Curiouser and Curiouser

When the Obama White House terrified thousands of New Yorkers for a photo op, I figured it was just the sort of mistake that can happen in any new team: everyone figured someone else had thought it through. Then when they said they weren't going to release the photos, I was a bit confused, thinking it was silly to hold them back after the damage had already been done. When people demanded that the flight not be a complete waste, a photo was released, yet another Obot was thrown under the bus, and I didn't think any more about it. Until Ann Althouse encouraged me to look a little more closely at the picture:


I'm surprised more people haven't come to the same conclusion: the "photo op" story was pure hooey, just damage control. This supposed "publicity photo" is a poorly composed image of the jet against the majestic Jersey shore (when the Manhattan skyline is right on the other side), taken with a point-and-shoot camera from the cockpit of the escort fighter. Not even the White House is foolish enough to spend $328,835 on such a crappy photo. Now I understand why they initially weren't going to release the photos: there weren't any. Let's hope the fighter pilot got an attaboy for handing over his souvenier shot to save their butts.

I don't want to get all "show us the birth certificate" on you, but it really does make me wonder: who was on that plane?

It's possible of course that the real publicity shots, taken by a real camera mounted on the fighters wing, will emerge, which would totally rebut our entertaining little conspiracy theory. I won't hold my breath.

Truthers and Birthers

What is it that attracts people to conspiracy theories? What motivates a person to believe that the moon landings were faked? I sort of understood -- though I still can't accept -- why some might want to believe that the our government was behind the 9/11 attacks. What I really don't get is how many of those very same people have shifted gears and are now ranting about President Obama's birth certificate. I guess there's just a certain personality type that desperately needs to believe they're part of the tiny minority that knows the truth.

Body Armor

Michael Yon puts in what I hope will be the last words on the body armor "controversy". In this Army, in this war, our top leadership in the field has faced the same sort of danger as every other grunt out there. If they don't want Dragonskin for themselves or their own sons, then I don't want it either. Simple as that, right? I'm really tired of hearing my leaders slandered as evil scheming corporate puppets willing to trade my safety for a lucrative contract. And should it surprise anyone that this slander is being led by the manufacturer of the rejected armor design? Really, is this all that difficult to see through?

Bad Astronomy

I was reminded of the Bad Astronomy website and blog by my Superior Older Sister, who today dropped me a link to a curious argument against heliocentricity. While the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) premise is an inspiring ode to empiricism with its blinders on, it's a simple fact that there are compelling pieces of real, facts-on-the-ground evidence that show that the earth both rotates on its axis and revolves around the sun. Even if you're willing to decry Foucault's Pendulum as a hoax perpetrated by a vast Jesuit conspiracy, I doubt even the Jesuits could convince hurricanes rotate counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern. For that matter, if he's so determined to believe Foucault's Pendulum doesn't demonstrate the Coriolis Effect and ergo a rotating earth, why doesn't he just build one himself? It's a pretty simple experiment, really. Unless he's not actually interested in truth. Sigh. Some people. Bad Astronomy does a great job of debunking this sort of mischief, including one of my favorite sub-genres of this sort of thing, the Moon-Hoaxers, as well as Bad Movies, Bad TV, Bad News, and a variety of popular misconceptions about astronomical phenomena and physics in general. Good stuff.