How not to take off in a floatplane

As regular readers will know, I'm up in Alaska at the moment, enjoying summer in one of the most beautiful States in the USA.

Lake Hood, just next door to the international airport in Anchorage, is the world's largest floatplane base in summer, with up to 200 floatplanes based there. In winter, when it freezes over, many of the floatplane owners simply switch to skis, making Lake Hood the world's biggest skiplane base!

Just last month, there was a nasty accident on the lake, from which fortunately all occupants walked away unhurt. I'm told that the pilot's wife had just bought him the de Havilland Beaver aircraft involved, which would be in the half-million-dollar-plus range: and he'd only just taken his floatplane license. He certainly didn't know what he was doing when he tried to take off from Lake Hood, with results as shown in the video below.

Ouch!

There's a discussion of the accident on the Studentpilot message board, which provides more information for those who are interested.

Peter

Wallaby darned!

To continue with an Australian theme (see the post below), here's a story about crop circles and aliens that weren't.

The mystery of crop circles in poppy fields in Australia's southern island state of Tasmania has been solved -- stoned wallabies are eating the poppy heads and hopping around in circles.

"We have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles," the state's top lawmaker Lara Giddings told local media on Thursday.

"Then they crash. We see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies that are high," she said.

Wallaby (image courtesy of Wikipedia)

Many people believe crop circles that mysteriously appear in fields around the world are created by aliens.

Poppy producer Tasmanian Alkaloids said livestock which ate the poppies were known to "act weird" -- including deer and sheep in the state's highlands.

"There have been many stories about sheep that have eaten some of the poppies after harvesting and they all walk around in circles," said field operations manager Rick Rockliff.

There's more at the link.

I've never believed all the crap about crop circles being created by aliens. However, I've always put them down to the actions of credulous hippies and tree-hugger types. Stoned wallabies are culprits I'd never even considered, quite frankly!



Peter

Doofus Of The Day #236

Today's Doofus (admittedly, a more inadvertent Doofus than most) is from Australia.

A thief in Western Australia made the mistake of stealing a python from a research lab that had swallowed a radio-collared marsupial, police said.

The radio-tracking device led investigators to a house in Heathbridge, where police found the python and arrested a 30-year-old man, The West Australian reported.

The snake was discovered in the Narrogin bush by Department of Environmental Conservation researchers tracking a radio-collared woylie, a small endangered marsupial. By the time they found the woylie, it was inside the snake, along with its collar and tracking device.

The 6-foot snake was brought to the Woodvale Research Center to make sure it had not been harmed by its meal. The snake was stolen from the lab last weekend and recovered Thursday, with the radio-tracking device still inside and sending out signals.

Hmm. I suppose he couldn't be expected to know his stolen snake was signalling . . . but if he hadn't stolen it in the first place, he wouldn't have been surprised by the fact!

Peter

He'll never live this down!

Take one fat kid.

Place on rollercoaster, with mother in adjacent seat.

Launch rollercoaster.

Oh, dear . . .

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #235

Today's Doofus is from Georgia, USA.

A woman is facing a host of charges after police say she tried to run over her ex-boyfriend during an argument.

Houston County Sheriff’s Sgt. Al Elvins says 41-year-old Angela Gail Pollock is charged with aggravated assault with a motor vehicle, aggravated assault against a police officer, terroristic threats, criminal damage to property, drunken driving and reckless driving, among other charges.

Authorities say Pollock tried to run down her ex-boyfriend, 55-year-old Donald Mullis, Friday evening with a car as he loaded her belongings into the trunk. She chased him through the yard in her car, hitting a transformer, a neighbor’s house, a 3-foot inflatable pool and, eventually, a police car as she tried to flee.

There's more at the link.

Aim, dear. It's all in the aim. Without it, the best-laid plans . . . oh, never mind.



Peter

The trouble with politics?

According to Leigh Scott, it's politicians!

... all these political scandals serve to hammer home a central point: politicians are a wacky bunch. They are an odd form of sociopath. Deluded, narcissistic, self-important wind bags who spend their lives seeking the ultimate freeloading government gig. They are not to be trusted. Government should be limited so we don’t allow these types of people: philanderers, tax cheats, alcoholics, drug addicts, con artists, pedophiles and thieves too much control over the people.

. . .

There is an inherent fallacy to statist ideologies like communism and socialism. For them to work, the people in the government must be beyond reproach. They must be angels; wise sages who can put their own egos, wants and desires on the back burner to serve the common good. Where are these benevolent deities? Where are these Mother Theresa types to guide us and protect us? They ain’t in Washington.

There's more at the link.

I think the author has nailed it. We need a better class of politician. Trouble is, where to find them? All the decent folks wouldn't be seen dead as politicians.

Peter

Talk about a sparring partner!

Hi, everyone. Light blogging tonight, as I've been fully occupied trying to help Miss D. with her wing re-sparring issues.

