(11 votes, average: 4.09 out of 5)
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Any intelligent person knows that Sarah Palin was joking when she said that she could see Russia from her house. It’s pure hyperbole. But everyone in the media keeps repeating it over and over, and I’m certain that some people probably actually believe it to be true. I bet that even the people that understand the hyperbole probably don’t realize just how much of an exaggeration it really is. So I decided to use my Distance To Horizon Calculator to see just how tall Governor Palin’s house would have to be in order to see the Russian coast.
First we need to measure how far it is from Sarah Palin’s house to the Russian coast. To do this, I have used the Google Maps Distance Calculator. Since Mrs. Palin has two houses, we’ll start with the closest one first.
Wasilla
Wasilla, Alaska, is 1130 km from Russia.
How high above the Earth’s surface do you have to be to see a point 1130 km away along the Earth’s surface? If we start plugging numbers into my Distance To Horizon Calculator, we see that the answer is 101425.88 meters. You have to go 101 km (63 miles!) above Wasilla before you can see Russia. You can knock 104 meters off of that if you like to account for Wasilla’s elevation above sea level.
Just how high is 101 km? This graphic from Wikipedia puts it in perspective very well.
0.381 km – The top of the Empire State Building
8.848 km – The top of Mount Everest
10.668 km – Jet airliner cruising altitude
100 km – The Kármán Line that marks the border of "outer space"
101 km – Sarah Palin’s house
185 km – Space Shuttle operation
So an astronaut in the Space Shuttle passing directly over Wasilla could definitely see Russia as well, but no one down in the atmosphere that allows aeronautical flight could.
Juneau
Juneau, Alaska, is 2011 km from Russia.
To see Russia from Juneau, you’d have to go up 330,715.1 meters. That’s almost the 350 km altitude of the International Space Station.
My point is that, by necessity of both map folding and general human cognitive orientation, we all generally reason about the ground we live on as if it were two dimensional. When discussing line of sight, however, the curvature of the Earth comes into play even at very short distances. The millions of US voters that "sort of know that Alaska is up there to the ‘left’ of Canada" might actually believe that Palin waves goodnight to the Russians across the water every night. If you know someone like that, send them to this web page.
Disclaimer: these calculations have disregarded topography and the curvature of space-time, both of which would have a negligible effect.
Awesome.
I can see Russia for here in ST.LI but not from my house!
I say this more to put your model to the test than to defend Sarah, but what she said was “you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska.”
While this is the equivalent of “you can actually see Russia from my house” in political terms, the “from my house” language comes from Saturday Night Live. It was Tina Fey’s joke, not Palin’s.
Anyway, the Great Gazoogle says Palin’s claim is correct. Does your model bear this out?
This is actually pretty neat. Go find the Diomede islands on Google Maps (hint: one is Russian, the other Alaskan), set the view to satellite, and start zooming in. Eventually you hit a zoom level where the satellite imagery changes from summer to winter, and it looks like maybe you could walk to Russia from Alaska.
No doubt Palin didn’t point this out because such a walk would have been illegal before she got her first passport last year.
Or maybe she didn’t want her swarthy husband to know about her audacious and passionate ice floe tryst with Vladimir, ended too soon by an early thaw. “Vladimir, your pants!” “No,” came his reply. His usual steely tone was softened somewhat by the almost unbearable emotional charge dissipating between them, much as the winter ice had given way under the brutal onslaught of spring. “You keep them.” She could barely hear him now, as his berg drifted slowly, silently into the Bering Strait. “My heart is in the back pocket.”
That claim is talking about being able to see from one island (Little Diomede) to another (Big Diomede). And they are very close.
But you cannot see Russian mainland from Alaskan mainland. According to the measuring tool I used, that is a distance of 85 km. To see that far, you would have to go up 566 meters, well higher than the Empire State Building.
You are very correct about the origin of the joke. But that’s the version that is getting repeated over and over again in the media.
so, i’m guessing that the answer to your post’s title question is “no, she can’t”? sorry, i’m not very good on all the technical stuff, but if you say it’s true and use lots of diagrams and stuff i’ll believe you!
The answer is “She could if her house was tall enough to reach outer space. But we’d have noticed that, so no, it’s not true.”
The bit about how you can see Russia from Alaska is true, but only if you cheat and use the two little islands in the Bering Strait that are split between the two nations.
I know this has done the rounds but it is well worth a watch if you have the ability to vote in the USA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI8lvat-ezA&feature=related
Thanks for that, Hubbers. I hadn’t seen the whole interview. I knew about the last line, of course.
She’s a really skilled politician. She didn’t answer one single direct question, instead spouting vague generalities. I’m impressed.
It sickens/saddens me that it’s more important to hate gay people and to believe in fairy tales about that earth being only 7000 years old than it is to have knowledge or experience.
Very clear explanation, it makes perfect sense
….. unless Sarah Palin is a believer in a flat earth.
