Is Moscow closer to New York than Alaska?

[FourScore]

From Yglesias:

"When I flew from Moscow to New York, my flight path didn’t take me anywhere near Alaska. Indeed, Moscow is closer to New York than it is to Anchorage. And yet nobody would say that David Paterson has extensive foreign policy experience thanks to his proximity to Russia."

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/09/the_russian_route.php

[YOY]

1. Russia is a huge freaking country...and Kamchatka isn't exactly heavily populated.

Vladivostok is a sizeable city though.

[jberryhill]

2. C'mon people - Haven't you ever played Risk? /nt

[unblock]

3. eyeballing this map of the north pole, i'd say he's correct

http://encarta.msn.com/map_701515189/north_pole.html

looks like you have to go directly over the north pole to get from moscow to anchorage, but new york is more of an angle. i'm just eyeballing it, but i'd say it does appear that new york is closer.

there's a bit of careful selection here; moscow and anchorage are nearly at opposite ends of vast lands, while the diomedes islands (big diomeme is russian, little diomede is alaskan) are only a couple miles apart.

[rufus dog]

4. It is

A few hundred miles closer to East Coast.

[FatDave]

5. I think New York is a bit farther away.

But Anchorage and Moscow are about 186 degrees longitudinally opposite each other. Shortest route is over the north pole. NYC is farther south though, and that makes the difference.

But still...Moscow and Wasilla are nowhere near each other. Opposite sides of the northern hemisphere in fact.

[Ichingcarpenter]

6. Moscow is closer to Boston than Anchorage that's been proven

I don't know about New York.

[Motown_Johnny]

7. I tried to point out that the entire continent of Asia lies between Moscow and Alaska

but nobody seems to care. (Moscow is in Europe)