From a reader:

Subject: Ockham called. He wants his razor back
Erich Hoyt of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society blogged on Monday: “Discounting the possibility of the Panama or Suez canals,…”
The Suez canal is a sea level canal. It thus has no locks. And it is a whale’s day swim from Israel. Why exactly would one discount the possibility of a baby whale following a ship through the Suez and instead leap to a whale making its way through the Northwest passage during the brief interlude where the ice was broken?

Hey, that’s good news too! Either way mankind helped grey whales back to the Atlantic!

And from another reader:

Jonah,
The whale article points out some of the absurdities of science. First, the whale is “supposed” to live in the Pacific, when by their own admission it used to live in the Atlantic.
But also, one can’t help but wonder how this whale can go unspotted all the way to Israel yet “scientists” can presume to know that no other whales are in the Atlantic, and haven’t been. Isn’t it possible that they’ve been there but unseen?
Finally, my reaction is good news as well. Let’s just hope that global warming keeps going long enough to get this guy a mate.

And on the Star Trek angle (offered by a reader and foolishly posted without comment by yours truly):

This is an absolute outrage – the worst fact error in the history of journalism. So, so many things wrong with this:
“….or maybe they weren’t extinct after all? Or, maybe the Enterprise made another trip?”
First of all, the Enterprise was blown up in “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.” The crew used a stolen Klingon vessel. Secondly, they brought back humpback whales.
I expect higher levels of fact checking. I can never trust again.
[Name withheld]
P.S. And don’t go arguing that you are technically correct because the Enterprise B could have made the trip. It wasn’t commissioned as the Enterprise until the end of Star Trek : IV.

Update! Agghh Trek email overload. Sampling below the fold:

Jonah,
I m sure your inbox is overrun with ST whale fact checking. Gotta correct Mr. Putney (an agonizer-worthy transgression). It was the Enterprise A that was commisioned at the end of ST IV. Enterprise B wasn t commisioned until ST Generations under the command of that guy from Spin City.
Dave (What have I done with my life?)
Alexandria, VA
P.S. are you using the whole Whale thing to sneak ST past K-Lo?

And:

Technically, if they can go back in time, ANYTHING goes. They could have chosen to go back in time from any point in the future, to a time when the Enterprise was still around and then they could have saved any type of whale they wanted. That’s the problem with time travel…anything is possible.

And:

“And don’t go arguing that you are technically correct because the Enterprise B could have made the trip. It wasn’t commissioned as the Enterprise until the end of Star Trek : IV.”
**He’s** got it wrong. The one blown up (by self-destruct, to kill most of the Klingon crew, and even the odds with Christopher Lloyd who had just basically got Kirk’s son murdered) was the “NCC-1701″, the one commissioned at the end of IV (and used in V to find and talk to the fake-god at the heart of the galaxy) was the “NCC-1701*A*”, which was the one for V and VI, which ended the old crew.
*THEN* in Generations, we find out that Kirk didn’t really die when commanding the NCC-1701 *B*, which, as I remember from pictures (never saw the movie all the way through, saw the end, Generations is the worst movie in human history), is a better-technology of ship, like the Excelsior was supposed to be to the Enterprise in III, but Scotty “took out their spark plugs” so they couldn’t go to transwarp drive and catch the stolen Enterprise which was going to put Spock’s mind back in his, they-thought dead, body, which was actually regenerated into life and they would eventually have to self-destruct the Enterprise anyway to kill the Klingons, and take their bird of prey, which was used to get humpback whales back into the late 23rd century, so they could talk to the flying logs who were making it rain so much that in the late 23rd century all technology and life on earth could be destroyed.

And:

Your Reader:
P.S. And don’t go arguing that you are technically correct because the Enterprise B could have made the trip. It wasn’t commissioned as the Enterprise until the end of Star Trek : IV.
WRONG! The new ship in STIV was the “A”! The “B” was commissioned in ST: Generations and helmed by Alan Ruck, who clearly would have blown up Earth during the dinosaur days had he attempted time travel.