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A few apologies in order: Thank you to Eleanor Strauss for pointing out that the image is doctored. I agree that it might be, because I can’t find it elsewhere. However, there are many photos showing a very small crater under the module. These are on the NASA website. I should have checked more carefully, sorry about that. To Admin: You’re right that I said that, but it was by mistake. I was responding to others who were saying there was no blast crater, so I said the direct opposite of their argument instead of specifically saying what I myself think, which is that there was a blast crater, which was very small, as is evident from the photos, and the fact that it was not disturbed even more is due to the reasons I’ve listed in my other posts. I’m sorry for any confusion I may have caused. I… Read more »
@Matt – thanks for the apology.
Frankly this thread is probably past all hope of being cleared up. Very few of us can follow the science debate or hope to grasp how much sense any of the contending claims make. There are over 200 comments on here as it is – maybe people should think very carefully about whether what they say is going to add anything useful before posting further additions?
This isn’t aimed at anyone in particular, just a general suggestion.
If you imply that there has been science presented in regard to the moon landing nonsense being debated I would have to disagree based on what little of it I read. I couldnt bare to continue for long as all comentary showed no scientific literacy at all.
Let’s not seed a debate about the nature of the debate!
And please people from all sides who feel offended at the suggestion you lack scientific literacy – do the strong thing and avoid angry rejoinders if you can.
I’m happy to admit to no great scientific understanding, however, I think I have superior reasoning and logic and with the benefit of others’ much greater scientific understanding I can apply that logic effectively. This discussion has been great for providing ideas and evidence for my planned 10-point Occam’s Razor exercise similar to the ones on the conspiracies I do think are real … that no one, so far, has remotely debunked, or even attempted to, despite a financial reward offered, except for Mick West from metabunk.org who, currently, is lamely giving it a go … but getting nowhere. I know I’ve posted the link already several times and risk being accused of advertising myself but in case you haven’t seen it and are interested: http://occamsrazorterrorevents.weebly.com
Since it was my posts about the moon landings in response to StAug that probably kicked off this whole thing, I just want to say that I think the Open Thread format is great for slightly off-topic discussion. I mean, normally, when do 200 comments get posted here over a few days? And just on one page? This format has greatly increased engagement.
Maybe have a weekly OT like this, so everyone can move on to the next one and the ones who want to continue with their discussions can keep talking in the old one? That way, fresh topics can be introduced in a clean thread and old ones discussed to death in an old thread.
Just my 2c.
We are thinking of making the Open Forums a regular feature, but it’s extra work for us of course, and our small team is already quite stretched
But in this format it could be a way to bury a few i their own echo chamber. How many trawl through and stay abreast of this page – perhaps mostly those who post. The internet can seem public – and technically at any time be revealed public, while at the same time burying communication that has a willingness for fresh or greater perspectives. I wonder if when another theme or tangent breaks into one of your article comments – and has a sense of life in it – that you discern the nature of that conversation and give it a place to breath. The Apollo program hoaxed or true has tended to be the personal investment of the most of this page – but a number of others posted topics were drowned out. What you do is of course up to you – but what you have, is current… Read more »
And whaddya know? No obvious blast crater from the 2013 unmanned Chinese Chang’e 3 lunar module landing. Question to those who deny or doubt the Apollo moon landings: if you compare footage and photos of the Chang’e 3 mission with those of the Apollo mission do you find any anomalies?
Then again, was Chang’e 3 also a hoax? (OK, I’m mocking here Moriarty. I think I’m allowed a tiny mocking, don’t you?)
Moon Hoax Theory dead – killed by rabbit! (Jade Rabbit was the name given to the rover – Yutu in Chinese)
Nice!
The image is not doctored. The link to it at the NASA site is:
—
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Huh, looks like you’re right – thanks for that! The crater looked too big to be real, and I didn’t spend enough time checking if NASA hosted the image, so I assumed it was doctored. I take back my previous apology – the image I posted was not doctored ;]
This should debunk any claims of there being no crater. As for why it isn’t bigger, I’ve gone through that in prior posts, so hopefully StAug (and others) will stop believing that this was a hoax.
The debate looks settled to me. Well done to everyone who contributed!
Actually, I’m not sure about the big depression in the foreground. It may have pre-dated the landing. But if you look beyond it, to the area under the nozzle or engine bell, you can see that the surface was swept by the engine exhaust.
Other images that show a clear interaction between engine exhaust and the surface of the Moon (assuming of course that it is the surface of the Moon):
In relation to the last image, see this video, by Philip Webb, that I posted way down below, between 1 minute 24 seconds and 2 minutes 45 seconds: https://support.google.com/youtube/?p=report_playback As I mentioned to Binra (slightly edited, here): Speaking only to the “blast crater” issue: people who argue that there should be “craters” of greater dimensions than obvious in the photographic evidence need to argue, if their arguments are to be based on “evidence” and not merely a priori belief, why the lunar surface disturbances at the alleged Apollo sites should be greater than they were. This means understanding something about how rocket engines work in a vacuum, and in particular, the exhaust profiles of the specific rocket engines of the LEMs; furthermore, they would have to explain “why” the lunar regolith at the landing sites should have been excavated to the (as yet unspecified) degree that they believe it should… Read more »
Arrgh! The link to video:
This is even more absurd than RussiaGate:
“Russian senators worry the West is making Manchurian candidates of Russian youths”
https://meduza.io/en/news/2017/11/29/russian-senators-worry-the-west-is-making-manchurian-candidates-of-russian-youths
From Meduza:
“The Moscow District Attorney’s Office has stated in a letter to Alexey Navalny that border guards from the Federal Security Service were in possession of the surveillance footage showing Navalny and his wife leaving Sheremetyevo airport that was published on the tabloid Life, confirming suspicions that federal agents shared the video with the pro-Kremlin media outlet. Life claimed that the video showing Navalny and his wife at Sheremetyevo airport was submitted by a “citizen correspondent.” Navalny has accused the Interior Ministry and Federal Security Service of repeatedly leaking intelligence about his private life to pro-Kremlin media outlets.”
Open Thread Feedback
BTW – the open thread would have perhaps worked better as a themed thread.
So as a spillover from the last – it could have been an Open Moon thread.
You might also add a forum as a spillover or extension point. The OG page is not very conducive to navigate – and responding via email notification does not take me to that part of the conversation – but to a box at the bottom of the page.
We get such a large volume of comments that it would be hard for any nested framework to remain totally coherent for long. Though we are looking at ways to improve our system. Yes, a forum probably would get a reasonable amount of traffic, but managing it would be a lot of work. We are barely coping with the workload as it is. But, if we are ever in a position to devote more time or have more admins to spread the work we could consider it.
On the basis of all my posts debunking moon landing hoaxers, and the evidnece posted by Norman, it should be extremely obvious that the moon landings were very real events and not hoaxes at all.
I find that moon landing hoaxers simply don’t have a very scientifically rigorous mind. This causes them to easily become confused or make very simple assumptions/mistakes.
But most of the time, it comes down to a lack of knowledge.
I covered numerous topics in my posts, including how the cameras worked, how the automated camera left behind tilted, radiation levels, particle physics, how the rover managed to fit in the space ships, probability theory, damage from pebbles in space, sound in a vacuum, etc.
Being very knowledgeable is definitely a very big bonus, Matt, but even from a common sense point of view the moon hoax theory is not so hard to debunk. To me, it’s a bit like the collapse of WTC-7 on 9/11. There was never any good reason to suspect fire as cause in the first place and the evidence of controlled demolition is overwhelming. All the reasons to suspect the moon landings were a hoax are easily debunked and there is simply no compelling evidence of fakery. I mean, come on. If it rests on seeming wires in one or two videos, that’s absurd. It’s not so relevant whether or not the footage could be faked, as it does not actually look faked and there is very weighty evidence that moon hoaxers do not address. A whole decade of documentation of the engineering obstacles overcome? Hours of conversation between astronauts,… Read more »
The problem is the absence of evidence that would be conclusive. All the evidence adduced to show we went to the Moon is capable of also being explained by other means. What we lack is the evidence that simply could not have been produced by fakery or in near-earth orbit etc. What evidence would have put the question beyond doubt? Well, let’s start with good photos of the stars. No, I don’t mean the red herring about the absence of stars in the extant Apollo images. They are well explained by the shutter speeds needed for exposure on the Moon surface. But why no pictures of the stars themselves? With no atmosphere to obstruct the view it should have been possible to get excellent images of distant systems. Think Hubble but even better. Such images would be impossible to fake without exposing the fake to later discovery. So they would… Read more »
Technically, anything can be called fake by moon hoaxers, even if it could not have been faked. Even the example you cite could have been “faked.” What if NASA passed off images of stars taken by unmanned probes as having been taken by the Apollo astroanuts? As you can see, it is impossible to satisfy the moon hoaxer. There is something else motivating them, other than disproving that the moon landings are real… Another issue with your example: the cameras used by the Apollo astronauts were wholly incapable of imaging stars. They were made for a different purpose. Hubble has enormous lenses, with a 2.4 meter mirror used. There was no need for NASA to build such a massive camera to be brought to the moon. And back then, camera technology simply was not good enough to take high resolution shots of the stars. There was no interest in imaging… Read more »
What if NASA passed off images of stars taken by unmanned probes as having been taken by the Apollo astroanuts? Any images taken by unmanned probes would be very hard to pass off as having been taken on the surface of the Moon, for obvious reasons. The constellations would not line up and any competent astronomer would be able to see that easily. Trying to fake up an image of the night sky to correspond with what it would look like from the surface of the Moon would be massively difficult, if not impossible. There would be elements we would be unaware of and could not possibly duplicate, and the photos would be shown as clearly bogus as soon as any actual images were taken from the Moon’s surface, if not before. I doubt anyone would disagree that images of the stars taken from the Moon’s surface would have been… Read more »
I’ll join in when I have the time, but it may be later in the week.
