My father was a Comair pilot for more than ten years; before that he was a career pilot for the USAF. He was raised an hour south of Lexington; this morning’s crash is a heartache. My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of all on board.

USA Today describes similar incidents of pilots using the wrong runway. The short runway at Lexington did not allow sufficient time for the plane to get up to the correct airspeed for liftoff. Both runways at Lexington, per USA Today’s diagram, require a left turn off the taxiway, but the turn into the shorter runway is considerably sharper. It was early, it was dark, and it was rainy, but it also seems that the pilots must have been lacking in familiarity with Lexington’s layout.

“There are a lot (of planes) that actually do make wrong-runway takeoffs and just make it,” says John Purvis, former chief accident investigator for Boeing.

Maybe so, but he’s not specifically speaking of Lexington, and not all airports are created equal–short prop-aircraft runways are less likely to be side-by-side with big commercial jet runways at most large airports. You can take off on the wrong runway just fine if it’s long enough; you might be running a risk with the wind direction, but in a jet that’s a much smaller risk than a short runway is.

Recent problems with runway lights at the airport could have caused confusion. The smaller runway is not supposed to be lit at night, according to an airport guide. Normally, the longer runway’s bright lights would make it easily distinguishable from the smaller runway.

However, most of the lights on the longer of the two runways had been inoperable until early Saturday and pilots had been notified of the outage, Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Laura Brown said. Brown declined to comment on the accident.

The smaller runway is not supposed to be lit; it’s not said if it was lit, and by raising the question, USAT implies that it might have been. The lights on the long runway were inoperable until Saturday; they don’t say how they were this morning. These are all facts that should come out in the investigation.

Later today, Hollywood kicked off the Emmys with a marked lack of taste. It’s true, as Hot Air’s Ian says, that it’s less a case of bad taste and more one of bad timing, but with so much in the news–and Hollywood–the timing is the taste. And as Ian goes on to ask, if a plane had gone down near L.A. instead of in Kentucky, would they have proceeded with the opener as planned? If all else failed, they could have cut off the scene in the plane and just started with Conan washing up on the beach. Everybody would have gotten the Lost reference with no need to depict even a vestige of the horror of a plane crash.

Update: If I’m going to get along in blogging I need to trust my first instincts more. Ace said he thought the opening looked a tad edited truncated. I was out last night and not watching the Emmys live. I got home and went to the computer first, not the TV. When I saw Hot Air’s headline, I went to my TiVo, not Hot Air’s vid, and watched the opening myself. I thought it looked edited, and went back to Hot Air to see if the East Coast live show might have been different from the West Coast delayed broadcast. They were the same.

But the opening was edited before the show was broadcast. I watched the TiVo again this morning to be sure. It’s harder to see at Hot Air’s embedded vid than on the TV screen, but look out at the ocean behind Conan–there’s a large splash, with nothing there to cause it. It’s too much to believe that a random passing whale decided it was time for his appearance with O’Brien. I’m thinking they showed part of the plane hurtling into the ocean a la Lost and subsequently edited it out. If so, good for them.

Yes, it’s Friday night. Yes, I have a toddler. So yes, I am frequently at home on Friday night. And yes, it’s been a long week and I’m tired, and yes, anything I would want to blog about takes too much link-huntin’ and is too depressing.

So I grabbed my current Beer of Choice (Skinny Dip, by New Belgium Brewing, Fort Collins, CO) and turned on the TV. First thing I see: Tom Hanks, eyeballing the reps from Animal Control and saying, “You going in there with just these things?” Animal Control Gal eyes him back, brandishes her dog-noose-on-a-pole: “We do this for a living. Step aside, please.”

Mwahahah. Tom Hanks was/is one of the finest actors of his generation. He does Everyman to perfection and adds a wicked list of character skills as well. I say was/is only because I’ve taken a pass on a big bunch of his more recent movies, including The DaVinci Batch of Christians-Are-Evil Truthiness Code, through a combination of child-rearing and “these movies don’t look so good.” Maybe someday I’ll catch up and find out if the first impression was misleading. Also, in Turner and Hooch, Mare Winningham was awesome.

Hanks to incessantly barking dog: “What am I supposed to do, make you a margarita? SHUT UP! SHUT UP!”

Update: Since I had a child, I’ve watched TV with captions. At first this was because I watched TV muted so the drone would not get into his innocent little ears at an early age (or while he was nursing to sleep and I wanted quiet entertainment). After a while it just became habitual and occasionally is highly useful. While Turner’s screaming at Hooch, the neighbor says, “Give him a valium, Turner. Take one yourself.” Never was able to catch that line before.

Update: After a brief foray into the funny but unaddictive That ’70s Show (kudos to them for putting the apostrophe in the correct place), I momentarily lose interest in the TiVo and get caught by the shinies at IMDb. Specifically, after being taken to task by William H. Macy about her bad, bad work ethic, Lindsay Lohan is working on a movie with Macy’s wife, Felicity Huffman. Now I am conflicted. I Heart Huffman; she is for me part of the Sports Night Legacy. But can I see a movie starring Hanoi Jane? No, probably not.

Update: While I was slogging through all that IMDb linkage, Billy Dee Williams popped up on That ’70s Show as a pastor who references Han Solo from the pulpit. On any show but this one that would probably be too cute.

