual broadcast information from Amelia early in that flight, Long makes unjustifiable assumptions. While AE reports wind speeds in the Chater Report, at no time does AE indicate they are headwinds. In fact, they could have been (and most likely were) crosswinds. But Long does the calculations assuming they are headwinds.

One of the most bizarre parts of the show was some calculations done by radio experts that indicate Amelia was following a “ladder search pattern”, when she ran out of fuel, on a heading that would have taken her directly to Howland. This informaton comes from the radio logs of Itasca, the Coast Guard ship stationed at Howland. In those logs, AE is actually heard by Itasca (and transcribed into the logs) on nine different occasions spanning six hours. In some of those transcriptions, a signal strength is recorded. How one can go from a transcript plus signal strength to a determination of heading and search pattern is beyond me. Although the Travel Channel show implies that there was some sophisticated computer-based data analysis going on here, I know something about data analysis too and it seems to me that this is wishful thinking.

Much more information is available about Amelia Earhart at The Earhart Project. There, the hypothesis is promoted that Amelia landed at then uninhabited Gardner (now Nikumaroro) Island, after being unable to find Howland. A skeleton was found (with parts of a woman’s shoe and other Western paraphernalia) in 1940 on Gardner. That plus other circumstantial evidence, indicate (but do not prove) that Gardner Island was Amelia’s final landfall. If true, she died there as a castaway.

In The Footsteps of Pheidippides and Spiridon Louis

The Battle of Marathon in 490 BC was one of the most important battles in the history of Western Civilizations. The outnumbered Athenian army defeated the Persians on the plain at Marathon. This victory assured Athens’ freedom from the Persians, and allowed Athenian civilization to flourish. According to legend, Athenian Pheidippides then ran to Athens to tell Athenians not to burn the city, as Athens had won the battle. Pheidippides called out “Rejoice, we conquer!” then died on the spot. Also, according to legend, a few days earlier Pheidippides ran to Sparta to ask for reinforcements, giving him a total of over 100 miles running in just a few days. (However, some people claim Pheidippides is just a legend with no basis in fact).

To honor Pheidippides, when the modern Olympics began in 1896, an event called the Marathon was held, along the same course allegedly run by Pheidippides. With a crowd estimated at 100,000, mostly Greeks, waiting at the finish line, reports first came in an Australian was leading the race. But when the next reports came in, the word spread “with the rapidity of lightning” and the crowd began shouting “Eileen! Eileen!” (“A Greek! A Greek!”) Almost three hours after the race began, 24 year old Spiridon Louis entered the stadium and to uproarious cheers. Unlike today, when Louis would have become a celebrity, Louis returned to relative anonymity, living as a shepherd. He turned down most offers of gifts.

Today, runners follow in these footsteps, in the Olympic Marathon. Every four years, I watch the marathon, broadcast live and in its entirety. And while I almost never watch track and field, I am simply mesmerized by the Olympic marathon. I watch it in its entirety, and I find it compelling drama. This year, because of the history associated with this particular course, it is even more compelling. The runners pass by the monument to the soldiers who died in the Battle of Marathon. The runners run between 5 and 6 minute miles, something I could never do in my best days. I cannot imagine the thrill of what it would be like for Spiridon Louis, or any other runner, to enter the Olympic stadium after running over 26 miles. (I cannot imagine running 26 miles, period).

I salute these runners, I salute Pheidippides (if he did exist) and I salute the Athenian warriors.

Update: Leading the marathon at 20 miles, Brazil’s Vanderlei de Lima was attacked by a protester wearing traditional Greek garb. De Lima was shoved into the crowd, and then spectators and security forces separated de Lima from the protester. De Lima finished third, making airplane motions and smiling to the crowd; Meb Keflezighi of the United States was second, and Stafano Baldini of Italy was the winner.