In the meantime, just so you don’t miss it (as I’ve also posted it below for someone else), an interesting series of rebuttals by one Phil Webb of what to me are by Jarrah White many obvious misinterpretations and misreading of sources:
“Any images taken by unmanned probes would be very hard to pass off as having been taken on the surface of the Moon, for obvious reasons. The constellations would not line up and any competent astronomer would be able to see that easily” I meant images taken by rovers, that landed on the moon. NASA could have sent a rover to the moon to take photos. How would you distinguish those from the photos taken by astronauts? “You wouldn’t need to take a Hubble replica with you! A reasonably compact camera/telescope would do the job very well. If they could fit a damn Moon buggy in the LEM they could fit a decent camera. So, why the hell didn’t they? You can bet the astronomers wanted an answer to that, in private if not in public.” They’d have to bring entirely different cameras to capture photos of the stars. The… Read more »
I meant images taken by rovers Well that would present its own formidable problems of automation wouldn’t it. They’d have to bring entirely different cameras to capture photos of the stars. Yes, they would, but so what? If there was room for a moon buggy there was room for a camera that could photograph stars. The main purpose was for the cameras to image the astronauts That is the official explanation, but it makes absolutely no sense at all. From a scientific point of view those images of Aldrin on the Moon’s surface are largely worthless. Why on earth would they be a priority over photographing the night sky as it had never been seen by human eyes before? As I said, it is incredible to me, and to others, that NASA never undertook to do this relatively simple thing on any of the Apollo missions. By all means snap… Read more »
“Well that would present its own formidable problems of automation wouldn’t it.” You mea having a rover capture images on the moon? This was certainly not impossible and the Soviets later were able to send a rover to the moon and fly back to Earth, with space rocks in tow. Compared to that, sending a rover to capture some images of the stars from the moon’s surface and beaming them wirelessly back to Earth is much easier. “Yes, they would, but so what? If there was room for a moon buggy there was room for a camera that could photograph stars.” This was a decision made by NASA. Think about it: imagine if NASA had done what you recommend, went to the moon and didn’t take images of the astronauts, but just of some stars. If you think the hoaxers are crazy now, imagine what they’d be like without any… Read more »
Can you try to use the “blockquote” html to define your quotes? We ask people to do that if possible, and as a computer science major you must know how to do that kind of basic coding.
Why not just take images of both? Take the Hasselblad and snap Aldrin standing around, but then take a great telescope and camera instead of the damnable Moon buggy and take photos of the night sky such as have still never been seen by human eye?
Why not?
Beats me.
You are calling those who do not accept the official presentation, ‘hoaxers’.
Lumping all sorts of people under one derogatory reversal.
When you throw it about – it sticks to you.
May all your blessings return one hundredfold!
“All the evidence adduced to show we went to the Moon is capable of also being explained by other means.” Disagree. There are so many claims about stuff being “fakeable” and yet we see no evidence of this fakability. No one has replicated these so-called fakable phenomena. My thesis is that there is actually no reason in the first place to make a claim of “fake”. There is simply no good reason. All “fake” claims can be easily debunked. If we see no actual fakery then why should fakery be given any real consideration – it’s like considering fire as cause of collapse of WTC-7. – there was never any good reason to consider it – it was all made up. And I don’t agree we can explain things with alternatives. We cannot explain a decade of development of the technology to get there; while it might involve a lot… Read more »
I meant, “So if we don’t have any showstopper reason to say those amazing men DIDN’t GET there …”
With the greatest of respect this particular question is not a matter of opinion. It just happens to be true that all the data produced by Apollo is capable of being explained by other means. As I keep saying, this does not mean we didn’t go to the Moon. After all, if we did it’s very likely that proving it would not be a focus of attention at the time. But it still is a fact that hard, solid, irrefutable proof is lacking. All “fake” claims can be easily debunked. No, they can’t. And if they could I for one would not be having this conversation. The main problem with the “anti-hoax” sites is they try to oversell their case and thus end up looking more questionable and fuelling the hoax theory. They would be better off being honest and admitting the inability to prove that Apollo happened. A failure… Read more »
Everyone’s gone to the Moon…! The way these ‘issues’ polarize is a matter of personal investment in being right – which means making the opposing view wrong. This indicated deeper investments than the subject matter. The ‘did we really go to the Moon?’ or ‘is any of the Moon/NASA information a psyop?’ – could be a disinfo ‘leaked’ or propagated so as to generate a ‘crazy’ off-media that can see and say anything and be ignored. This sort of thing operates a very effective defence by which the official narrative can increasingly disregard what anyone else knows or says about anything – because the messengers are ‘identified’ as idiots, fraudsters, quacks or extremists. Whereas language posits entities such as NASA – or the CIA or USA Government – the actuality is to coin a biblical term ‘legion’ or split into innumerable compartments. Regardless the Moon missions facts or fictions –… Read more »
So what claims cannot be debunked, Moriarty? We’ve established now, haven’t we, that the lunar module does produce a very slight crater … and that fact is so very compelling for the moon landings actually taking place, isn’t it? That barely perceptible crater which matches exactly what would be expected in moon conditions. Really, would they fake such a thing? Why on earth would you fake something that is so hard to see? It’s like the flag waving in the wind. No doubt, aerodynamic experts would be able to point out exactly how the flag cannot be waving from wind but is waving due to the astronauts moving the flagpole in moon conditions … and thus this supposed landing debunking only provides evidence so much more the other way. You have to consider that some hoax debunking, at least, does not just debunk, it actually provides greater weight to the… Read more »
COMMENTS OPENED IN ERROR
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/dec/03/bbc-syria-al-nusra-foreign-office
Is the Guardian’s euphemism for closing comment which clearly are going the wrong way. Have a look here for the latest example.
If you want to know in detail what this whole scandal of the UK Government miss-spending hundreds of millions of pounds of Tax Payers money to support IS affiliates in Syria is about read this excellent report by Vanessa Beeley
http://21stcenturywire.com/2017/12/02/white-helmets-local-councils-uk-fco-financing-terrorism-syria-taxpayer-funds/
Thanks for that. A BBC journalist is trying to do a bit of slightly real journalism and must be “backlashed” into submission it seems. When the comments demur they have to be immediately closed.
Daily Mail has become the Church: Pope Martin Samuel, Chief Sports Writer of the UK’s Daily Mail (owner is a non-dom hereditary peer named in the Panama Papers) and a few of his Cardinals are currently on a spiritual retreat in Australia, travelling the country on expenses reporting on the purity of Ashes cricket…. Cricket and purity from gambling vice: sell that one in Mumbai…..guest speaker MS Dhoni, film evidence Cricket World Cup Final down under…… Whilst in the pulpit, fire and brimstone is being preached about the unspeakable evil in Moscow, the fallen son Lineker having been seduced by the women of Lucifer (whose recruitment drive found fallen sinners the world over), who have fixed all sport for ten years (whilst Serena Williams has won everything and Sharapova barely anything). The reformed alcoholic is of course the most fervent anti-drink campaigner. Perhaps the experience of London 2012 panged Pope… Read more »
Some of my comments appear to be stuck in moderation. I would greatly appreciate it if my comments were no longer moderated, as I have been using the same email address as Admin asked me, although I have no control over my I.P. address.
this – ironically -is the only comment of yours awaiting moderation. And – before you ask – no comments of yours have been removed.
