# Plot holes in reality **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 17, 2014, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533 "2014-02-17T08:22:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/81 "2014-02-19T18:01:46Z")
> [@Filbert](#): > > Um… there’s only one other egg laying species found in Australia, and it’s also found in New Guinea, which has another 3 endemic egg laying species as well. > > Aussie wildlife does have plenty of other plot holes though- so it has the majority of the world’s marsupials, and not one of them lives in water? Did someone forget about that major habitat while cobbling them all together in a hurry or something? > > They remembered 'em [in South America](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_opossum)… The trouble for an aquatic marsupial is keeping babies in the pouch from alternately drowning when water gets in the pouch or suffocating when air can’t get in the pouch. Marsupialism doesn’t lend itself to an aquatic lifestyle, unlike either egg-laying (platypus) or placentalism (list of aquatic placentals as long as your arm). ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/82 "2014-02-19T18:09:13Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > You’d be pretty pissed off if you were one of the guys on the ship that _did_ make it all the way round the world, and then you look in the record books and see some dead dude who barely made it halfway take all the credit. > > “Yes, very interesting, Señor Elcano. Now tell me, did Magellan find any potatoes?” Funny thing, Magellan had sailed to the Philippines on an earlier voyage, so he WAS the first person to sail all the way around the world, he just didn’t do it in one voyage. ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/83 "2014-02-19T20:02:16Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Strike the words “to Congress,” and replace them with “under oath, both to a grand jury and in a deposition,” and you’re in better factual shape. > > There were four [Articles of Impeachment](http://usgovinfo.about.com/blimpeach.htm) voted in against President Clinton: > > [ul] > [li]Perjury before the federal grand jury [/li][li]Perjury in the Jones deposition[/li][li]Obstruction of justice[/li][li]Generic “Abuse of power”[/li][/ul] > > it’s true that one specification of the ‘abuse of power’ item was making false statements to Congress – but that was listed alongside false and misleading statements deceiving the people of the United States, false and misleading statements to members of the Cabinet and White House aides, and the frivolous assertion of executive privilege. In short, whatever lies he delivered to Congress were small potatoes in the impeachment stew. **Bricker** , please note that only the first and third points above actually passed their House votes. The Jones perjury charge and the rather odd Article 4 were not “voted in.” [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/impeachvote121198.htm](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/impeachvote121198.htm) ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/84 "2014-02-19T20:25:21Z")
Okay, Inna Minnit and Bricker finally got Clinton right. Allow me to clear up the Nixon thing. The stuff we all remember Nixon for is not what forced him out. He resigned just one step ahead of formal impeachment **for warrantless wiretaps,** not for the other stuff. He might have been convicted in a regular federal court after his resignation, if not for Gerald Ford pardoning him. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/85 "2014-02-19T20:36:05Z")
> [@StusBlues](#): > > **Bricker** , please note that only the first and third points above actually passed their House votes. The Jones perjury charge and the rather odd Article 4 were not “voted in.” > > [Washingtonpost.com Special Report: Clinton Accused](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/impeachvote121198.htm) Very true. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/86 "2014-02-19T21:11:25Z")
> [@AskNott](#): > > Okay, Inna Minnit and Bricker finally got Clinton right. > > Allow me to clear up the Nixon thing. The stuff we all remember Nixon for is not what forced him out. He resigned just one step ahead of formal impeachment **for warrantless wiretaps,** not for the other stuff. He might have been convicted in a regular federal court after his resignation, if not for Gerald Ford pardoning him. In the interests of fighting ignorance, the House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment against Nixon, summarized thus: I. Obstruction of Justice/Abuse of Power to Obstruct Justice II. Abuse of Power (including improper directions to the IRS and FBI, along with the wiretaps and such \*\*AskNott \*\*refers to) III. Defying Congressional Subpoenas IMHO, wiretaps were a minor portion of Nixon’s misdeeds enumerated therein. To wit, after the committee reported, Nixon released addition tapes that were more explicit in his misuse of power, including calling in the CIA against the FBI, but nothing (or very little) involving wiretaps. Following these releases, all the congressmembers who had voted against the articles in committee indicated that they would vote for impeachment when the matter came to the full House. You can read the resolution [here](https://bulk.resource.org/gpo.gov/rules/deschler/52093c14_txt-16.txt), starting on Page 2184. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/87 "2014-02-19T21:35:30Z")
> [@tapu](#): > > In the 50s and 60s we thrilled at the videophones in science fiction, esp cartoons. Now we can have videophoning in a number of ways _yet we prefer to type back and forth with one another using our thumbs._ What’s really unrealistic is that, after a few thousand years of not having the ability to instantaneously communicate worldwide, human being gained that ability, and what did they use it for? Swapping pictures of cats with inanely misspelled captions, and that sort of thing. ---
**Author:** ![tapu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@tapu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tapu)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/88 "2014-02-19T22:08:32Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > What’s really unrealistic is that, after a few thousand years of not having the ability to instantaneously communicate worldwide, human being gained that ability, and what did they use it for? Swapping pictures of cats with inanely misspelled captions, and that sort of thing. Oh, that is rich! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/89 "2014-02-19T22:35:41Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > The trouble for an aquatic marsupial is keeping babies in the pouch from alternately drowning when water gets in the pouch or suffocating when air can’t get in the pouch. Marsupialism doesn’t lend itself to an aquatic lifestyle, unlike either egg-laying (platypus) or placentalism (list of aquatic placentals as long as your arm). Granted, but there _are_ aquatic marsupials, just they’re found in a region where most mammals are placental- you know, the place where there’s loads of competition, rather than the place where there’s hardly any. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/90 "2014-02-19T23:44:05Z")
Yes, except South America used to be an island continent with a totally unique fauna of marsupials, xenarthrans, and unique orders of herbivores. Then the Panama land bridge formed and South America was invaded by cosmopolitan mammal species and huge swathes of the native mammals went extinct. There were some reverse-migrations like armadillos and virginia opossums, but most of the migrations were the other way. So South America still has a relict population of marsupials, more than North America, but the super-awesome marsupials that used to live there–like the Sabertoothed marsupial predator [Thylacosmilus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacosmilus)–are gone. > **[Great American Interchange](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_Interchange)** > > The Great American Biotic Interchange (commonly abbreviated as GABI), also known as the Great American Interchange and the Great American Faunal Interchange, was an important late Cenozoic paleozoogeographic biotic interchange event in which land and freshwater fauna migrated from North America via Central America to South America and vice versa, as the volcanic Isthmus of Panama rose up from the sea floor and bridged the formerly separated continents. Although earlier dispersals had occurred, pr... ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/91 "2014-02-20T03:49:19Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > The first African-American President . . . and he’s not assassinated by some crazed white supremacist. Are you tempting fate on purpose? ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/92 "2014-02-20T12:15:46Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > [http://www.teemings.net/series\_1/issue16/calmeacham.html](http://www.teemings.net/series_1/issue16/calmeacham.html) Excellent article. You seem to know about some that aren’t in [tvtropes](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TotalEclipseOfThePlot) A couple minor corrections: 1. Britain only dropped 11 days, not 17, when it changed to New Style. In fact the difference between Julian and Gregorian is 13 days right now and will be until the end of the century. 2. Columbus only made 4 trips to the New World, not 5. The eclipse bit happened on the 4th voyage. I thought it happened in Cuba, not Jamaica, but could be wrong about that. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/93 "2014-02-20T12:59:42Z")
> [@K364](#): > > That the Sun is 400 times the size of the moon, and 400 times farther away - which makes the perfect fit for solar total eclipses/annular eclipses and viewing the corona. Darn, I came in to post this. Actually, things line up like this only for the past, and next, million years or so…so, the coincidence is that a sentient species (humans) evolved right at the same time. Yet there is no connection! Or is there…?:eek: ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/94 "2014-02-20T13:49:10Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Uh, it did. Tom Clancy wrote [Debt of Honor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_of_Honor) in 1994. Dale Brown who writes fiction usually focused on the US Air Force also wrote something similar in one of his books around the same time. ---
**Author:** ![Engineer\_Dude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9fc29f/32.png) [@Engineer\_Dude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Engineer_Dude)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/95 "2014-02-20T13:54:55Z")
1. It’s been over 80 years and the geniuses at Similac/Enfamil still haven’t come up with something that doctors can agree is a suitable replacement for breast milk. 2. A contractor and a customer can agree on a price to build a huge building before the work is done. A mechanic can give you a very close estimate for the cost of repairs before the work is done. Yet somehow a firm fixed price or even a close estimate can’t be given with major surgeries and other health care related expenses? 3. You’re telling me that there’s not some kind of market for doctors that are on time for their appointments with their patients? The patient is the customer, right? Wouldn’t being on time for appointments be one of the most basic ways to keep customers happy and get them to recommend doctors to others? ---
**Author:** ![Gedd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gedd/32/4938_2.png) [@Gedd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gedd)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/96 "2014-02-20T19:20:27Z")
> [@Filbert](#): > > Um… there’s only one other egg laying species found in Australia, and it’s also found in New Guinea, which has another 3 endemic egg laying species as well. That depends on what your defintion of the word “there’s” is. When I spoke of “Australia” I was referring to the greater Indo-Australian Archipelago, of course, which as everyone knows, includes New Guinea. Yeah. Or I was reading the Wiki article on my phone and it said: > [@](#): > > The only surviving examples of monotremes are all indigenous to Australia [Hard Return] and New Guinea . . . ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/97 "2014-02-20T22:47:49Z")
The Titanic is one of the best ones, IMO. And there’s more: the Titanic had two sister ships, one which sank and the other almost sank. One woman was on all three ships and survived all three disasters: [Violet Jessop](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violet_Jessop) ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2014, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/98 "2014-02-21T02:05:01Z")
“This is the War to End All Wars” - and people at least acted like they believed it. The Doomsday Device - a weapon so horrible that no sane person would EVER use it. Name a weapon which has not been used (yes, fusion v fission may be different - but only the stuff being vaporized will notice the difference). > [@](#): > > “Richard Gatling created his gun during the American Civil War, he sincerely believed that his invention would end war by making it unthinkable to use due to the horrific carnage possible by his weapons.” > **[Famous Inventions](https://www.thoughtco.com/famous-inventions-4133301)** > > From airships and zeppelins to Slinkys and yo-yos, easily research the history of any famous invention with A-to-Z lists, timelines, and historical essays. Nice thought. Didn’t Alfred Nobel NOT foresee the military use of dynamite? His guilt caused him to create the Peace Prize. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2014, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/99 "2014-02-21T16:34:47Z")
Here’s another one: In WW I Germany used the [Von Schleiffen plan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Schleiffen_plan) to almost win the war in the first month. The Germans invade France not along the French-German border but through the Low Countries. After WW I what do the French do? They build the [Maginot Line](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maginot_line), a series of fortifications _along the French-German border_. When the Nazis invade France, what do they do? They invade through the Low Countries, this time with wild success. ---
**Author:** ![johnspartan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a183cd/32.png) [@johnspartan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnspartan)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2014, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/100 "2014-02-21T19:13:37Z")
In the wake of the “Bullygate” noise, I thought it really unoriginal that of course the most _infamous_ NFL player, esp. among those who wouldn’t otherwise hear anything about football, is Richie **Incognito**. I mean, honestly, that isn’t any better than everyone in Avatar fighting over Unobtanium. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533.md?page=6)