She loves creationism, so I could see her diggin’ the flat earth theory. I recently discovered a bulletin board full of people trying to rationally argue that the earth is flat. http://theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php it’s great for a laugh, at their expense!
Risottto, that page about theflatearthsociety is something between joke, experiment and honing debating skills over something so obvious that is not applicable to “real” discussions, making it great sandbox.
Yay, New Yorker!
I’ve also wondered if she is a flat-Earther. Flat Earth believer? Terra Flatta-er?* What do they call themselves?
*Here’s hoping “flatta” isn’t a really disgusting slang term.
Thanks for the useful information. We were able to reference you in our latest article about Sheepshead Bay and Sarah Palin.
http://www.sheepsheadbites.com/blog1.php/politics/sarah-palin
Thanks again,
Sheepshead Bites
Figured it would be good to pass this by you. Just to clear the air and in the interest of open communication, thought I would share this link with you.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/29/the-emnew-yorkerem-can-se_n_130354.html
It was just the joke that they did on SNL and not Sarah Palin’s actual words that she could see Alaska from her house. Her own original comments were actually a bit more accurate.
Yes, Ray, commenter aquariumdrinker pointed this out above. I still think that most people don’t know that she never actually said those words, as it has been repeated so much in the media.
While this is good science, I think it discounts the essence of Governor Palin’s quote. Setting aside the argument of whether it is more important to be able to see Russia from her house, as opposed to from someplace in Alaska, the truly scary thing is what she implied.
In short, she meant she has vast foreign policy experience because she is close in proximity to a foreign land.
Shocking.
Erik, she wasn’t talking about seeing Russia from her house. That line was from SNL when Tina Fey was playing the role of Sarah Palin and Amy Poehler the role of Hillary Clinton. She did actually cite Alaska’s proximity to Russia as foreign policy experience. She never mentioned to Katie Couric that it was a “joke” and in fact made it worse in her efforts to explain her answer. Any person with critical thinking skills can see that she was absolutely serious in her absurd explanation of foreign policy experience. This has clearly gone beyond anything to do with political bias as both liberals and conservatives have been criticizing her.
Our social studies teachers must be rolling in their graves!!! To re-iterate here, where in the hell is common sense? The Bering Strait is creates a mere 50 mile pass between tje most eastern coast of Russia, and the , andlaska’s most western reach.
Okay, recall, how how our devoted teachers and social studies books, to boot, stated, that it was plausible how the first residents of North america made it across the frozen 50 mile stretch!!!
why is the press, and haters of Palin out to say the proximity of Alaska to Russian is meanlingless? Why, they hate the fact that an attractive woman with 5 kids can elevate herslef to possible VP. God bless palin and all the women of the world, that are not recognized for the advancements they have made…
I hear that the distance from Wasilla, Alaska to Moscow, Russia is about 4,350 miles. The distance from Washington, D.C. to Madrid, Spain is only 3,800 miles. If proximity makes for foreign policy experience, you’d think McCain would at least know who the Prime Minister of Spain is.
Yes, Tina. This is one of the few bits of information in social studies books that is still considered true. It’s still a non-sequitur. Why isn’t McCain touting the fact that he comes from a border state as foreign policy experience? Because no one would ever do that unless they were completely void of actual foreign policy experience.
Personally, I love the fact that a mother of 5 can elevate “herslef” to state governor and possible VP. But again, you’re bringing up logical disparate points. Being a mother or father alone does not make you qualified for likely becoming the leader of the richest country in the world. Senator Clinton or Speaker Pelosi understand volumes more about national and international politics than Governor Palin. Tina, I really hope, for all of our sakes, that you’re voting in this election because of reasons more intellectual than whether or not a candidate has a vagina.
I thought you were going to suggest McCain choose me as his running mate there for a second, ‘drinker.
Let’s just put it straight: Sarah Palin is a dumbass and is retarded. She seriously needs to STFU.
Why don’t you STFU Anynomous?
JKJK =)
The ignorance is amazing. Tina Fey said it, not Palin. Don’t worry, you are not alone:
http://www.howobamagotelected.com/
Yes, Zoom, because anyone that was reasonably intelligent or informed would clearly have voted for McCain. Obviously.
One of the major points of this post was how stupid the average American voter is. Of course that’s an easy scapegoat for any election loser, but that’s the name of the game: duping the flock into voting for you.
You are misquoting Sarah Palin… she said (paraphrased) “There are parts of Alaska, from which you can see Russia.” … It was actually Tina Fey’s sattire that said, “I can see Russia from my house.”
God, Gary, I so totes already made that comment like weeks ago. It’s pointless anyway, as the fact that you can see Russia (whether from your house or elsewhere in your state) makes you an expert about exactly jack shit.
Anyway, let’s talk about something interesting, like whether cars should have cheat codes.
Ooh. Cars with cheat codes?! That would be awesome.
Obama isn’t Muslim.
Sarah Palin is the governor of Alaska making her commander and cheif of the alaskan air national guard and the Alaskan North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), which i believe gives her just a tiny bit of experiance at least with national defense anyway maybe not diplomacy however maobama has his dual teleprompter cliff notes always at hand. drink your koolaid and take a nap you pod people.