Ah, you’re right. I didn’t see my below comment. Sorry about that.
But it seems that my comments are only put on moderation when I post from home – any reason for that?
No idea at all why that would be the case.
You may find security services malware on your machine. It is part of the harassment……
Re. the ongoing Apollo discussion. Here is a PDF of James Van Allen’s 1959 article about his discovery of the radiation belts that now bear his name.Thanks to MLS:
https://offgraun.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/vanallen_march1959.pdf
I found this and decided to share it. Mainly because I don’t actually understand the significance of it’s impact. (I just know there will be one).
http://galacticconnection.com/russia-to-launch-independent-internet-for-brics-nations-report/
Backup DNS servers if the root servers cannot be reached . Basically that the Russian internet will keep on running, even if it is no longer connected to the rest of the Internet.
Presumably only someone with direct physical access to the main server controller can hack it. Sounds like a plan.
passerby – not so much backup DNS – there is already backup DNS.
And the connections – of wires, optics, satellite etc are the physical infrastructure – which re-routes where any connectivity remains operable. The DNS is the maintenance and propagation of assigning (machine) number addresses to (human) word based domain names. Like any function serving wholeness, it can be usurped by separate interest to generate a false matrix under which systemic bias operates as ‘normal’.
The DNS or domain name servers are a core function to the internet in translating letters.com into actual numbered machine addresses. ( Just like an automatic telephone directory. Last I heard, this is still under US control. So yoursites.com can (be) stop(ped from) working if there is a DNS fault. Setting up a BRICS alternative DNS under Russian overview is part of the ongoing cascade of consequences arising from non-cooperation – but it could also be simply part of the shift to a different ‘world order’ or different host under the active playing out of conflict. After all, the rats that sink the ship are hardly going to stay on it… A less conspirational way of seeing world events is the art of ‘managing’ an inevitable breakdown. The proxy US hegemony can be seen as the mad gunman to be ‘talked down’. Those who attend such a need cannot afford… Read more »
As a Computer Science major, you’ll forgive me if I point out a few misunderstandings. First of all, the U.S. does not control all of the DNS root servers. In fact, there are more than 13 physical servers in existence. Each server has backups across the world, and many of the physical servers are located in Europe and elsewhere: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Root-current.svg From Wikipedia: “The DNS Root Server System Advisory Committee is an ICANN committee. However, the root zone is controlled by the United States Department of Commerce who must approve all changes to the root zone file requested by ICANN. ICANN’s bylaws assign authority over the operation of the root name servers of the Domain Name System to the DNS Root Server System Advisory Committee.” So, even though the U.S. has to approve requests by ICANN, it can not unilaterally just turn off a root server. There is one more, extremely… Read more »
“…..the internet has remained extremely open, fair, and transparent…..” ? If the US could manipulate it as it does through Google etc, it would censor and make unavailable, access to whichever part they chose. They could allow hackers to access a country’s Stock Exchange, they could shut down certain sites or the whole damn thing if they themselves were no longer the ruling elite. They are no longer the ruling elite and they can see it coming. Washington’s influence is seriously under threat from those dastardly Russians and Chinese and the US is churlish and spiteful enough to cause any mischief rather than lose that hegemony. When (not if) the US loses it’s ability to control the world in the fashion it so chooses, it would be totally naive to imagine the internet would remain “extremely open”, certainly not “fair” and in no way “transparent”. Those nations most at threat… Read more »
“If the US could manipulate it as it does through Google etc, it would censor and make unavailable, access to whichever part they chose.” Google is a private corporation, not the internet itself. Google has nothing to do with root DNS servers. Nor has Google ever censored a website, despite false statements by those with little technological knowledge. On the contrary, China and Russia have openly blocked websites en-masse from their countries. The U.S.. has never done this, nor does it have an equivalent to China’s 50 cent army. I follow censorship news in China from China Digital Times. They even sometimes get access to high-level censorship instructions. “When (not if) the US loses it’s ability to control the world in the fashion it so chooses, it would be totally naive to imagine the internet would remain “extremely open”, certainly not “fair” and in no way “transparent”.” The U.S. has… Read more »
Isn’t Google’s “de-ranking” of certain Russian websites a form of censorship? And it’s use of unnamed “quality-asessors” to measure the value and rankability of websites could also be seen that way. You can see why it might appear that way?
And surely one reason why the US supports the “free flow of information” is that the majority of major news outlets in the West very faithfully sell only those versions of events that comply with US ideals and ambitions. You won’t find inconvenient facts or opinions flowing all that freely through the NYT, WaPO, Times or Guardian.
Aldous Huxley’s prescient or conditioning comments come to mind of the developing of systems of control that seem to be freedom, and operate a manipulated reality via technological and biological means.
The nature if open dictatorship is out front. The nature of mind-capture uses the example of the former as a foil against which to seem ‘free’, and an enemy against which to sacrifice freedoms so as not to succumb.
Different ways of organizing or effecting ‘power’ operate around the world.
I no longer see nations as operating their own sovereign will (if ever they did – though we generally saw it portrayed in such terms).
I see that effective control, is not hands on micromanagement or even a majority stake – but the capacity to exert decisive influence in key moments to align outcomes that further and protect a private agenda – under ‘plausible deniability’.
@Binra:”I see that effective control, is not hands on micromanagement or even a majority stake – but the capacity to exert decisive influence in key moments to align outcomes that further and protect a private agenda – under ‘plausible deniability’…..”
Oh well done. Aldous was not wrong, but your last paragraph was a winner.
That is not censorship. Censorship is when a government blocks websites at the ISP level or beyond. A corporation, that is voluntarily used by people as a search engine, and that deranks websites that post fringe news, is not engaging in censorship. “And it’s use of unnamed “quality-asessors” to measure the value and rankability of websites could also be seen that way.” Google has no such thing when it comes its ranking system – that is done by an algorithm. Is this the same as Chinese-style censorship, with full blocks on websites, automatic censoring and replacement of certain words no matter whether they’re sent by SMS, email, chat, etc, and imprisonment for accessing these blocked websites? It’s nothing – not even close to bring censorship. “And surely one reason why the US supports the “free flow of information” is that the majority of major news outlets in the West very… Read more »
LOL, thanks. So, if we define “censorship” in as absurdly narrow a way as possible then we can seriously claim there isn’t any censorship!
Hilarious.
That is not what I am claiming at all, and you are taking my claims out of context. I was talking about the U.S. government vs BRICS regarding the internet, which you replied to by discussing Google. I made it very clear that for all the work Google does on its algorithm, it is not even remotely comparable to what China does. That was my main point. Regarding censorship, my definition is not “absurdly narrow”. It is quite simple: can you access RT and Sputnik articles in America, without needing proxies or VPNs? Yes or no? If the answer is yes, it means the U.S. government is not censoring those websites. If Google deranks those websites, then that does not stop anyone from visiting RT/Spuntik manually, or by using any other search engine. Google is a corporation, and you don’t have to use their products. So zero censorship here. You… Read more »
I suggest you read “When Wikileaks met Google”. There you will find both Eric and Wendy Schmidt proven beyond all reasonable doubt to receive their orders from the CIA. As ever your disingenuous alliegence to the prevailing hegemony, that is in no way diminished as you state, is an exercise in hilarity!
I have read that, multiple times in fact. It was a good read and Assange is clearly an excellent writer. But nowhere did I ever get the impression upon reading it that “Eric and Wendy Schmidt [are] proven beyond all reasonable doubt to receive their orders from the CIA.”
Thanks Binra, you have confirmed my own thinking, now it’s a case of wait and see…..who else wants to join their club.
Susan
Recently, two stories about ex-Yugoslavia Civil War and ICTY were breaking news and cover stories in last few weeks – sentencing gen. Ratko Mladić, and sentencing Croat 6, when one of them, Prljic took poison. The Guardian, among others Westerner MSM, covered these stories quite biased, one-side and with a lot of manipulation about facts.
Main fact that have “eluded” every text or report covering these stories failed to mention (elephant in the room) that FOR MURDER OF 30.000 BOSNIAN SERBS NOBODY WAS PRISONED! Out of 100.000 “bosnian victims”, some 60.000 were Bosnian muslims, 30.000 Bosnian Serbs, and the rest was Croats and others (including jihadists from Afganistan, Pakistan, S. Arabia).
Yet, noone has been found guilty and sentenced for longterm prison time for murdering Bosnian Serb civilians.
In my mind, this is a BREAKING NEWS!!!!
The BIG FIVE multinational cartels must be exposed.
Often and loudly.
Arms, Animal Agriculture, Pharma, Oil and Media.
When they say ‘Jump’ governments leap.
