I’m a terrible flier. My flight anxiety has gotten so bad that I now take this weird herbal drug that my mother found for me at GNC before take off. I fast forward past the plane-crash flashbacks in Lost. I’ll never watch Cast Away again. And now this:

“Afterward, Airbus told the NTSB that it included a warning that abrupt rudder movement in some circumstances “can lead to rapid loss of controlled flight,” and, in others, could break off the tail.”

Ummm, isn’t that a problem? Isn’t that a big, gigantic, HEY COME SUE US problem? I mean, if moving the rudder abruptly can cause the tail to break off, why allow the rudder controls to move the rudder abruptly? Surely there’s a program that could be written to prevent an excessive amount of input from being relayed to the mechanism.

I get the sense that airlines are like restaurants: If you could see what goes on in a restaurant’s kitchen ever day, you’d never eat out again. If we really knew how the airlines worked, we’d all take Amtrak.

On remote Pitcairn Island, located somewhere between New Zealand and Peru, six men, including the mayor, have been found guilty of rape and underage sex. Okay, so why is this newsworthy?

(1) For those who may not know, Pitcairn Island was the last stop for the HMS Bounty, after half its crew, led by Master’s Mate Fletcher Christian, mutinied against Captain William Bligh in 1789. Most of the island’s current inhabitants are descendants of those mutineers. (In fact, the mayor himself is named Steve Christian.)

(2) The six men headed to prison comprise roughly half the island’s male populace. (The island’s total population is 47.) Barring conjugal visits, the remaining free men will be extremely busy fathering. Or more male tourists will be coming. Or you’ll see a spurt in certain kinds of banks.

Over at Four Sides, Scott Foster (imagine Paul Wellstone crossed with Bob Vila) has a good introduction to self-home improvement.

Scott will be proud to know that–with a 2″ x 4″, a sledge hammer, and some professional help–I moved a wall in my kitchen over about 1″, allowing me to finally open the oven door on my shiny new range. Next stop: Track lighting in the kitchen.

Galley Friend B.W. has sent along a link to Shawn Macomber’s top-notch review of The Librarian. It’s a novel about an evil Republican president who causes the terrorist attacks of 9/11, invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, and uses a domestic army to steal the 2004 election. But it’s fiction!

Bonus points: The Project for the New American Century figures prominently.

It is my fervent hope that if George Bush wins reelection, we’ll have PNAC: The Musical released off-Broadway before the end of his second term.

Galley Friend L.B. sends along this link to Burger King’s newest chicken promotion: A steel-cage, Ultimate Fighting, chicken fighting video game. Worth your valuable time.

First we learned that CNN’s Daryn Kagan is dating Rush Limbaugh. Now we hear from the Washington Post‘s Reliable Source that NBC’s Campbell Brown is “casually dating” former Iraq CPA spokesman Dan Senor. So what is it that draws hot anchors to right-leaning men? Is it some new take on that Revenge of the Nerds motto, “Jocks only think about sports, nerds only think about sex”?

Joel Engel has a dynamite piece about the Jewish vote and why they’ll vote overwhelmingly for Kerry, no matter what.

I’m sort of fascinated with minority voting patterns and how, even more than other demographic groups, their party affiliation seems really etched in granite and is tied barely at all to actual policy.

For instance, I imagine that a black Republican candidate for president would be hard pressed to garner even 40 percent of the African-American vote–even if that candidate supported affirmative action. Jewish Americans are clearly in the pocket of the Democrats, no matter that the Democratic party is now home to most of America’s ugly anti-Semites. Someone must have written a smart, scholarly treatment of this. Does anyone have some recommended reading?

There’s more. You should go read the whole Lisa de Moraes column. I won’t spoil it for you, but here’s one interesting tidbit:

“. . . the official word from NBC yesterday was that SNL executive producer Lorne Michaels’s position is that its musical guests perform live. To drive home that point, for the West Coast feed the network edited out Simpson’s voice from the backup track that had taken her by surprise. Viewers in Los Angeles saw Simpson gyrate, appear to become confused because the band was playing the wrong song, and then walk off. Presto chango, no lip-syncing.”

Interesting, no? Are people really that afraid of David Geffen?

A word on Lisa de Moraes: For you kids out there who get all your news from the interweb, you’re really missing out. De Moraes is the funniest woman in journalism–and the best television reporter in the country, to boot.