HMS Bounty

Christian's last text to her mother read, "If I do go down with the ship & the worst happens… just know that I am truly genuinely happy!!"

Well, that is fine and dandy and perhaps comforting to some but the question is just how adequate were the bilge pumps for the rigors of the voyage? Capacity and sturdiness are important. Once you lose the bilge pumps you lose the ship, it just takes some time for it to happen.

They were sailing into tremendous pounding and tremendous amounts of water. It would be manifestly unsafe if the pumps were inadequate or unreliable.

True, ships can indeed be safer out to sea than in harbor but if a ship sinks in the harbor, no crewmen will be lost.

The important thing is not the drills or the safety equipment such as beacons and survival suits. The important thing is the adequacy and reliability of the bilge pumps. It was a large storm and a powerful one. They would need those pumps. Once the electronics get shorted out even briefly, they won't need them anymore.

Quotations by the Captain of the Turks and Caicos registered Pincton Castle are not worth a thing. Look at that ship's record for sailing far out to sea with inexperienced students, inadequate training and conflicting orders.

Anniversary date.

Still a difficult date. It gets easier in some respects. Some of that ease is provided by the awareness that old age and its many maladies will soon relieve me of having to re-live it.

Slap on the wrist...

Richard Munro, 53, has been jailed for five years for withholding evidence from prosecutors while investigating a murder in Fife 17 years ago.

Steven Johnston and Billy Allison were each jailed for ten years and later acquitted.

The criminal justice system depends upon police officers acting with honesty and integrity, judge Lord Doherty said: "The course of conduct you engaged in was a shocking affront to the principles which underly the criminal justice process.

"Your offence was committed in a variety of ways over a considerable period. It was calculated and deceitful."

Strong words from the bench followed by weak actions of a five year custodial sentence.

Municipal bankruptcies

In California: Mammomth Lakes, Stockton and San Bernadino have all recently filed for bankruptcy protection from the pension and salary demands of teachers, police, firemen and nurses.

North Las Vegas has its half million a year Corrections Lieutenant with a fifteen million dollar pension looming at his retirement. Scranton, Pennsylvania just changed all city employees to 7.25 an hour so as to avoid bankruptcy filing.

Roulette "Incident" at the Rio that never happened.

Yeppers!!

As expected, The Rio finally issued a press release admitting that no such incident of seven hits of the number 19 in a row took place. They claim the table was open and no repairman was working on the display panel. The Rio glossed over any obligation on its part that if it provides a display it must provide an accurate one. The Rio press release made no mention of deferred maintenance in this or in other areas and made no mention of the credit crunch CET (nee Harrah's) is facing. I'm sure that such deferred maintenance will continue until either "The Miracle" takes place or "The Default" takes place. In the meantime the company will keep their press releases and their whitewash handy. Undoubtedly they will also keep trying to sell off assets even at rock bottom prices in an attempt to stave off a credit crisis.

The poker player who snapped the photo of the display and tweeted it into internet immortality was simply wandering by and noticed it, he was not actually playing and he should have known that any such sequence would have resulted in a frenzied table.

More Amelia Earhart nonsense.

Rozella Lorenzi of Discovery News reports that dozens of radio signals that were picked up and previously declared spurious should be considered credible even though it would have required Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan to have ditched n the immediately vicinity of Gardner Island prior to fuel exhaustion, successfully beached the aircraft on the tiny atoll, sustained no damage to the starboard engine or electrical system, restarted the starboard engine which would have required both sufficient fuel and sufficient strength from dry batteries and a dry, undamaged electrical system and then the signal would have been propagated from an underbelly antenna. Is any of this reasonable? The plane was valuable. The Japanese wanted it. The Japanese got it. No Mystery.

Murder of Gareth Williams MI6 agent.

Gareth Williams case: Coroner Dr. Fiona Wilcox rendered her formal verdict. Detective Chief Inspector utters usual mouthings about police now following additional lines of inquiry as if they were actually making progress on the case. Impossible to state he did not get into the suitcase voluntarily. (How many people put a soft-sided holdall into a bathtub and then enter the suitcase and zip it up?) No determination as to why apartment temperature was so high during summer months. (Perhaps to accelerate the rate of body decomposition?)No determination for extreme cleanliness of apartment resulting in lack of DNA evidence. No determination that twenty thousand pounds worth of women's clothing was for perverse purposes. No determination of reasons for recent cell phone deletions. No determination of reasons for recent unauthorized searches on MI6 computer systems.

One thing certain: When MI6 is involved, no truth emerges.