They piss in each other’s pockets and are utterly devoid of ethics.
They are the masters of this Universe and they should be hounded from it.
Big Ag is not simply ‘animal Ag’. The setting up of the conditions in which corporate ego runs unchecked is in law. Big Gov – is simply surrender of responsibility (sovereign will) to global contractual law. The Big Ed denies a true history in which never has there been a time when some witness of exposure of the lie was not given. As I see it, fear operates in place of sovereign will (awakened responsibility) until and unless it is replaced by a true act of freedom – in which you know yourself truly in the sharing or living and being – rather than the mind-capture of fear of pain, loss, chaos etc – driving the imposition of ‘law’ – whether that be tilted to holding some sense of order or attacking the enemy ‘seen in’ the old order. A key element here is the fear, distrust and hatred of… Read more »
As a thought: they say we are post “peak QE” and we are tapering toward market normalisation – although the BOJ, ECB, and recently the PCOB are still pumping $$$$ billions per day into the global economy – what happens when that taper hits zero? [Scheduled for March-April 2019 to coincide with …??? No, seriously …it is on course to be on or around March 29th 2019 – you can’t make this stuff up.]
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2017/10/21/ECB%20purchases%20martin.jpg
They are running out of options (negative NIRP interest rates, cashless society, asset confiscation {which the ECB have just legislated for…}) If they don’t forgive or restructure the debt (Keen and Hudson’s modern debt jubilee) – their own (BIS central banksters) Ponzi scheme will collapse. And they will blame us (household indebtedness too high, productivity too low); Brexit and the Russians!!!
Great work being done in the USA by people campaigning for the truth about vaccines – including the proven and admitted link between MMR and autism, thus vindicating Andrew Wakefield. First there was TTAV (The Truth About Vaccines – a 7-part series; may be available on YouTube). Currently running is a superb follow-up called Vaccines Revealed. Each episode is available for 24 hours and the whole series can also be purchased. Part 2 is still available this evening. Try http://www.vaccinesrevealed.com for a link.
Other excellent series are: TTAC (The Truth About Cancer) and The Sacred Plant (on the remarkable medicinal properties of the cannabis plant and its extracts – primarily the non-psychoactive ones such as CBD, which is legal in the UK). Many stories of cures and/or ameliorations of serious conditions. Many US states have legal dispensaries. There should be a campaign in the UK to follow suit.
Big Pharma doesn’t like Andrew Wakfield, to put it mildly. Big Pharma has successfully campaigned to kill informed consent. Those who argue for it, in relation to vaccinations, are now seen as barbarians and dangerous. (My blog post about it, on A Yappy Trade Barrier, is titled “Destroying Consent.”)
I don’t see that ‘like’ comes into it. Wakefield crossed a line in publishing a paper in which correlations between MMR vaccines autism invited further study,and was made an extreme example of. How many doctors want to risk being ‘Wakefielded’? The Vaccine ‘industry’ is a trojan horse. If it was just for profit it wouldn’t be quite so disturbing. Mandatory vaccines for all are being rolled into law (internationally), either directly or via such coercive tactics as no school access, no job, or children taken away. In nations without a voice vaccine agenda operates under ‘Aid’ and philanthropy. The presumption that this has transparency, accountability and oversight in scientific, political or legal terms is misguided. The underlying IDEA is of sacrificing the individual to the ‘greater good’ as defined by corrupt or fake (corporate) science – a technocracy of ‘experts’. The practice in this band of the spectrum is toxic,… Read more »
When the controversy about the MMR vaccine and it’s links to autism were aired, then PM Tony Blair was urging parents to have their children receive the MMR vaccine. He went quiet for a while when a reporter asked him if he had had his own children vaccinated by this controversial vaccine and Blair refused to answer(which of course meant that he had not put his own children at risk). At least someone had managed to silence his lying mouth on one subject. He dared not appear again giving the same advice because he knew people would ask the same question and if he lied he would be found out. People called him a liar anyway, once they realized the truth about his own choice for his kids. Cameron I believe has a son who has autism and it is likely that he had his children vaccinated using the disputed… Read more »
Are you fed up with the media? Well this is what we do about it | @NafeezAhmed
https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/welcome-to-the-media-revolution-5555da359506
#EmpireOfPsychopathy #EmpiresDecline
#FFS YES!
A topic which threatens to burst once again onto ‘the scene’…
Prof. Richard Werner – Banking Industry Exposed & Solutions Presented
I still like Trump after the Britain First retweets. I think I might even make excuses for him in the case of a nuclear war.
Do I need an attitude adjustment?
He makes a great cartoon character – who writes his script?
For an amusing little story ….
Alberta Conservative MLA Ron Orr is worried that legalizing marijuana could send Canada down a slippery slope into communism.
Communist Party of Canada (on Facebook)
“We’ve been found out.
Did Ron Orr come across details of our secret plan in the crayon scribblings Rob Anders left behind at Sunday school?”
See http://pressprogress.ca/alberta-conservative-mla-legalizing-marijuana-could-lead-to-a-communist-revolution-in-canada/
I honestly didn’t see that coming. Almost fell out of my chair! “Alberta Conservative MLA Ron Orr is worried that legalizing marijuana could send Canada down a slippery slope into . . . communism.” And this is simply genius: “Their whole society was so broken down and debilitated by [the smoke of opium] that it contributed to the Chinese Cultural Revolution under the communists, the execution of thousands of people, dealers were executed, fields were plowed under and planted with real food and I, for one, am not really willing to go down this road. The human tragedy of what’s going to happen with this has yet to be revealed. Yes, opium smoking, like marijuana, was a fashionable refined pastime especially among the young – but I’ll tell you something, it doesn’t lead to the good life. It’s an escape.” What is in bold is my emphasis. I actually know… Read more »
I would say that Mr. Orr has had more than a stroke, that couldn’t account for his debilitated drivel, bot too much smack or meth would do it.
SMoke!
Hahaha, trust you to put this together, I hadn’t spotted it. Good one, lots of smiles.
“…I, for one, am not really willing to go down this road…” unless it’s Afghanistan.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176350/tomgram%3A_alfred_w._mccoy%2C_washington%27s_drug_of_choice_in_the_war_on_terror/
Alfred McCoy is knowledgeable about torture and drugs, but there’s some things about him that make me wonder. He seems altogether to willing to depend on sources like the New York Times for his info. And in the article I link to above, he almost seems to think that USAID is up to good sometimes. It isn’t. Ever.
Mine is a question:
Is there anyone out there who could write the article or essay that does away with the many myths about the economy and goes right to its bottom – the fact that the ‘economy’ is based on debt and that these debts are ever increasing because the have to be repaid with compound interest to private banks?
I would really like to know why the government borrows from private banks against interest. Could not a state-owned or partly state owned bank give the government a 0% interest loan as investment vehicle for the ‘real economy’; maybe against security and without costing the tax payer a penny? And if not why not? Please, someone explain this to me.
Or why not a publicly owned bank – like a giant credit union? There are massive amounts of money in private savings which are currently earning very little and yet being used for purposes which the savers do not necessarily agree with. Some of that might be released by people of conscience who would be content to earn a modest interest in exchange for assurances that the money would be invested in ethical businesses and not loaned to anyone pursuing unethical purposes.
Maybe unrealistic to think of this working at the national level … but at the council and local levels it might be feasible.
Too idealistic?