She's rebuilding a 1941 Taylorcraft light observation plane. The wings consist of aluminum ribs covered with fabric. At their heart are two wooden spars, a thick, deep one at the front and a smaller one at the rear. She had new spars made, but unfortunately the spars for a Taylorcraft varied over the years, and she was given spars for a 1970's-vintage model instead of her just-before-World-War-II variant. Her wings' ribs wouldn't fit over a double reinforcing plate in the spar.

No real problem, though. She got hold of the expert who made the spars, and today I ran them up there, towing them on a long trailer hitched behind Jenny's Jeep. It's a two-hour run from here to there, through some very beautiful country, and I enjoyed the drive. On arrival, the builder set to work with chisel, pliers, plane and sander, and soon had the extra reinforcing plate off the offending parts of the spars. A touch of polyurethane sealant later, and time out for a community lunch while it dried, and we wrapped them up, loaded them on thetrailer, and I headed back.

The spars are now within spec for a 1941 Taylorcraft, and Miss D. and I will be building wings over the next week to ten days. I look forward to learning a lot - including verifying that bit about Adam's rib and aircraft spars!

More blogging tomorrow, I promise (wings permitting!).

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #234

Today's Doofus is from Arkansas.

A mother who drank 13 beers before a psychological evaluation failed to recover custody of her three young children despite claiming she wasn't drunk because she "can drink like a fish."

The woman wanted to get the children back from her husband's stepmother. The Arkansas Court of Appeals rejected her arguments Wednesday, citing addictions, frequent absences and criminal activity to support her habits. It said the woman made no meaningful efforts to restructure her life.

Uh . . . yeah. Drinking 13 beers before a court-ordered evaluation might be described as shooting oneself in the metaphorical foot!





Peter

Another legal conundrum

Following yesterday's post about the 'hate crime' issue, there's another legal imbroglio that's caught my eye. According to CNN:

[Youssef] Megahed came to the United States from Egypt in 1998 as a legal immigrant when he was 12. His problems started two years ago when, as an engineering student at the University of South Florida, he went on a road trip with a new friend, Ahmed Mohamed.

The men were pulled over on a highway, near Charleston, South Carolina, for speeding.

Police say they searched their vehicle and found PVC pipe with potassium nitrate inside, along with detonator cord inside one of Mohamed's bags.

The government said the materials were "low explosives." Mohamed said they were materials for homemade model rockets.

Youssef Megahed claimed he did not know that the materials were in the car.

. . .

Mohamed pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists and is serving a 15-year prison sentence.

However, Megahed went to trial and was found not guilty on two charges of possession and transportation of explosives. He was later set free.

"I'm very happy with this," he said, smiling to reporters after his acquittal.

. . .

Megahed left the courthouse on Friday, April 3, ready to resume his life and his studies. He and his family spent the weekend at the beach at Fort DeSoto, Florida. Three days later, federal agents surrounded him, and his father, Samir, as they left a Wal-mart store near their home in Tampa and he was arrested again.

"They surround us....I'm in shock. They didn't give us a chance to speak to somebody to know what was going on," said Samir Megahed. "I try to open the telephone, but they didn't allow me," he said.

Megahed is now being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, as someone ICE says is "engaged or likely to become engaged in ... terrorist activity" even though he has never been criminally charged with terrorism.

ICE will present an immigration judge with the very same facts that led to Megahed's acquittal in the criminal case. In immigration court, the burden of proof is significantly less.

The evidence, from a search of the computer at his family's home, includes "numerous videos, documents and an Internet search history that supports Islamic extremism, jihad against the United States...," ICE alleged in court documents.

If found guilty, Megahed will be deported.

CNN requested an on-camera interview with Megahed, but ICE would not allow it.

"Because of the national security implications of this case, ICE cannot allow the use of recording devices during in-person interviews with Mr. Megahed," spokesman Richard Rocha said in an e-mail.

Instead, CNN conducted a phone interview with Megahed from the Glades County Detention Center, near Lake Okeechobee.

"I feel this is double jeopardy because the same allegations here are the same allegations that was there, in the court, in the trial," he said.

Megahed was asked, "Are you a terrorist?"

"I would say this is a false allegation," Megahed responded. "Baseless. And I go to court to fight those allegations again."

ICE spokeswoman Nicole Navas said in response: "He will have the opportunity to present the facts of his case before an immigration judge."

This is not the first time the government has gone to immigration court as a last resort after failing to win a criminal prosecution.

"The government doesn't use this a lot, but I think this is an arrow in the quiver that needs to stay because there are those cases where the government needs to do everything in its power to keep us safe, from some of those same individuals," said former U.S. Attorney Guy Lewis.

"In one context, the real question is, are you going to jail for a long period of time. The other context is, are you going to get to live among us," Lewis said.

But Youssef's father says it's pure discrimination against Muslims.

"They didn't want us to live here. And because he wins the case, they want to destroy him completely," Samir Megahed said.

There's more at the link.