Avoiding Vietnam, Becoming President

Says former Texas Lieutenant Governor Ben Barnes:

Let’s talk a minute about John Kerry and George Bush and I know them both. And I’m not name dropping to say I know ‘em both. I got a young man named George W. Bush in the National Guard when I was Lt. Gov. of Texas and I’m not necessarily proud of that. But I did it. And I got a lot of other people into the National Guard because I thought that was what people should do, when you're in office you helped a lot of rich people. And I walked through the Vietnam Memorial the other day and I looked at the names of the people that died in Vietnam and I became more ashamed of myself than I have ever been because it was the worst thing that I did was that I helped a lot of wealthy supporters and a lot of people who had family names of importance get into the National Guard and I’m very sorry about that and I’m very ashamed and I apologize to you as voters of Texas.

Why Does NBC Hate Don Chevrier?

Don Chevrier has been a sports announcer on television since — well as long as I can remember. Although much of his career was spent on Canadian television, he called USA hockey’s “Miracle on Ice” in 1980 at Lake Placid for ABC radio. He has been working for NBC at the Athens Olympics as well as the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.

So why does NBC hate Don Chevrier? This year, Don broadcast badminton, synchronized swimming and table tennis. In 2002, he broadcast curling. Poor man, let’s hope this terrible treatment at the hands of NBC doesn’t end his career!

Tonya Harding Shot JFK

The website Tonya Harding Shot JFK is a “journal of dreams, symbols and synchronicity”. Um, okay. See, Tonya’s assassination of the President was in her previous life, when she was Lee Harvey Oswald. Really, it says so right there. I wouldn’t kid you!

Investigation of Claims of Carla Baron

A group named Independent Investigations Group has posted its Official Investigation of Claims of Carla Baron — IIG’s press release is here (pdf). Baron is a psychic who claims to have helped police find missing persons. At Paige’s Page, we have found (here and here) that in the two cases we were aware of, Baron provided no useful help. IIG now examines in detail 14 cases where Carla Baron claims to be involved.

IIG’s conclusion: “From the 14 cases that Carla Baron promotes as her best work, we can positively conclude that her claims of being a psychic detective are unsubstantiated.”

Friday CavyBlogging

Whitefoot watches the silly human holding a camera

Book Review

Title: Galileo’s Daughter
Author: Dava Sobel

Dava Sobel has translated the surviving 124 letters from Galileo’s daughter Virginia to her illustrious father. Ms. Sobel weaves these into the story of the life of Galileo Galilei, showing not only the brilliant science that Galileo produced, but also the tender love that Galileo and his daughter shared. Along the way we learn about one of the most important trials in the history of civilization, when Galileo was found guilty of heresy by the Inquisition for espousing that the Earth travelled around the sun. And we also glimpse many details about life in 17th century Italy. The subtitle is apt: “A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love”.

Albert Einstein said of Galileo: “Propositions arrived at purely by logical means are completely empty as regards to reality. Galileo saw this and particularly because he drummed it into the scientific world, he is the father of modern physics — indeed of modern science altogether.” The book brings to life many of Galileo’s inventions and discoveries, without going so deep into the science that the casual reader can appreciate their significance. Galileo was the first to turn a telescope to the heavens, and there he discovered Jupiter’s moons, was the first human to see Neptune, and eventually came to the conclusion that the Earth moved around the Sun, and not vice versa as the church claimed.

The book really shines in bringing to life Galileo’s daughter, renamed Suor (Sister) Maria Celeste after she entered a convent. And so the book begins with her first surviving letter:

Most Illustrious Lord Father

We are terribly saddened by the death of your cherished sister, our dear aunt; but our sorrow at losing her is as nothing compared to our concern for your sake, because your suffering will be all the greater. Sire, as truly you have no one else left in your world, now that she, who could not have been more precious to you, has departed and therefore we can only imagine how you sustain the severity of such a sudden and completely unexpected blow...

In reality, Galileo was not alone, he had Suor Maria Celeste to comfort him. The two stayed very close, despite the fact that Suor Maria Celeste never left the convent at San Matteo after her 16th birthday. Galileo was devastated by her death in 1634. Her death was probably hastened by her worry for Galileo during the Inquisition, and she neglected to care for herself.