Update: Who says TV is escape from reality? A few clicks of the magic TiVo wand brought up Frasier (no more IMDb linkage; look them up yourself, it’s not exactly an obscure site), where Niles and Daphne, having finally reached blissful coupledom after how many? tortured years of TV-off-limits-dom, are applying for the exclusive private “Pre-Kindergarten and Daycare” they want for their potential child(ren). The Little Bean is coming of a preschoolish age right now and definitely needing more of a play companion than BlogMom. It is HELLA DIFFICULT to find the right school, y’all. Too much chaos. Too much structure. Too much Bossy Teacher. Not enough Bossy Teacher. Teacher who thinks she knows more than I do about what’s good for my kid. Teacher who has no control over her classroom. It is a huge Pain. In. the. Ass, and it’s only preschool. You might think, “Yeah, it’s only preschool, what can the big deal possibly be?” Well, as Niles just said, “The top two percent in coloring and putting away can pretty much write their own ticket.”

Update: While writing the above, I reached for my beer and knocked it all over the recliner and the floor. Yes, it’s Full Disclosure Night here at Chez Anwyn, and after spending all day trying to teach The Little Bean that when he’s wearing the Manly Striped Underpants, pee where you feel like it is not a good choice, I then am the one to spill beer all over the place. You can’t make this stuff up. Well, I couldn’t. Goldstein could, but funnier. The armadillo would spill the beer while contemplating where the little one should be sent for preschool, not me. And for the record, Goldstein’s right about children’s shows–it is hard to find one not chock full of PC references and brainwashing. Even Little Einsteins, a favorite around here for a brief time–classical music! famous art! my kid knows how to crescendo and diminuendo before he’s three! what’s not to love? How about: references to the U.N. and a fighter jet as a recurring villain? I’m fine with The Bean not loving that show any more.

Update: Jimmy Stewart is the cutest thing ever.

This is cool. (h/t Bryan at Hot Air and Hot Air commenter RobertCSampson for the full ad.)

In contrast to this piece of ignorant tripe (h/t Mike Lief) signed by some of the usual suspects, including Sarandon and Penn, it is refreshing, to say the least, to see some of my favorites who know how to put the blame where it belongs. Particularly I was tickled to see the name of Joshua Malina on the list–he made me love him in Sports Night but unfortunately only made it to The West Wing just as I wrote it off as ER in the White House.

I wonder why ad signer Pat Sajak doesn’t write for Human Events any more? That piece pretty much sums up my view on celebrities preaching politics: Do it all you want, but don’t whine when it affects your popularity far more than it affects national policy.

Allah doesn’t believe they mean it. (See this comment thread.) I don’t believe they’d even bother unless they do mean it. They have nothing to lose by keeping silent, and much to lose by putting their names to that ad.

Late to the party, I know. I watch a lot of TV during the season, some less hot but still watchable shows get recorded and left till the summer, and 24 is a newcomer–this was my first season. And it was awesome. Kiefer Sutherland is fan-frickin’-tastic as Jack Bauer, and although the rest of the show at first had me struggling to suspend disbelief regarding the technical wizardry, timing, and inhuman task management of these people, I soon learned to forget all that and go along for the ride.

But I’m a little surprised that in his detailed summary of the show, Rick Moran apparently made no comment on the 24‘s skate-near-the-edge portrayal of President Logan as a corrupt, oil-motivated, power-mad executive who’d do anything, include endangering American citizens at the hands of terrorists, if it would satisfy his political aims. I flew into a huge rant at the screen when I realized where they were going with this. Isn’t it bad enough that people actually believe these kinds of things are possible in Bush’s world without having a major network TV show stir the pot?

I guess it’s fortunate that the frustrated writers, if they really do believe their own concoction, are left to vent through fiction. I’ll still be watching next season, but it would be nice if their agenda wore a few more clothes.

And what a charity. Via Whedonesqe.com comes the word that Adam Baldwin will auction off all of his shooting scripts from Firefly and Serenity, proceeds to benefit the Marine Corps–Law Enforcement Foundation, mission to “encourage the spiritual, moral, intellectual and physical development of children through education.” Adam Baldwin: stand-up guy in a pretty cunning hat.

One of those weird coincidences that sometimes happens. I don’t watch The View. But this morning when I turned on the TV, it happened to be tuned to the show, and a young blonde woman was telling about seeing a stroller, two children in it, out on the sidewalk in front of an NYC establishment, no adult responsible for it in sight. She said she stopped and stood guard by the stroller for approximately seven minutes before the woman appeared whose responsibility the stroller was. When the woman finally came out, it transpired that it was the nanny, not the mother, who had left these children parked alone in front of the place while she went in and got her breakfast. Blonde Woman gave her a dressing-down and was ruminating over whether or not to try to get word to the parents of these children.

Good for her. I would be inclined to do the same. Nobody has any business leaving small children unattended in a public place for any length of time.

Later in the day, Hot Air shows me this. Thank you, Allahpundit! Blonde Guardian of Abandoned Stroller is Elisabeth Hasselbeck, and I applaud her courageous stand on this issue. Note especially how circumcise Mel Gibson in public” Joy Behar sits there looking like she’s smelling curdled milk as Elisabeth unfolds the radical idea that life begins at conception.

What about Barbara Walters’s assertion that “your life may be totally ruined” if you become pregnant by a rape? Why must it be ruined? Can’t it be grotesquely upset for a while, until you decide whether to keep your child or give him/her up for adoption? And if you’re talking grotesquely upset, wouldn’t the rape alone accomplish that, pregnant or not? Once again feminism is self-defeating: Why encourage strong coping skills, good decision making, responsibility, and firmness of mind in a woman when you can just flush the embryo down the memory hole and hope she gets over it?

Warning: Written in emotional aftermath.

Warning x2: Huge **SPOILERS** for Doctor Who S2 below the jump. (more…)