Plot holes in reality

[Lemur866]

@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…

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).

[Lemur866]

@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.

[StusBlues]

@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 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

[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.

[Bricker]

@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

Very true. Thanks!

[StusBlues]

@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, starting on Page 2184.

[ITR_champion]

@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.

[tapu]

@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!

[Filbert]

@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.

[Lemur866]

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–are gone.

Great American Interchange

[marshmallow]

@panache45

The first African-American President . . . and he’s not assassinated by some crazed white supremacist.

Are you tempting fate on purpose?

[dtilque]

@CalMeacham

http://www.teemings.net/series_1/issue16/calmeacham.html

Excellent article. You seem to know about some that aren’t in tvtropes

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.

[JKellyMap]

@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:

[Loach]

@Lemur866

Uh, it did. Tom Clancy wrote 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.

[Engineer_Dude]

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?

[Gedd]

@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 . . .

[Deeg]

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

[usedtobe]

“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

Nice thought. Didn’t Alfred Nobel NOT foresee the military use of dynamite? His guilt caused him to create the Peace Prize.

[Deeg]

Here’s another one:

In WW I Germany used the 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, 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.

[johnspartan]

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.