In 1737, nearly 100 years after Galileo passed away, workmen moved his body to a new marble tomb, from the nearly forgotten grave where he had been buried. We let Dava Sobel tell the story:

This one [Galileo’s coffin] had apparently been damaged over time, its lid bashed in and littered with broken pieces of plaster. As the men dragged the bier from the bricks, they were startled to discover another almost identical wooden box lying directly beneath it. Galileo’s grave contained two coffins, two skeletons, and no lead nameplate on either one of them.

Panic no doubt gripped several hearts at the prospect of being unable to decide which body deserved to be deposited in the new monument. But when the grand duke’s chief physician, accompanied by several professors of anatomy, stepped forward to examine the evidence, they accomplished their identification with reassuraing ease. Only one of the skeletons could possibly have belonged to Galileo — the top one, becuase its bones were those of an old man, with the detached mandible containing only four teeth. The skeleton in the lower coffin, the experts concurred, was unmistakeably female. Although the woman had leain dead for at least as long a time as the man, if not longer, she had died at a much younger age.

… Once the shock of the discovery had dissipated into the silence of the great empty church, those attendants who remembered [Galileo’s last student] Viviani could unfurl the mystery for themselves. The disciple, driven to despair by his failutre to pay the tribute he felt he owed his mentor, had given Galileo something dearer than bronze or marble to distinguish his grave.

Even now, no inscription on Galileo’s much-visited tomb in Santa Croce announces ther presence of Suor Maria Celeste.

But still she is there.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being a “must read”, this book is a 10.

P.S.: I would rate Dava Sobel’s other book, Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time, a 9.

Olympic Thoughts

Men’s basketball: Argentina 89, USA 81. My sadness knows no bounds.

Major congratulations to USA Softball and USA Women’s Soccer, gold medal winners! USA Softball outscores its opponents by a ridiculous 122 million to 1 and wins their third straight gold medal. They dominate more than the USA Basketball Dream Team ever did in 1992. And while we say farewell to Mia Hamm and the other four of the “fab five”, they were inspirational to watch. Let’s all get ready to watch ten more years of USA Women’s Soccer dominance with Abby Wambach (from beautiful Rochester, NY) in charge.

Gymnast Paul Hamm. The FIG wants him to return his gold medal because a Korean gymnast, who was not properly credited with another 0.1 points, should properly have won. While this would be a classy thing for Hamm to do, precedent says it isn’t necessary, especially since this controversy is not Hamm’s fault, it is the judges fault. There have been duplicate golds awarded when judges have screwed up, which is clearly what happened here. The Canadian figure skating pair of Jamie Sale and David Pelletier were awarded a duplicate gold medal in 2002, after the Soviets were originally awarded the gold. Several years earlier, a Canadian synchronized swimmer received a duplicate gold after it was determined that a judge had entered the wrong score into the computerized scoring device. In all, there have been four duplicate golds awarded in Olympic competition.

Update: Tim Daggett, speaking on NBC’s Olympic broadcast, now points out that indeed a scoring error was made robbing the Korean gymnast of 0.1, but in addition, another scoring error was made in which the Korean gymnast should have received a mandatory 0.2 deduction, but said deduction was not applied. If you correct both errors, Hamm wins.

Supernova Remnant Cassiopeia A

From APOD (Astonomy Picture Of The Day).

Internet Gives Teenage Bullies Weapons to Wound From Afar

The New York Times reports that in the electronic age, its tougher than ever to be a teenager. The level of meanness has apparently increased since I was in high school, and Internet bullying, even among girls, is becoming more and more common. While the electronic age has its advantages, after reading this story you wish you could just turn the Internet off — permanently.

George “Rambo” Bush

Paul Krugman in The New York Times:

After 9/11, Mr. Bush had a choice: he could deal with real threats, or he could play Rambo. He chose Rambo. Not for him the difficult, frustrating task of tracking down elusive terrorists, or the unglamorous work of protecting ports and chemical plants from possible attack: he wanted a dramatic shootout with the bad guy. And if you asked why we were going after this particular bad guy, who hadn't attacked America and wasn't building nuclear weapons — or if you warned that real wars involve costs you never see in the movies — you were being unpatriotic.

