Q: Did Muslim terrorists stage a "dry run" on AirTran flight 297?
A: The airline and an eyewitness say this e-mailed claim is "an urban legend" spread by persons who "live in a fantasy world."
Extras: iPhone Death Panels, Newton, UFOs
This week’s political tidbits range from a new iPhone app to 17th century scientists’ correspondence.
There’s an App for That
OMG! We thought we’d seen it all. But an iPhone app designed to test your knowledge about the overhaul of the health care system? Seriously?
To play "Death Panel," the new game from People Operating Technology, players assume the role of a local official who must answer questions about health care. According to the creators,
December 14, 2009
A little more than half of the United States’ potatoes were produced in Idaho and Washington in 2008.
Source: Census Bureau/National Agriculture Statistics Service
December 13, 2009
In 1997 a massive menorah was built in Latrun, Israel. It was more than 60 feet tall, requiring a rabbi to be lifted in a crane each night of Hanukkah to light the candles.
Source: History Channel
December 12, 2009
Hanukkah means "rededication," and it commemorates the rededication of the temple of Jerusalem by the Maccabees, a group of Jews who defeated the Syrian Greeks in a three-year war.
Source: BBC
A Short Piece on Obama’s Peace Speech
Yesterday President Barack Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway, and made some remarks that could use a bit of context and explanation.
Obama said that "billions have been lifted from poverty." Though he didn’t provide a time frame, he was discussing the effects of the United Nations and the Marshall Plan, both of which began in the late 1940s. We haven’t been able to find any reliable statistics that go back that far,
December 11, 2009
The lowest temperature recorded in the world is -129 degrees Fahrenheit in Vostok, Antarctica, measured on July 21, 1983.
Source: NOAA
‘Climategate’
In late November 2009, more than 1,000 e-mails between scientists at the Climate Research Unit of the U.K.’s University of East Anglia were stolen and made public by an as-yet-unnamed hacker. Climate skeptics are claiming that they show scientific misconduct that amounts to the complete fabrication of …
December 10, 2009
The National Archives has records dating back to 1775. Its holdings include about 9 billion pages of textual records; 7.2 million maps, charts, and architectural drawings; 20 million photographs; billions of machine-readable data sets; and 365,000 reels of film and 110,000 videotapes.
Source: NARA
December 9, 2009
The National Archives and Records Administration keeps 1 percent to 3 percent of all the documents and materials created by the federal government.
Source: NARA