Karin / Paul, The easy to understand difference between privately-owned central banks like the Federal Reserve, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, European Central Bank, etc, and public-owned central banks is simply that the former (current) are under the power and control of .01% of the population and the latter (certainly doable, after overcoming the opposition put up by the .01% possessing the immeasurable “money power”) of the 99.9%. Transference of the money power from the small group now exercising it to the vast majority of humanity for the benefit of all is among the most important challenges civilization faces, for meeting that challenge makes living conditions on Earth – the human condition – greatly improved, and in all likelihood brings an effective end to wars of aggression. Monetary reform is not a complex issue for people to understand, although, because of social conditioning, many avoid the issue because of erroneous… Read more »
Jerry: I agree – but let’s not be naive, it’s not that simple? Governments could and should create sovereign money debt free – and spend it into the productive economy on infrastructure, manufacturing, job creation, SMEs, etc. …without building up the national debt – but they don’t …they are in collusion with the 0.01% …and we are wedded to the neoliberal ideology that wealth creators (0.01% of them!) create the wealth that “trickles down” or “raises all boats at once”. The system is deliberately rigged to preserve and inflate the assets of of the property and capital owning ‘elite’. The mechanism they (the central bankers) use is to target inflation – to keep it between 0 and 3%. By keeping costs, commodities, and wages low (or falling – i.e. deflationary) – increases the real value of debts. [Source: Ann Pettifor.] This transfers our wealth to theirs: a process David Harvey… Read more »
Agree on all points. You write and you ask: “But even if we somehow get an inveigled populace to get rid of the central banks – there is the environmental aspect,. That demands that we slow down. Our obsession with wealth runs deeper than the current or future financial system. How do we convince ourselve to make do with less: and prosper in more meaningful ways (life, love, and the peaceful pursuit of happiness)? That is the question.” And that is the crux of the issue, and one that those who read Marx completely fail to grasp despite it being front and center in Marx’s critique of capital. As long as the Law of Value remains the principle that orders the production and distribution of goods and services — that is to say, “capital,” the production for market exchange, of “commodities,” and by implication, for profit, or at the very… Read more »
Interesting thoughts Norm. The Law of Value has been completely subverted by a cancerous and cannibalistic system masquerading as capitalism. For instance: what do the child forced at gunpoint to mine the coltan; and the assembly worker forced by economic necessity …get as a percentage of the market (commodity) value of the finished iPhone X …(next to) zero? The ‘value’ of the item is almost exclusively in Apple’s intellectual property rights, protected by patent …it’s an extreme form of oppression and exploitative theft … the ‘labour value’ is stolen and replaced by a form of rent extraction. If the commodity were hypothetically ‘fair trade’ – and every element of the supply chain (including the environment) was given ‘value’ and adequately compensated – the item would be beyond a luxury good that could not afford to be mass produced …making one off items would nullify any economies of scale …production would… Read more »
I read this: “…The Law of Value has been completely subverted by a cancerous and cannibalistic system masquerading as capitalism. For instance: what do the child forced at gunpoint to mine the coltan; and the assembly worker forced by economic necessity …get as a percentage of the market (commodity) value of the finished iPhone X …(next to) zero?”. What struck me in that paragraph was that the value of Human Being had been completely replaced by some sense of monetary stake in a transaction – and blamed on “a cancerous and cannibalistic system masquerading as capitalism”. I would shift this statement and suggest ‘a cancerous and cannibalistic thought system masquerading as normal’. What is the ‘Law of Value’?. I ask myself – though perhaps you have some idea what this capitalized Law is? What you value you will invest in, and what you invest (identify) in you will protect and… Read more »
Binra: I was critiquing Marx’s Labour Theory of Value with Norm. So in this instance, I’m not sure what relevance your comments have toward an abstract concept??? But you are right in a way: the process of preserving and increasing profits leads to the universal alienation and exploitation we are living now.
Email notifications come in randomly and the OG page is chaotic to navigate – so I belatedly realized this “LAW’ is part of Marx’s thought, and not yours. I don’t see ‘Capital’ as a sentient being – though I see sacrifice to its god. But I have an unfinished post to Norman and don’t want to have two many plates spinning at once..
all the best. B
A qualitative shift and alignment is called for – not a quantitative limitation imposed upon an unchanged ‘business model’. Much (most?) of what is considered economic activity contributing to ‘growth’ or GDP is negative in real terms. It the Economy (that is) Stupid!. Perhaps all authoritarianism operates on the willingness to give our own away. On a short youtube about addiction it revisited the rat experiment – where (a rat) can self-generate ‘pleasure’ ( If I recall via sucking opiates). The original was A rat in a small cage. The revision set up a much larger relational environment and the ‘substitute’ connection faded. I don’t like the term psychology – because it presumes to stand outside and judge what one is also participant in. So I say that there are psychic-emotional patterns or ‘conditioning’ that are both fed (manipulated), and fed upon by a negative agenda. Such that this negative… Read more »
Dear Paul,
The lawyer Ellen Brown writes a blog called The Web of Debt where she has posted articles on the Bank of North Dakota, a state-owned bank that she often cites as an example of a public bank that other US states could use as a model to set up their own banks.
https://ellenbrown.com/tag/bank-of-north-dakota/
Great question which links to one of my own pet hates, the use of techno-babble, especially when talking about the economy.
I assume the endless obfuscation, or absence of readily understood, or consistently applied measures is a political device required to divert attention away from a single, simple, and self-evident economic reality; namely the fact a tiny number of people control a vastly dispproportionate % of a country’s assets.
Of course people understand such abuses when it comes to a corrupt gangster like Robert Mugabe but fail to see similar dynamics when it comes to Wall Street, or our financial institutions – as I say opaque terminology is just one of the techniques employed by the corporate and banking world to shroud their activites behind a veil of self serving secrecy.
First of all I am not entirely qualified to answer this 100% correctly! Yet, I have found modern monetary theory as an excellent way to understand how the monetary system works. If you are on Facebook, I highly recommend the group..intro to mmt , they are very nice to those who aren’t experts! First thing about it is to know all money is debt, or an iou. As the world & the economy gets bigger the amount of debt will rise, as it only reflects the liquidity within the economy. Money is created by a mouse stroke on a spreadsheet when someone takes out a loan or when the govt borrows . Private banks charge interest to cover defaults on their liabilities. Govts offer interest on their bonds as a savings account for it’s citizens & pension funds etc (though recently it is needing more foreign purchases & the BoE… Read more »
Brilliant question! Wish I knew the answer, but I don’t, sorry. It’s simple, vitally important, necessary to know to understand basic macro-economics. However, very few of know the answer, when all of us should. Question is, why don’t we know? Is there an “emperor-with-no-clothes” going on here?
Karin, there is a good over view and analysis just published on Prof. Michael Hudson’s web site. It might not answer your question directly but it indicates the way the whole financial system is rigged historically and how it continues today.
Well worth a read. Written as the introduction to his book being published in German, “Super Imperialism”
http://michael-hudson.com/2017/11/germanys-choice/
I felt to write into this – but I knew I could not answer your request in its own terms because what we call money is itself mythical in its depending on invested shared belief. The word ‘shared’ is the emphasis in that sentence. So read or ignore what follows as you choose – but these are my current reflections on ‘the economy and interest accruing debt-money’. I like myths about the economy – such as that of King Midas. Value is not intrinsic – even to gold. You cant eat it. Context determines meaning – but a falsely framed context creates a false currency of meanings. (I don’t use the term ‘myth’ for falsehood – because myths carry information that used to be the way cultures (our Ancestors) transmitted multi layered wisdom through the generations to those who grew into receptivity for it. Wisdom now largely usurped by very… Read more »
Donald Trump effectively ended the horrifying civil war in Syria by terminating covert American support for the rebels. Hillary Clinton wanted to get more deeply involved including confronting the Russians with a no fly zone.
“Trump Ends Covert Aid to Syrian Rebels Trying to Topple Assad (NY Times)
President Trump has ended the clandestine American program to provide arms and supplies to Syrian rebel groups, American officials said, a recognition that the effort was failing and that the administration has given up hope of helping to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
The decision came more than a month ago, the officials said, by which time the effort to deliver the arms had slowed to a trickle.
It was never publicly announced, just as the beginnings of the program four years ago were officially a secret, authorized by President Barack Obama
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/world/middleeast/cia-arming-syrian-rebels.html
@EricMcCoo. Thanks for the article in NYT. Just one point I would pick up on though, in your opening sentence. “Civil War”? It is more a case of the Civil War that never was. There were lots of players involved and they all played their part, primarily at the behest of the US and it’s thoroughly nasty cohorts. Anyone trying to sell you the few demonstrations regarding the trials and tribulations that beset the nation and it’s government as being representative of a “civil war”, have their own egregious agenda and are merely repeating the interventionist propaganda the US allies are still trying to promote as justification for the resultant suffering of the Syrian people. In the most recent Parliamentary vote those “poor” Syrians being murdered by their President and his evil SAA, voted overwhelmingly for Dr. Basher Al Assad, much to the chagrin of the minority interests playing out… Read more »
Some, I notice, don’t want to give up on the civil war narrative entirely, but feel that they can’t defend it either, so they talk about a civil war that morphed into what it became. That doesn’t work either. It was never a civil war. Were the foreign-funded terrorists, aka the rebels, Syrian citizens who decided to fight for a different Syria? The question includes the answer. “Foreign” funded.
If memory serves, the New York Times featured headlines indicating Saddam Hussein possessed “weapons of mass destruction” pre-2003 Bush/Cheney/Blair illegal invasion of Iraq, and before the equally catastrophic Vietnam War headlines suporting the false flag “Gulf of Tonkin incident”. The NYT effectively aided and abetted those two criminal wars of aggression which led to the perishing of untold millions of innocent men, women and children.