As a domestic political strategy, Mr. Bush’s posturing worked brilliantly. As a strategy against terrorism, it has played right into Al Qaeda’s hands. Thirty years after Vietnam, American soldiers are again dying in a war that was sold on false pretenses and creates more enemies than it kills.

Kill Bill

I had the opportunity to watch the movie Kill Bill the other night at my sister’s house. Normally, I don’t enjoy movies that are excessively violent, and that’s how Kill Bill started. But the thing I objected to the most in the opening scene was that it simply wasn’t logical. Two women are fighting each other with knives and anything else they can grab. Then, a schoolbus pulls up in front of the house, bringing one of the women’s daughter home from school. And the two women stop trying to kill each other — even before the little girl enters the house. And then both of them, somewhat bloodied, talk politely to the little girl. I wouldn’t think that if you are trying to kill someone, and the other person is trying to kill you, and you both have knives, that the appearance of a schoolbus in front of the house would make you stop and trust the other person (who still has a knife). But, what do I know? I have never tried to kill someone with a knife.

After the little girl goes to her room, the two women converse, and then one of them tries a sneak attack against the other. The second woman throws her knife at the first, and nails her right in the chest, killing her. Why didn’t this happen in the first fight scene? Because more gratuitous violence is good, and so there are two fight scenes; but by doing this the plot doesn’t make sense. But, the plot didn’t make sense when the little girl got off the schoolbus.

And that was as much of Kill Bill as I could watch. The Olympics were on, and even badminton would have been more enjoyable, but even better, I saw track and field and gymnastics and diving. Fortunately, my daughter, my neice and my father all came to a similar negative opinion of Kill Bill.

Electronic Voting Ought To Scare You

Just in case you weren’t scared of electronic voting, this ought to scare you. Ronnie Dugger at The Nation has a detailed look at the perils of electronic voting. He claims, and is supported by hordes of computer scientists, that electronic voting is not secure, and that secrecy to protect the companies that make the voting machines is the norm. Dugger quotes David Stutsman, an Indiana lawyer: “The secrecy of the ballot has been turned into the secrecy of the vote count.”

But wait, so all of that is still hysterical whining, nothing bad is actually going to happen, right? Well consider this: in the recent Venezuela elections, polls showed the opposition leading by 12 to 19 points, but when the electronic voting was tallied, the government candidate (Chavez) won by over 17 percent. The theory is now making the rounds that the voting was fraudulent, that somehow the electronic voting machines were fixed. Now, Venezuela has paper ballots that can be counted as a backup. If the same were to happen here (and if it can happen in Venezuela, it can indeed happen here), we would have no paper backups to rely on. In other words, one side could not prove that it won the election fairly, while the other side could not prove that the election was fraudulent. In other words, chaos, a breakdown and total loss of democracy.

Paris Hilton’s Dog Lost — Then Found

Whew! The world can breathe a sigh of relief now. Paris Hilton’s dog, TInkerbell, wearing pink coats and puppy-sized sneakers, was lost earlier today, but the lucky dog was found later after a $5,000 reward had been offered.

Happy Birthday, Roberto

It’s hard to believe, but Roberto Clemente would have turned 70 today.

He had the most feared throwing arm in baseball. He won 12 consecutive Gold Gloves. He was a feared hitter, finishing with 3,000 hits and compiling a .414 batting average in the 1971 World Series. He died on the last day of 1972, flying supplies to victims of an earthquake in Nicaragua. Clemente is remembered as much for his humanitarian work as his baseball play. We miss you, Roberto!

(Side note: this article proves that we here at Paige’s Page are not automatically biased against people who have “Walker” in their name.)

Psychic Makes Another Prediction

Carla Baron makes another prediction about a missing person. Just like another of Carla Baron’s predictions which we reported on, which so far has not been useful, we predict that this one will not prove to be useful or correct either.

A Hollywood psychic recently told a Wayne County (NY) couple that their missing son is alive and thriving amid a transient population in Southern California.

What is sad is that the family of the missing man, William Henry, now has false hope due to this psychic. Note how the prediction gives almost no useful information to focus the search, since it was already known that Henry was last seen in Southern California. According to Henry’s father, Baron also said “He’s living on the streets, but not dirty. He’s very clean, does day work.” Note again how Baron allegedly knows these details, but fails to provide useful search information, such as what type of job Henry has, or what street he is living on.

