Humble Pie, à la Emergency Preparedness

Every time I look over those optimistically illustrated safety cards they have on airplanes, I smirk (in spite of my own peril) at the idea that a plummeting jetliner might ever wind up resting placidly on a body of water. But I guess all that flotation impedementia I had once mocked came in handy yesterday for 155 people on board U.S. Airways flight 1549, when some birds ruined both of the plane's engines and the pilots had to take her into the Hudson. Shows what the hell I know -- but I am very happily wrong.