You make an excellent point, Brian, because Sarah Palin is a superb orator without a teleprompter. It’s pretty telling if that’s really the best mud you can fling.
I love how the Right has taken and run with the teleprompter thing. I hear/read it all over the place. It’s so silly. Brian, it’s not koolaid I’m drinking… but I did take the red pill.
Why is it that “most” conservatives don’t hate every liberal but “most” liberals hate or are at least rude and disrespectful to most anybody they consider “conservative”?
Objectively, if these online thread posts by liberals are representative of the real world, I wouldn’t want to live next to most of them.
Most of them sound like little “city” kids who moved to San Francisco because they couldn’t get along in their own town…..
Last week, I was talking to a mid 40′s couple in a local restaurant and a news bit came on CNN about Palin.
He says… “She’s SO stupid. She said she could see Russia from her backyard.”
I said ” That wasn’t her who said that, it was, Tina Fey who said it, as a joke, on SNL.”
“Who?” was the response –
CG
CG, there are idiots across the whole spectrum.1 But it seems to me that the intelligent conservatives don’t have much of a sense of humor. They just seem angry. Where are the conservative Jon Stewarts?
1This was part of the point of my post, namely that I predicted that there would be people that attributed that line to Palin without ever hearing of Tina Fey. Thank you for confirming this.
This is a load of crap. I can see anything I want on my internet. No, I don’t think she was indulging in hyperbole. She’s not clever enough…and, if it was a joke, it was a moronic one.
This is an old blog topic but I think I may know better than anyone who has viewed this that no you deffinetly cannot see Russia from the Alaska mainland where My former Govenor Sarah Palin resides. Yes that is right I live in the very same state and city as Sarah Palin. Wasilla Alaska born and raised. And for all of you who wonder, no I do not have to plug my computer into my igloo because we all live in houses, just like everybody else.
I can’t believe it, a year later, and people still believe she said this line. It shows you how powerful the media is. She never said that she could see it from her house.. I looked this site up because it’s now October 2009 and they still believe they said she said you can “See it from my house”. She said you can see it from some places in Alaska. And that’s true. That SNL skit, and other media are the only information people get so they assume she’s stupid. How awful, she’s so very good – and right now we need someone to be busting the corruption in DC. She’s the only one I’ve ever seen go after Republicans *AND* anyone else, for corruption … she doesn’t care which side you’re on.
Read comments 2 and 4. I can’t believe that it’s a year later and there’s still anyone trolling the internet looking for the chance to defend this hack. But it doesn’t surprise me in the least that the Knights of Our Lady of Perpetual Victimhood are going off half-cocked. The wheels of Sarah Palin’s political career didn’t fall off because Erik Rasmussen, SNL and the MSM are big meanies.
Wow, here it is a year later, she’s not in office, and you’re STILL determined to get in your licks. Maybe your time would be better spent defending 0bama.
All the stupid Republicans here…
What was so bad was not what she said, but that she thought it somehow gave her experience dealing with a foreign country. She sucks.
Palin never said that, you liberal moron! Tina Fey said that on a SNL skit, and the MSNBC’s of the world pounced and spun it to make everyone believe that Sarah Palin said it. WHy don’t you do some fact checking. Palin only said that there are places in Alaska where you can see Russia…which is a true statement! But let’s ignore the FACT that Obama said that he visited 57 states! Obama is the idiot.
Are you sure you aren’t Bullhead1?
Really in shock here that people are this dumb, and that those that know what she actually said still attack her for it.
“They’re our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.”
Assuming these are all people that have jobs and live somewhat normal lives in society, …scary.
Which people are you saying are dumb?
Very entertaining bit here. However, whomever made this very detailed study needs to get the facts straight about what Palin said, rather than what has been erroneously reported. Pity the author didn’t investigate that as deeply as he did his mapping job.
What she actually said?
PALIN: They’re our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/Story?id=5782924&page=2
(cough!) Can’t you brilliant leftists do a better job in investigating the whole truth? Are you really interested in the truth? don’t see one person (on the left) even investigating enough to see what the truth is/was. And, don’t even seem to care or be fazed that this isn’t true, but has been widely reported as being true. What does say about your political movement? Not much.
Read his comments. He knows who really said what. You get credit for correctly activating your programming, however.
Is Erik a leftist? Does he represent a whole movement? Is that what the mushroom post was all about?
Your binary life is boring, Anna.
And, your reply is snotty, binary or not, hilltop.
Let me quote what Eric himself said:
”
Erik R. says:
34
July 7, 2009 at 1:08 pm
CG, there are idiots across the whole spectrum.1 But it seems to me that the intelligent conservatives don’t have much of a sense of humor. They just seem angry. Where are the conservative Jon Stewarts?
This was part of the point of my post, namely that I predicted that there would be people that attributed that line to Palin without ever hearing of Tina Fey. Thank you for confirming this.”