Laguna Beach Police Detective Paul Litchenberg said there have been no developments in the case since the initial investigation.

“If he was living among the transient population, which here in Laguna is very small, we would have known about it years ago,” Litchenberg said.

But he is willing to hear what Baron may have to offer.

“If I get something good, I'm going to go out of town and do it. I'm not restricted here to this jurisdiction only,” Litchenberg said.

“If I get something good…” — not very likely, Detective Litchenberg.

Voter Intimidation In Orlando

Bob Herbert of The New York Times reports about voter intimidation in Orlando.

State police officers, armed and in plain clothes, have questioned dozens of voters in their homes. Some of those questioned have been volunteers in get-out-the-vote campaigns.

I asked [Department of Law Enforcement spokesman Geo] Morales in a telephone conversation to tell me what criminal activity had taken place.

“I can’t talk about that,” he said.

I asked if all the people interrogated were black.

“Well, mainly it was a black neighborhood we were looking at — yes,” he said.

He also said, “Most of them were elderly.”

When I asked why, he said, "That's just the people we selected out of a random sample to interview."

Intimidation or legitimate police activity? Here’s the key words to help you decide: a random sample wound up with mostly elderly people in a mostly black neighborhood. Hmmm … random samples don’t behave like that. If it was truly random, there would have been relatively lots of young, white folks interviewed too. As well as Hispanics and Orientals.

Note also what the police spokesman did not say. He did not say that you should have no fears if you plan to register and vote legally. (Link via Political Animal)

Olympic Fever, Part II

I cannot imagine a more frustrating thing to watch than the USA Basektball loss embarrassment to Puerto Rico today, 92-73. The problem lies in the way the team is chosen, plus the fact that it is given almost no time to practice as a team. And so, they are ill equipped to play the international game for several reasons. They don’t play as a team, their opponents do. This has a big effect on team defense. They can’t shoot three pointers, while their opponents often have 3 or 4 players on the court at a time who excel at three pointers. This latter reason, by the way, is one of the big reasons why the United States failed to win the gold or silver in 1988, no three point shooters.

What is needed is a selection process that doesn’t simply take the best NBA players who are willing to participate. We need a selection process that builds a team equipped for the international game, and we need to give them time to practice as a team.

Let me check and see how USA Baseball is doing ...

Thank heavens for Lisa Fernandez and USA Softball. Fernandez pitched a one-hitter that should have been a no-hitter, and USA Softball demolished its biggest potential rival Australia, 10-0. Fernandez also drove in two runs with a double. The only hit Fernandez allowed was in the second inning. Australia’s Peta Edebone appeared to ground out, but the umpire ruled that the ball hit Edebone’s foot in the batter’s box, thus a foul ball. Replays showed that the ball came nowhere near Edebone’s foot. I umpired baseball and softball for 19 years, and I cannot imagine how the umpire made this particular mistake. I don’t think I ever did, and this one wasn’t even close. Edebone, given a second chance, singled for Australia’s only hit. USA Softball now has won both of its games by a combined score of 17-0.

Republicans for Kerry

Over at the Republicans for Kerry web site, we learn that Ohioan Ed Tovey has been a staunch Republican since 1980. When George W. Bush was elected, Tovey began keeping track of how Bush did on each one of his promises. Tovey’s conclusion? Bush failed on every single promise that Tovey tracked. Says Tovey: “Anyway you cut it the answer remains the same... Sorry George we have to let you go!” (Link via First-Draft)

Olympic Fever

I can’t explain this, but every four years, I get Olympic fever. I ignore most sports in the Olympics for four years, then they show up on television during the Olympics, and I am glued to the TV. USA Women's Soccer against Brazil? I watched every minute. Beach volleyball? Fascinating. Indoor volleyball -- gotta watch that! Now, I do draw the line at badminton and synchronized diving (yes, they have synchronized diving now). But I can see how the next two weeks my television will be very busy. Does anyone else experience the same thing? And does anyone have a brave prediction on how the US Basketball teams will do?

