Blogtrek

Planeattack coincidences

Earlier I said that I came up with a name for the horrible events of 2001. September 11 is not good; it means foreboding for all September 11s thereafter, and it is not kind to those who have September 11 as a birthday. I had come up with Towerfall as an alternative, but that ignores the attack on the Pentagon. I settled on Planeattack, which says that the planes did the attack rather than things from the planes, and further the name of the lead hijacker, Atta, appears in the name.

Regardless of what we call it, people have pointed out a lot of coincidences with it. For example: It occurred on the 11th of the month; the first attacking plane was American 11; the plane that attacked the Pentagon was American 77, which is 7 x 11, and 7 divides 175, which is the number of the United plane that attacked the South Tower. The number of people on American 11 was 92, and 9+2 = 11. The number of people on American 77 was 65, and 6+5 = 11. The World Trade Center looked like a big 11 on the New York skyline. The number of firefighters that were killed was 343, which is 7 x 7 x 7. The total number of New York firefighters that had ever died in duty up to September 11 was 777. 9/11 is the number to call in case of an emergency. An asteroid strike in 2077 killing hundreds of thousands in Italy in Arthur Clarke's novel "Rendezvous with Rama" is said to occur on September 11. One can continue with this for a while.

Is all this a coincidence? It surely looks like some sort of design. But I believe it was a coincidence. One can form patterns out of all sorts of things. Finding patterns like in my second paragraph above is like finding patterns in clouds or on the planet Mars. Humans have a tendency to make patterns to explain things. This is OK, if it is supported by evidence and is replicable. I did not think that all this 11 business is replicable. To prove my point I totaled the number of people who died in the terrorist attack last September. It was 3,056. I factored the number and found it was 16 x 191. That took me aback. 191 is an anagram of 9/11. Further, two previous major airliner crashes were Flight 191. I am still sure that this is all a coincidence, but my attempt to prove so only propagated the pattern. Then I found out last week that the death toll at the World Trade Center was lowered by 4, making the overall total 3,052.

I am vindicated. This may all look interesting, but it is strictly a coincidence.

Satanic Teams

I heard today that the high school of Devil’s Lake, ND, called its teams the Satans for 80 years. That seemed natural: Satan is the Devil. Some would say it was sacrilegious though. But it survived the prissy times of the 1920s and 1930s without any objection. Now in the age of political correctness, the school felt forced to change the schools’ name. How about the Red Leprechauns? It says something when a name of this sort fails to survive now whereas it did in the 1930s. That says what we are up against, now. Next thing they are going to do probably is change the town’s name. One thing that may have contributed to this is the existence of Satanism, a cult associated with extremist groups. I suppose they have a point, but still an 80-year-old name that did not refer to anything real has become victim to today’s weird happenings.

West Nile Virus

I see now that there is a case of this virus in the area where I live. The person had flu-like symptoms and went to the doctor. So that means go to the doctor if you develop such symptoms to check for West Nile. The person is better now. And again I say it is a non-epidemic. Two out of three people infected develop no symptoms. Those that do develop flu symptoms – a visit to the doctor can settle the question and there are drugs to treat the disease. It is a problem, and to some extent it can be prevented – get rid of standing water. But to wear long clothing in 100 degree weather is self-torture. Bug spray can make you feel yucky. I say get rid of standing water and report any fever or flu to the doctor. Flu is serious enough anyway – if West Nile is that bad, then so is influenza, a disease which killed hundreds of thousands including one of my great aunts in 1918 – an E6 epidemic.