res ipsa loquitur

I've heard so much insanity from the politicians and pundits lately that it's refreshing to see some good ol' fashioned non-partisan crazy. Check out Alfred Lambremont Webre's claim that NASA is bombing extraterrestrial civilizations on the moon:

The NASA moon bombing, a component of the LCROSS mission, may also trigger conflict with known extraterrestrial civilizations on the moon as reported on the moon in witnessed statements by U.S. astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, and in witnessed statements to NSA (National Security Agency) photos and documents regarding an extraterrestrial base on the dark side of the moon.

If the true intent of the LCROSS mission moon bombing is a hostile act by NASA against known extraterrestrial civilizations and settlements on the moon, then NASA and by extension the U.S. government are guilty of aggressive war which is the most serious of war crimes under the U.N. Charter and the Geneva Conventions, to which the U.S. is subject.

LCROSS, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, is a real mission. And it is indeed going to crash into the moon -- just like meteors do all the time. But it's going to crash into the south lunar pole, where there might, in the shadow of a crater, be water ice. NASA is going to see if there's any water in the dust kicked up.

It's not going to hit the "dark side". So and ETs bases there are safe. (Chuckle.) Anyway, they would have to be dug in deep to protect themselves against natural impacts. Most of those natural impactors are of course much smaller, but are also traveling orders of magnitude faster. We're making this one happen where and when we want, but impact-wise, this is no big deal for the moon.

As for claims that Aldrin and Armstrong saw ET spaceships: rubbish. They saw a adapter panel from their upper stage, didn't know what it was at first (thus it was, literally, a UFO -- or perhaps more precisely, an unidentified orbiting object -- for a time), but later identified it.

And the madness continues...on Tuesday, Obama will give a speech where he will "challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning," and call on students, parents and educators to see that every child receives the best education possible. The speech will take place during the school day and will be broadcast to many schools.

You might think that this is Mom and Apple Pie stuff which no one could possibly object to. In fact, Bush the First gave a similar speech, without any incident or protest that I can recall. And you might think that everyone knows that most students will doze through it.

But in the foaming vitriol of the right-wing pundits, this is Hitler Youth type stuff. Finkelstein compares Obama's "plan for our children" -- that they work hard and stay in school -- with Mao Zedong. Beck calls it "capturing your kids." Malkin says he's recruiting "junior lobbyists."

So nutcases like Bryan Fischer, Pamela Geller, and Tammy Bruce suggest having your kids skip school.

So, it seem that the conservative movement, such as it is, is now officially opposed to education.

Res ipsa loquitur.

I do so love a medical mystery. From The Daily Telegraph:

Retired architect Mr Darby, from Leicestershire, had worn spectacles since the age of two but was stunned when he came round after surgery to clear the blood clot causing his stroke, that he could see clearly without his glasses.

...

Malcolm suffered a major stroke on May 13 last year when he was working in his office at home in Oakham and managed to tell his wife Sylvia, 68, to dial 999 before he collapsed.

He was rushed to Kettering General Hospital for surgery where a two-hour operation was carried out to remove a blood clot that was blocking 80 per cent of his right carotid artery in his neck.

...

It is unclear why the stroke or the operation appears to have caused such a dramatic improvement in Mr Darby's sight but doctors believe there may have been pressure on the optic nerve at the back of the eye which was relieved as the clot was cleared

The topic on 9/11 conspiracy theories came up in a Facebook thread today. Here are my posts from a discussion thread from Slashdot on this from last year, with a lot of links debunking conspiracy theory arguments. Quoted material is from other Slashdot posters (except as otherwise attributed), see the link for context.

Making multi minute phone calls from 30k ft with 2001 phone tech and no onboard plane phones (I already know its not possible, but would love to see them try)

You know that's not possible? So you tried it, eh? Please, post the details of your experiment.

Getting a 767 sim and attempt to fly the same path as pentagon plane

Why would you try it with a sim for a plane of a different model than the one that hit the Pentagon? Flight 77 (with a former co-worker of mine and his whole family on board) was a 757.

Of course, why let facts get in the way of a good batshit conspiracy theory?

why there was NO remainder of anything a passenger plane crash leaves in a crash site, and there were NO bodies, passenger belongings, pieces of bodies, ANYTHING but fairly intact TWO bodies in the scene.

Are you saying there were no bodies, or were you saying there were two?

Allyn E. Kilsheimer, CEO of KCE Structural Engineers (a company involved in providing emergency engineering and post-collapse assistance) said "I held parts of uniforms from crew members in my hands, including body parts."

Of course, once you reach the level of batshitness you've achieved, you can simply ignore his testimony by saying "they got to him too!"

And I'm sure you simply don't accept the claim that the remains of 184 people were identified; surely "they" got to all 102 DNA analysts, sample processors, logistics staff, and administrative personnel at the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory. It's a DOD facility, after all.

Are you saying there was no debris from the plane? That's simply incorrect; hell, you can even see photos of a bunch of it at this batshit conspiracy site. And photos of the plane debris inside the building (where, in answer to your question about the lawn, most of it ended up, in agreement with conservation of momentum) can be seen at this somewhat less batshit crazy site. And some more photos here. And more photos, with amazingly detailed analysis, here

But I'm sure "they" got to the owners of all of those sites.

xkcd on how to be a tech support guru. Seems about right.

In this Bill Maher interview, Jeff Sharlet discusses "The Family", a cult that perverts Christianity into a "might makes right" philosophy, and whose members consider themselves the new "chosen ones" -- and include many conservative members of Congress. I especially like their comparison of themselves to the Mafia, and the quote about how "morality is for the little people".

xkcd on the history of calculus. When I was in high school, my physics teacher and my calculus teacher had a bit of rivalry over who really invented calculus...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EYAUazLI9k

From March 23 2009: in a promotional stunt for a Belgian reality-TV program "In Search of Maria" "The Sound of Music", more than 200 dancers (with just two rehearsals!) put on this number from "The Sound of Music", in the Central Station of Antwerp. It's staged of course(!), but the passengers weren't in on it. Some discussion here.

I missed this lovely bit of dialog between Glenn Beck and Craig T. Nelson back in May, but it just came up on The Daily Show.

It's just so perfectly illustrative of the same sort of mindset that has 39% of Americans agreeing that the government should "stay out of Medicare".

For readers outside the U.S., or for fatally ignorant Americans, I should note that Medicare is a government program to provide medical care to senior citizens and the disabled. I'm guessing there's a large overlap between these folks, and the astounding 24% of Americans who think that Obama wasn't born in the U.S. -- including 6% who think he was born in Hawaii but that Hawaii is not a state. (I'd also bet that almost every one of these folks is in the 50% of Americans who think that a woman should be legally required to take her husband's last name after marriage. Remember folks, when you're dealing with a bell curve like intelligence, half the people are going to be below average...)

Anyway, in this gem Nelson says he's not going to pay taxes anymore because the government is cutting funding for important things like education and fire fighters. And he goes on to say, "What happened to society? I go into business, I don't make it, I go bankrupt. I've been on food stamps and welfare, did anybody help me out? No. No." (Again, for readers outside the U.S., or for fatally ignorant Americans, welfare and food stamps are tax-funded government programs that help people like Craig T. Nelson out when they fall on hard times.)

ExxonMobil's 2008 profits, according to Fortune magazine: $40.6 billion dollars. That's profit, mind you, not total revenue; that was a bit under $373 billion.

2010 budget for the entire EPA: $10.5 billion.

I.e., if the EPA devoted itself entirely to policing this one oil company, ExxonMobil could outspend it three to one and still remain profitable.

Res ipsa loquitor.