Taxing The Middle Class

Today’s Washington Post has an interesting story about the effects of President Bush’s tax cuts. They show a chart from the Congressional Budget Office (an office led by a Bush appointee) that show how the wealthiest Americans are now paying less in taxes while the middle class is paying more, and the bottom classes are paying trivially lower taxes.

Publius at Legal Fiction has a very detailed and thoughtful example of why lowering taxes on the wealthiest Americans really doesn’t seem to help the economy, even though supply-side economics theory says it will. The theory goes: the extra money that the wealthy Americans now have due to lower taxes are supposed to trickle down to the rest of us because those wealthy Americans invest, become entrepreneurs, and all this creates jobs and fuels the economy. But according to Publius, who cites actual data, that never happens.

Finally, Publius quotes John Edwards on Bush’s tax cuts:

President Bush has a war on work. You see it in everything he does. He wants to eliminate every penny of tax on wealth, and shift the whole burden to people who work for a living. So people won't pay any taxes at all when they make money from selling stocks, when they get big dividends every year, or when they inherit a massive estate.

So, us middle class wage earners (all wage earners, really) will have to pay taxes while the rich pay none. Nice.

Spyware and Malware

One of my children downloaded a game, PokerStars. Apparently, the installation of this game also installed several spyware or malware files on my computer. These can be relatively harmful things, slowing down your system by sending information from your computer across the internet to someone else. And what information is it sending? How many times you read Atrios each day? No...more than likely, some of these have the capability of finding passwords, credit card numbers, etc., and sending those across the internet.

How do I know that these nasty programs were installed? First, I have a firewall (Zone Alarm, its free) that alerts me when some program attempts to talk across the internet. When I got an alert, I knew I had problems. How did I get rid of these nasty programs? I used the freeware AdAware by Lavasoft.

Do not run a computer without Zone Alarm or some other firewall. And please download AdAware and run it on your computer as well. I was surprised at the amount of malware it found on my computer.

One other thing: My Internet Explorer was acting funky ... whenever I would close it, I would get an error. By running AdAware, the error has disappeared. AdAware should also cure problems where IE always starts up at a specific home page, not the one you specified. The other solution to IE problems is to use a better browser, and one that is much less susceptible to this type of mischief, specifically, Mozilla.

Buffalo Grain Elevators

I had seen these behemoth buildings along the lakeshore in Buffalo, NY and also along the Buffalo River. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, they would receive enormous amounts of grain via train or lake steamer, and store it until it could be distributed to a hungry world. There are about a dozen of these grain elevators still extant; all now abandoned and empty. They stand as a monument to a glorious time in the city of Buffalo when it was a center of commerce and the “Queen City of the Lakes”. Read about them here and here.

$144.4 Billion To Make War in Iraq

The New York Times Op-Ed pages today contains this lovely chart showing how the $144.4 billion dollars spent in Iraq could have been spent here in the US, making us truly safer.

Paige’s Non-Psychic Predictions

Unfortunately for the family of missing student Maura Murray, psychic Carla Baron’s predictions seem to have been useless. Which is exactly what I predicted would happen with the psychic’s information. The police do not even seem to be using the information the psychic provided.

Incidentally, in the comments to my prediction, an anonymous poster writes in: “Carla Baron is one of the meanest, most insincere people I have ever know.”

Jenna Bush reels in a big fish

Jenna Bush reels in a big fish. That’s big news, because as you all know, there is nothing important going on in the world.

Update: Fafnir gets a similar impression watching TV.

“Iceberg Right Ahead!”

Everything that you could possibly want to know about RMS Titanic and it’s fatal crash with an iceberg on April 14, 1912 is right here at Encyclopedia Titanica. You can read biographies of many of the passengers and crew, diagrams of the ship, details of the collision with the iceberg, transcripts of the subsequent American and British Inquiries and more modern research reports, some of which have never been published elsewhere. It is the work of hundreds of historians and Titanic enthusiasts from around the world.

