ATDTDA (5.4) - Bad Ice After Midnight

[Monte Davis]

Paul Mackin wrote:

> that foreshortened circumference seems like Columbus's equivalent of 
> Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

Sort of, in the sense that he went to great lengths to "cherry-pick" his 
authorities for a smaller globe. He also drew (legitimately) on a couple 
of centuries of sailors' tales about landfalls to the west, from 
Portugal to Scandinavia -- but then embellished them freely to make it 
sound as if Leif Ericsson had been hobnobbing with the Great Khan.