This American knew NOTHING about the USS LIBERTY until 2007 when I met my first survivor of The Six Day who spoke told how 34 shipmates were murdered by Israel because they were onboard America’s then premier spy ship as she navigated in international waters on the day Israel planned on attacking Syria which was delayed until the day after June 8 1967 because the USS LIBERTY got in the way:
Latest Reports on the USS LIBERTY crew’s struggle to END the 50 yr. Cover-up of the attack on the USS LIBERTY instituted by LBJ which every president since has colluded in:
http://thearabdailynews.com/?s=USS+LIBERTY
“We Americans and the USS Liberty” is my ‘labor of love’ [as creator, director, producer] for the crew of the USS LIBERTY, which concludes with a few courageous survivors of The Six Day War talking about 50 yrs. PTS worsened because of USA Govt. COVERUP:
Americans and people around the Earth will highly appreciate “We Americans and the U.S.S. Liberty”, an excellent documentary detailing the important historical facts surrounding the 1967 U.S.S. Liberty false flag attack by Israeli forces in collusion with U.S. President Lyndon Johnson. Outstanding.
The assault against free speech, now well underway, is directed at any speech that exposes the fake and propagandist narratives of both neoliberal/neocon establishment and democracy, which is constantly under threat. Welcome to George Orwell’s 1984 whereby the oppressor is the state – the CAPITALIST one, with it’s supporting cast of corporates, banksters, fraudsters, tax dodgers, media whores and opportunistic privileged degenerates. In this Brave New World, the State and their despicable cronyism are the pigs in the trough and also the Big Brother spying elites, impinging on workers rights and privacy and controlling them by much the same means as Orwell described. It obviously never occurred to Blair that his book would be describing, not his hated enemy, the Trotskyists and Marxists, not the Maoists and Stalinists, but the entitled and anti proletariat right wing he defended. The Stazi he demonized are the state tax funded police acting as… Read more »
In the Centennial Edition of “1984”, Thomas Pynchon wrote the Foreword and Erich Fromm the Afterword, from which I quote: “A working prophet, is able to see deeper than most of us into the human soul. Orwell in “1948” understood that despite the Axis defeat, the will to fascism had not gone away…the irresistible human addiction to power was already long in place. The means of surveillance in Winston Smith’s era are primitive next to the wonders of computer technology: most notably the Internet.” “Universal peace and justice are the goals of man, and the prophets have faith that in spite of all errors and sins under the illusion of fighting for peace and democracy. All the fighting nations have lost moral considerations…the unlimited destruction of civilian populations and atomic bombs. Can human nature be changed so that man will forget his longing for freedom, dignity, integrity, love-can man forget… Read more »
I’m personally of the opinion, that democracy itself is the illusion, there’s not much that is democratic at the moment. Diane Abbott is now saying she would back a move to have a new EU referendum. That’s rather reducing the referendum to a best of three darts match. I may have wanted to remain, but to overturn a referendum result based solely on one’s preference, is to deny the right to vote for or against any given matter of contention.
I do like the passages by Pynchon and Fromm, you gave regarding the book I referred to, it was required reading 45 years ago, in order to teach us the terrible threat that communism posed in our “free” society, (as I watch those freedoms being eroded – daily).
“…Slobodan Praljak, like other Bosnian Croats, was someone who found himself fighting a US-backed enemy. His conviction by the ICTY means nothing. To understand that, you can look into how the ICTY combines European and Common Law traditions to eliminate the checks and balances of either, makes up rules on the spot, and invents new crimes (“joint criminal enterprise”) which are so expansively defined, no evidence is needed to convict. Or you can merely understand that Praljak was unlucky enough to be a commander in a side that found itself on the wrong end of US intervention in Bosnia.”
Comments?
Don’t doubt the truth of your words. Do you have a link?
Its at Russian Insider
http://russia-insider.com/en/heroic-croat-general-fought-us-intervention-bosnia-1993-took-his-life-hague-keep-fighting/ri21773?ct=t(Russia_Insider_Daily_Headlines11_21_2014)&mc_cid=cfc57c9741&mc_eid=08575fcb92
@Bevin. Thanks for the link. Don’t know how I missed it because I have both RI and RT daily feed. Have, naturally, re-blogged the post because of it’s factual content and analytic perspective.
The whole Mladic trial process is a repeat of the “Victor’s Justice” of the Nuremberg show trials (the post-war Allied version; not the Nazi one.) Until we enshrine the Nuremberg Principles into customary International Humanitarian Law: return to the parity of nation states; treaty based law and diplomacy; the respect of sovereignty and national integrity; non-interventionism (as a last, not a first resort); and the sacrosanct right to self-determination – enshrined in the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia – all such trials are an illegitimate imperial sham. To determine who is a “war criminal” based on a shifting code from which the prosecutors and principal aggressors are exempt – is, in itself, a crime against humanity. If the UN want to have a trial: how about for Clinton and Blair over Kosovo?
In 2005, during my first of 8 trips to both sides of Israel’s Wall in Palestine, I became an online reporter inspired by Mordechai Vanunu, Israel’s nuclear whistle blower because he told me some TRUTH that everyone in the world should know: “The French were responsible for the actual building of the Dimona. The Germans gave the money; they were feeling guilty for the Holocaust, and tried to pay their way out. Everything inside was written in French, when I was there, almost twenty years ago. Back then, the Dimona descended seven floors underground. “In 1955, Perez and Guirion met with the French to agree they would get a nuclear reactor if they fought against Egypt to control the Sinai and Suez Canal. That was the war of 1956. Eisenhower demanded that Israel leave the Sinai, but the reactor plant deal continued on. “Did you know that President Kennedy tried… Read more »
Ok here’s my two pence on the Apollo issue. I am a firm believer in technology and human progress, but I am not convinced we did go to the Moon. This is a doubt that has grown with investigation. I began looking into it because I wanted to refute the Moon conspiracy theorists infesting the web. I was infuriated with their repeated cries of “Van Allen Belts!” and “Flags waving in a Moon breeze” etc. I figured it would be fairly easy to refute the claims with a bit of research. So I began looking for info on NASA’s research into the VA belts and their work on overcoming the problems they present. I knew James Van Allen had discovered the belts in the 1950s and had written a well-known article saying they presented a formidable obstacle to our ability to escape our near-earth orbit and explore space. I figured… Read more »
As for myself, I’ve never really given much thought to the Apollo project other than to regard it as a kinda “Public Relations” exercise, on the one hand, to rally public opinion behind the spending of insanely exorbitant sums of public money on what was essentially a rocket research program, or if you will, a military research program sold to the public as a disinterested if nationally prestigious scientific undertaking, and, on the other hand, to intimidate America’s geopolitical competitors by publicly flexing its technological superiority and, by implication, its (then) incomparable military might. Beyond that, I take no position on whether or not the project actually succeeded in its ostensible purpose. But nor do I believe the issue to be all that important, that is to say, in terms of the current political significance to which it could amount. It’s not a 9/11 conspiracy. In other words, I doubt… Read more »
BTW: Windley claims to have written an email to Van Allen, to which Van Allen replied. A reference to that exchange can be found HERE Apparently, on whether Van Allen believed the VARB to be an insuperable obstacle to the Apollo missions, this was his alleged reply to Windley (Mr. Lambert??): Quote begins: Professor Van Allen’s response: Dear Mr. Lambert, In reply to your e-mail, I send you the following copy of a response that I wrote to another inquiry about 2 months ago — The radiation belts of the Earth do, indeed, pose important constraints on the safety of human space flight. The very energetic (tens to hundreds of MeV) protons in the inner radiation belt are the most dangerous and most difficult to shield against. Specifically, prolonged flights (i.e., ones of many months’ duration) of humans or other animals in orbits about the Earth must be conducted at… Read more »
Correction to a misattribution I make in my post: Windley did not write the original email to Van Allen, but quoted Van Allen’s response form a reply Van Allen had made to an acquaintance (Mr. Lambert??) of Windley’s.
Hi Norman, I appreciate, as always, your interest in pursuing facts and data. That is the kind of discussion I like. I’m rushing atm, but just want to say I will get back with a proper response. Meanwhile I have send the pdf of the Van Allen article to OffG and they say they will upload them.
Thanks for the Van Allen article. I’ll read it over the next day or so.
BTW: You’ve probably been through the “Apollo Lunar Surface Journal,” but if you haven’t you can find it HERE. Not yet seeing any details about the VARB, but there is a huge amount of apparent “data.”
This is interesting stuff, if you scroll down to Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera Images.
