Figureheads and UFOs

• Curious Expeditions blog has a fine little entry on the history of figureheads. One of the interesting tidbits that he brings up is
  The bared breasts of the female figurehead wasn't just for sailor's enjoyment. "An adage dating at least to the time of Pliny the Elder maintained that the waters could be calmed by a woman uncovering her body at sea, and many sailors no doubt hoped that the representation of a bare-breasted woman would stave off foul weather."
• So the validity of UFO sightings is difficult to prove one way or the other. "Who cares?" says Greg at UFO Mystic, "they're fun."
  

Excavation focusses on Blackbeard's ship

A team has been excavating the pirate Blackbeard's ship, Queen Anne's Revenge, in North Carolina. The Yahoo News article ain't great, but it does have this nice quote about Blackbeard:
"With the fuses in his hair and heavily armed, he's a frightening person," says Butler, who added that pirates preferred to take ships without a shot. "There were some psychopathic pirates out there, but Blackbeard was not one of them. We have no evidence that Blackbeard ever murdered anyone or ever tortured anyone.