Once again, this raises troubling questions. If Mr. Megahed was acquitted on criminal charges, surely it's double jeopardy to arrest him again on precisely the same evidence, and bring the same charges in another court? I know the courts have held that different charges in different courts don't violate the 'double indemnity' protection afforded by the Constitution, but these don't appear to be different charges. I'm very wary of allowing a legal bureaucracy to pursue such a case on so flimsy a pretext.

What say you, readers? Is suspicion - even what may be well-founded suspicion, if the evidence alleged to exist against Mr. Megahed is, in fact, real - sufficient grounds to overturn the principle of 'double jeopardy'? I maintain that it isn't. The principle is important enough that it should be paramount, in my opinion. However, I also accept that there's a case on the other side, even though I don't agree with it as presented in the article.

What say you? Please let us know in Comments.

Peter

A novel way to fish!

I'm amazed at a fishy story from China.

A Chinese farmer dug a 50ft hole inside his house to go fishing.

Li Huiyan, of Chongqing, hired 30 villagers for six months to dig the hole in his kitchen, reports IC Media.

He wanted to reach an underground river which he suspected was full of fish.




The river had been over ground but had disappeared 30 years ago when the local authorities bombed part of a mountain to pave a road.

Li explained: "The river used to have so many fish, and by simply putting a net there, hundreds of fish would be caught."

After digging his pit down to the river, Li installed a fishing net across it and regularly hauls out fish, so far earning his family nearly £2,000 (US $3,300).

There's more at the link.

Full marks to Mr. Li for observation and ingenuity. To basically haul fresh fish out of your basement is a great idea! Talk about maximizing the value of the property . . .

Peter

Are hate crimes different?

I'm annoyed - but also challenged - by an editorial on hate crimes at CNN.com. The authors write:

A hate crime occurs when an individual intentionally targets a victim or their property because of his or her actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, disability or sexual orientation.

. . .

Our research has established that hate crimes are a qualitatively unique category of offenses. Compared to non-bias motivated crimes these crimes are more likely to involve violence, injury, hospitalization, psychological trauma and a greater risk of retaliatory attacks, which can often spill across municipal borders. And while we cannot say whether hate crimes overall are actually increasing, there does appear to be an increase in the most violent hate crimes.

In 2007, hate-motivated homicides claimed nine lives, up from three in 2006, and the last year has seen a steady stream of violent plots and attacks against symbolic targets by hardened hate-mongers.

. . .

But there is something more to hate crime's harms that cannot be completely captured by statistics or criminological studies. As the Holocaust Museum attack demonstrates, hate crimes threaten pluralistic democracies in a way that other crimes do not.

Unlike many other crimes, they are at once discriminatory and terroristic. As law professor James Weinstein observed: "The effect of Kristallnacht on German Jews was greater than the sum of the damage to buildings and assaults on individual victims."

Violence and threats that destabilize the bonds between citizens and the democratic institutions that they share are worthy of additional punishment and federal assistance. Moreover, victims of hate-motivated violence are entitled to legal protection no matter where they reside.

There's more at the link.

Personally, I have a problem with any so-called 'hate crime' being defined as such. To me, the crime is what's done: assault, murder, robbery, etc. The motivation behind the crime is basically irrelevant. Someone who's been murdered because of his or her race, sexual orientation or gender is no more or less dead than someone who's been murdered in order to steal his or her car!

I believe the punishment should be the same for the crime under all circumstances, regardless of why it was committed. If one punishes one murder more severely than another because of 'hate crime' elements, isn't one basically saying that it was a worse crime than a murder committed for other reasons? How is that possible? Aren't the two victims just as dead as one another? And isn't that demeaning to the victim of the latter crime?

I'd love to hear your opinion about this, readers. Is the presence of 'hate crime' factors a sufficient cause to impose stronger penalties for the same act? Or should all similar crimes be punished alike, regardless of motivation? Please let us hear your views in Comments.

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #233

Today's Doofus is from Florida.

Authorities in Florida said a man suspected of bank robbery was arrested after witnesses reported a drunken man covered in red dye.

Pinellas County sheriff's detectives said homeless local Michael Prance, 53, was first reported at 6 p.m. Thursday by someone who called police to say an intoxicated person covered in red dye had been seen at a pool in the Caribbean Mobile Home Park, the St. Petersburg Times reported Monday.

Detectives said Prance allegedly became covered in dye when he robbed the BBC Bank in Seminole earlier in the day. Prance was next reported by a bus driver reported seeing the suspect at a bus stop in front of Seminole Subs.

Deputies said Prance was holding a bag filled with a large amount of dye-stained money when he was arrested at about 7:30 p.m.

Prance was charged with bank robbery and disorderly intoxication.

Sure sounds like a dyed-in-the-wool criminal to me!



Peter

Back in limited circulation

My grateful thanks to all of you who left comments and/or e-mailed about my late father. Your concern and support are appreciated.

I'm back in circulation, sort of, although I'm going to have spotty Internet access for the next two weeks or so. I won't be back to normal until mid-July. However, I'll post articles in advance, scheduling their publication ahead of time, so I hope I'll be able to maintain this blog at the level of interest you've come to expect until I can regularize my schedule.

Thanks again.

Peter