I really don’t know(or care much, for that matter)whether or not Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon or it was all a psy op by the US to strike fear into the hearts of those evil, thoroughly villainous, baby eating….oops, got carried away again(as you do when in propaganda mode) Russians, but came across this.:
https://lightsinthedark.com/2014/05/22/no-the-moon-landings-werent-faked-and-heres-how-you-can-tell/
Have to admit – I’m non the wiser – went straight over the top of my head.
From the article to which you link, I thought this was rather interesting: Quote begins: Fact: we’ve imaged all the Apollo landing sites from lunar orbit. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been surveying the Moon for five years now, and during that time has imaged all of the Apollo landing sites from its position in lunar orbit. Several times, in fact, and under many different lighting angles. So while we can’t visually resolve the remains of the Apollo sites from Earth (simply due to the angular resolution limitations of telescopes) LRO can see them very nicely… LM descent stages, ALSEPs. LRVs, and astronaut tracks all as they were left over 40 years ago. The descent stage of Eagle can be seen in this LRO image, along with tracks and experiment packages. (NASA/LRO/Arizona State University) Don’t want to believe anything NASA has to say regarding the landing sites? That’s OK—China said… Read more »
Tubularsock has proof that the U.S. never got to the moon. And it is really simple but true.
If you look up at the moon tonight it is still there, right?
There you have it.
It is a known FACT that whatever the U.S. “walks on” we blow up! Vietnam, Libya, No.Korea, Japan, Syria, Yemen and the list goes on ………..
But the moon is still there.
Now light up another joint and groove on that ………….. Farrrrrrrrr Outtttttt!
How much of the whacky baccy have you done?
Well monhandeer, Tubularsock smokes just the regular amount.
Like the song says:
“I smoke two joints in the morning
I smoke two joints at night
I smoke two joints in the afternoon
It makes me feel all right.
I smoke two joints in time of peace
And two in time of war.
I smoke two joints before I smoke two joints
And then I smoke two more.” … Sublime
Cheers.
Ooops. I wanted to append a second reply to your post, but accidentally directed it to myself . . .
Reply to StAug’s comments posted on JFK article “Flaxgirl: you’ve heard of acting, right?” This is indeed the point I’ve tried to make but you seem to be missing it StAug. My claim is that the hours-long conversations between the astronauts (and between them and ground control) simply couldn’t be acted and, as I’ve said already, I invite you and a like-minded friend to simulate their conversations for 30 minutes. What I’d like to know from you is: Is there anything you detect that seems acted in their conversations? Do you believe their conversations were scripted or extempore? Are you aware of any similarly simulated conversations? These conversations are very significant and need to be accounted for. While you believe, what to me, are people obviously acting as witnesses at Grenfell (the typical signs of “duping delight” and complete nonsense – “I was here when they installed the cladding and… Read more »
Hi Norm. Read the article and re-read it and must admit, did find it convincing to my layman’s brain. Could I be duped by clever science and wording – yup, I’m no Einstein,but why waste energy debunking something just for the sake of it? So I guess I’ll remain this side of caution and accept that the event happened, just as it was televised at the time. Seems to me Van Hallen’s own retraction of his earlier work is suggestive of the truth rather than the fiction of the doubters. The mountain of evidence and articles weigh in favour of the veracity of the US mission claims, or so it seems to me. The Occams Razor tool isn’t foolproof but working a problem backwards(a heuristic approach)can reach the same conclusions and it can be applied from a given starting point that can be altered in many ways, thus you should… Read more »
“I was highly shocked to discover I could barely find any. If you do the same and try to find data on this I think you’ll be surprised too. There is almost no definitive information out there on exactly how much ionising radiation a man would receive on traversing the belts, on how the data was collected or on how they worked out the safe zones and safe trajectories allegedly used.” This is incorrect. The Van Allen belts were the very first discovery of the space age. The first evidence for the radiation belts was reported in 1958 by James Van Allen (hence the name) using data from a cosmic ray detector on the very first NASA mission: the Explorer 1 satellite. This information was studied and a paper was published as far back in 1963: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12056428 NASA has even sent twin probes there, to measure radiation: https://directory.eoportal.org/web/eoportal/satellite-missions/v-w-x-y-z/van-allen-probes The Apollo… Read more »
Source for below paragraph:
https://www.quora.com/How-can-humans-survive-the-Van-Allen-radiation-belts
Here is a link to a website that, in my opinion, offers succinct and rational rebuttals to the “substance” of the most preponderant and “best” arguments typically put forward by the “the Moon Landings were fake” crowd: Non-Faked Moon Landings. The website also has a decent list of links to other websites critical of the “NASA conspiracy theory.” Here is a link to Phil Plait’s rebuttals (who received his PhD in astronomy at the University of Virginia in 1994) : <a href=”http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html”Fox TV and the Apollo Moon Hoax”. Reasonable arguments and links to other sources. PS: I spent many hours last night combing through the photographic evidence archived and available for public scrutiny at the NASA “Apollo Lunar Surface Journal” (see the link in my previous reply titled, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera Images. On the home page, follow the link titled “Image Libraries” under the heading, “Program Summary, Overviews, and… Read more »
Just a test to see how this image will turn out in this post:
Nice!
P.S. Click on the image(s) to enlarge and explore the ‘detail.’
Okay, last one, since you can go and look at the catalogs of photographic evidence yourself, a different perspective of the previous location and boulder:
Those are beautiful photos. There are also high resolution photos from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), showing the tracks of the rover and other objects left behind by the Apollo astronauts:
http://wwwcdn.skyandtelescope.com/wp-content/uploads/Apollo-all-LRO-views_ST.jpg
Aye!
BTW: “Non-Faked Moon Landings” is a webpage put together by Jim Scotti.
That is:
James Vernon Scotti is an American astronomer. He was born in Bandon, Oregon and graduated from Woodway Senior High in Edmonds, Washington in 1978. He received his B.Sc. in Astronomy from the University of Arizona in Tucson in 1983. Wikipedia
Born: 1960, Bandon, Oregon, United States
Education: University of Arizona
Another niggling detail: Quote begins: Telemetry The program [i.e., the “television special, Conspiracy Theory: Did We Go to the Moon? produced by Bruce Nash and aired on the Fox Network in March, 2001” Steven Dutch] seems blissfully unaware that any data other than photographs came out of the Apollo flights. But the Apollo craft would have been continuously transmitting telemetry. If Apollo had merely gone into earth orbit as claimed, how was telemetry faked? For example, amateur radio enthusiasts were perfectly capable of listening in on Apollo transmissions – and did. If the Apollo spacecraft had merely been in earth orbit, as some conspiracy theorists claim, it would have been below the horizon and its transmissions blocked from any given location most of the time. As the spacecraft neared the moon, its transmission frequency would have changed due to the Doppler Effect. It would have varied as the Command module… Read more »
And the what about the rocks? Quote begins: The Rocks Below is a photo of a terrestrial rock called olivine gabbro. The bland, mostly featureless areas are made mostly of plagioclase feldspar, a calcium-aluminum silicate. The fractured grains that appear to stand out in relief are olivine, a magnesium-iron silicate. The greenish material along the cracks and the brownish material on the edges of the olivine are water-bearing minerals derived from the alteration of the olivine. The feldspar looks slightly dusty, peppered with tiny inclusions, also the result of alteration. http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/Petrology/thin-sec-fotos/olivinegabbro2p.jpg Below is a very similar lunar rock – at least that’s what NASA claimed it was. I personally took both of these pictures. The clear areas are plagioclase feldspar and the very light yellow areas are olivine. The dark brown material is a titanium silicate mineral called titanite. http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/Petrology/thin-sec-fotos/moonrock1p.jpg What leaps out in comparing the two pictures is the… Read more »
Clever Norman. Really good stuff, it reminded me of just how much I had forgotten…..Thanks!
“This could not have been faked.” Why bother faking Moon rocks when there are/were Moon rocks available on Earth? “For example, when lunar meteorites are discovered in Antarctica, they have to match the Apollo samples.” Quite amusing way to sidestep the obvious point, eh? That is: just get “lunar meteorites […] discovered in Antarctica” and let them match other ” “lunar meteorites […] discovered in Antarctica”. Or use Moon rocks gathered by un-manned probes like “the samples returned by three Soviet Luna unmanned probes in the 1970s” (Wiki). Oh, and, btw: to get an idea of the characters we’re dealing with, here, Google the “Strughold, H.” cited Re: “On the Radiation Hazards of Space Flight” by van Allen in the article quoted. A very nasty Nazi who did, for example, horror-film like decompression experiments on living subjects… and later got a street named after himself, as a reward, in the… Read more »
“Or use Moon rocks gathered by un-manned probes like “the samples returned by three Soviet Luna unmanned probes in the 1970s” (Wiki).”