If I have just one quibble, its easy to find just about everything except a narrative of what happened on that fateful day. Eventually, I found parts of the story in several places. For example, a narrative beginning with lookout Frederick Fleet’s famous call to the bridge “iceberg right ahead” was here.

But definitely check out Encyclopedia Titanica, you will enjoy the time you spend there.

New To The BlogRoll

I have added two new blogs to my BlogRoll. First is the wacky Fafblog! run by Fafnir and Giblets, as they make humorous and sometimes inanely silly remarks about modern culture and politics. As an example, here is Fafnir’s story of how he lost a banana as a role model.

et tu, bananas?

So I was at the supermarket the other day buyin bananas and I notice this banana with a big bright sticker on it tht says "SEE GARFIELD THE MOVIE!" on it and I think to myself well if you can't trust a banana in this day in age who can you trust right so I picked up my things and ran out the door as fast as I could down the street and over the other street and across the next one into the movie theater to see Garfield the Movie.

And it was bad. It was so so bad. On a scale from zero to suck it was a fifteen.

So I ran back out the theater out the street over the next street right up the other street into the supermarket again past all the angry supermarket people who were all still waitin for me from the last time when I ran out carryin all my supermarket things and I ran over to the banana an said "Banana I trusted you! I trusted you to give me an informed and unbiased opinion to direct me in the choices I make in my daily life an you misled me. You misled me with slick advertising and big capital letters and an urgent exclamation point an how am I supposed to believe anything you say now, banana, about how you are rich in potassium and how you are good for my bones and which politicians to vote for? Today I have lost not just a banana, banana, but a role model. You have cast a pall on all bananakind."

At that point I had to leave because the supermarket people were throwin cheese samples at me.

The second blog I have added is First Draft, which endeavors to create the “First Draft of the First Draft of history”. Well, that’s quite a tortured sentence, fortunately the writing there is of much higher quality, usually dealing with political subjects. Run by Athenae, Holden, Tena and Pie, they have a very high pedigree: they subbed for venerable Atrios when he was on vacation.

A Collection of Links

1. Letter to Thomas Kean (Chair of the 9/11 Commission) from the FBI’s Sibel Edmonds: Edmonds is unhappy about the fact that she has provided inside information about serious shortcomings in the FBI that Kean’s Commission has apparently ignored. (Link via The Left Coaster)
2. David Wessel of The Wall Street Journal: he goes beyond reporting he said/she said and actual provides context and background information about the candidate’s plans on taxing. “By cutting taxes now, but not cutting spending, Mr. Bush is guaranteeing tax increases in the future”. (Link via Brad DeLong)
3. Flip-flop: Alan Keyes, resident of Maryland who has never lived in Illinois, now is the Republican candidate for senate in Illinois. Said Keyes in 2000 of Hilary Clinton moving to New York to run for Senate: “I do not take it for granted that it's a good idea to parachute into a state and go into a Senate race. As a matter of principle, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
4. Bush AWOL?: Ian Williams examines the National Guard records here, and concludes: “His use of the National Guard to escape Vietnam should have inhibited him and his party from successively attacking the patriotism and martial virtues of triple amputee Senator Max Cleland and John Kerry—having earlier pointed fingers at Bill Clinton. But going AWOL, to the extent of deserting for a year even from this surrogate service, makes him doubly vulnerable.”

Proposed Dutch law would ban unsolicited toe-licking

Apparently, toe-licking is legal in Holland as of today.

What Congressional Accomplishments?

Next time someone brings up John Kerry’s Senate record, just mention Dick Cheney’s accomplishments in the House (thanks to Atrios for the info). In 11 years, he sponsored two bills that actually passed, one being a bill to help a single constituent. And Kerry’s total? 57 bills that passed.

Update: Jeff Leiber at Daily Kos talks about television talk show host Donna Brazile on CNN’s Crossfire asking Republicans how many bills Cheney passed.

“I’ll Take Complete Embarrassments for $500, Alex”

What is going on here? First, USA Baseball fails to qualify for the Olympics, and now today USA Basketball gets shellacked by Italy. I guess I should have moved to Tajikistan when I had the chance, at least no one there expects to win any Olympic medals.