Ah, I see. So those darned Soviets were in on the hoax too! By God, this conspiracy runs much deeper than I thought!
Who knows all the twists and turns for every year of this massive Pro-USA-Hoax? Although that wasn’t my point (on this small part of a side-conversation)… however, yes, I completely understand that in the War of Attrition that these comment-thread debates (Pro Gov Propaganda vs Con Gov Propaganda) become, it is a good defensive tactic (for Pro-Gov) to focus on details when the larger matters (eg why no blast crater, or surface disturbance, under the “Lunar Module”… or the obvious footage of wire-suspended “astronauts”) can only be addressed with Magical Thinking and/or Orwellian 2+2=5 Logik. So, please do make as much of your misreading of my wording of my side-comment as possible! Please note: that “like” (the 9th word in the comment you cite) is important. Were there other unmanned, sample-gathering probes? Not sure! And neither can you be. And: again: minor point. Because I think the “Moon rocks” were… Read more »
Interesting aggregation of “Moon Rocks/ Lunar Meteorites” (and “moon Rocks are earth rocks”) data; in the battle against US GOV PROPAGANDA’s deep pockets, media support and millions of brainwashed fans, such aggregations help the Skeptic who would rather get on with the day than deal with the same localized cluster of three Believers every time he comments (ahem)…
https://youtu.be/QyzUEC_Mg3Q?t=42
Uh-huh.
. . . and by the way, a very nice take-down of the many of Jarrah White’s misattributions and misleading interpretations of his sources by Phil Webb . . .
I wish you’d drop the word propaganda. As far as I’m concerned you’re the one believing propaganda in that you think that Grenfell is real because of the plausibility of the “rich screwing over the poor” situation – don’t you get that’s what they WANT you to think – it’s so obviously intentional just as people believe that it really was 19 Muslims because, of course, they had every reason to want to harm the US. For goodness’ sake. I do not believe that we landed on the moon in any shape or form because of propaganda as I don’t think any of those commenting on this thread do. Who’s right or wrong – it’s got zero to do with propaganda. The lack of (or almost lack of) blast crater is explained by simple science by the Golly Gee girl here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyH4Zaz3mEE. Things happen differently on the moon, StAug. We… Read more »
“I wish you’d drop the word propaganda.” Yes, I’m sure you do. “Things happen differently on the moon, StAug. We can’t apply the same rules as on earth.” Yes, especially on The Fantasy Moon of US GOV Propaganda, Flaxgirl. Like the Fantasy Caves of Afghanistan and the Fantasy Classrooms of Sandy Hook. Facts/ Logic become irrelevant. Speaking of which: Re: that ridiculous video you link: the Pretty Propagandist Girl throws in plenty of filler (I haven’t watched the whole thing yet; you’ll understand why, soon) before getting to the nitty gritty that owing to the lunar gravity being less than Earth’s, “3,000 Pounds of thrust will actually feel like less…” Hilarious. But, still, so, the “Moon boots” left footprints in the soft “lunar dust” but those “weaker somehow” 3,000 pounds of thrust couldn’t make like a terrestrial leaf-blower and clear the dust? Laugh. Dear FG, you are being a sucker… Read more »
Just because I may accept an explanation for why there is no obvious blast crater does not mean I’m a sucker for propaganda. Really, I simply do not understand how these things work well enough to be sure one way or the other – and really I wonder if you do yourself. I don’t tend to judge the moon landings by debunking of alleged fakery. I judge them primarily by what seems to be the massive weight of evidence showing we went: the footage of the astronauts on the moon which does not seem faked to me – that may be highly subjective but so be it; the detailed history of the development of the technology to get there and, as I’ve said, I don’t think that the conversations of the astronauts, etc are fakeable. I don’t know what you find so strange about that. When you come up with… Read more »
“Just because I may accept an explanation for why there is no obvious blast crater does not mean I’m a sucker for propaganda. Really, I simply do not understand how these things work well enough to be sure one way or the other – and really I wonder if you do yourself.” Flaxgirl, I know, in great detail, why the most recent video you have cited as support for your belief in US GOV Propaganda is hilariously ridiculous in its pretty-girl-asset’s (targeting the young) assertion that 3,000 pounds of thrust will “feel lighter” on the Moon . Any junior-high school physics student will have a chuckle over that. You, clearly (and jaw-droppingly) do not. Which draws a stark distinction between our respective knowledge-levels regarding the topics under discussion. You admit to knowing little or nothing, then blithely go on to double-down on your Belief (a large component of the textbook… Read more »
“When you come up with a faked one yourself that sounds real, let me know.” A re- faked “astronauts” conversation in order to convince you that the first one was faked? Well, get me an enormous soundstage and a bunch of test pilots/ military/ CIA guys rigged up in radio-equipped “space suits” (some on peter-pan wires) and weeks or months of rehearsal and I’ll record semi-scripted radio-banter for hours at a time while I film them pretending to be on the Moon (remember to furnish me with off-mic earpieces so I can prompt them when needed). Should be easily do-able for a fraction of NAZA’S budget. Maybe as low as half a million….? Did you really think it was a few guys sitting around a table with scripts…? It was audio-recorded as it was filmed. The faked event was filmed; the audio is a by-product of the fake event. The… Read more »
To give an example of a person of high-standing who surely is lying his head off (possibly he’s been promised a new wing or something to justify what he’s doing):
Dr Ibrar Majid, lead children’s orthopaedic surgeon at Manchester Hospital. He’s doing his bit for the schizophrenic “Muslims are not all bad, oh but yes they are” propaganda message. Notice how highly-packaged this quite short BBC interview is. Notice the number of edits. Now you reckon a bunch of astronauts are going to fake hours and hours and hours of this without any obvious editing, without mistakes, without having to re-do their lines? And how long would the re-doing have taken? You’ve got to be kidding me.
http://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-40125302/manchester-attack-lead-children-s-surgeon-angry
And here we see the images of “… wounds on a battlefield”.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-4541026/The-Queen-visits-Royal-Manchester-Children-s-Hospital.html
I don’t see anyone needs to change your opinion – but your sense of how narrative history is created is limited to conscious intent of all concerned. I don’t see it works that way. For medical mafia rackets to persist as the third (but in my opinion leading) cause of death does not require everyone involved to fake their involvement. But it does operate under a narrative control – energetically defended by its ‘victims’ fear. You say that it cant be a false overlay of historical events, or a falsification of history. But that is what Hitler meant when he talked of the power of the Big Lie – and the postwar dumping of association for the Big Lie somewhat exclusively on Nazi evil – is PR for persisting unchanged in the same control system as an international or global intent. Business as usual. Because you are only interested in… Read more »
I wish you would answer a question that I put to you in the last thread, you know, just before you abandoned it, telling us that you had spent enough time presenting your airtight argument and that, in any case, you had said absolutely everything you had to say on the fakery of the Moon landings. But now that you are back and blithely blathering on again in the same vein and condescending tone, let me remind you of something you wrote in the last thread: ” The sheer enormousness of the achievement of making a roundtrip journey to the moon with living payloads was far beyond 1969 technology, and it’s still beyond 2017 technology, as NASA has admitted.” So again: do you have a reference as to where NASA has admitted that making a round trip to the moon with living payloads remains now as then beyond what is… Read more »
You two (Norman and St Aug) used to be chums as I recall. Why not forego all snarkiness on both sides and just stick to discussing the subject. It’s much more engaging for readers that way.
Okay, I’ll try to be snarkless and keep it nice for other readers.
But what about irony? Would that be okay, now and again, I mean if it’s sorta, kinda, and obviously deserved?
The spirit of the request I join with, but I don’t want anyone to ‘try’. Why not honour the relationship with such communication as honesty can share. Loss of communication to polarised narrative identity is pervasive in our times and so I feel the redemption of communication from a form of ‘war’ to giving and receiving true witness in freedom, is not only needed – but is the quality of mindfulness restored to living will, from externally assigned ‘authorities’ under which the sacrifice of will seems to gain power for one’s ’cause’. No one is going to accept what they are not the willingness of. But they may grow in willingness to listen when not being ‘denigrated’ or invalidated in ‘snark’ – no matter how rationally coded. – I didn’t learn anything from discussion here except to a prompt in willingness to search ‘Moon anomalies’ and be reminded of why… Read more »
Admin: In the first thread on the Moon Landings, StAug said that he had said everything he had to say and ignored a request for a reference to source for a statement of purported “fact” that he made. He also accused me of misrepreseting something that I demonstrated he had in fact written. He also denigrated me without provocation. And now he returns to the issue in this thread and begins to disrupt what until his return had been a reasonable and rational conversation. Either you intervene decisively as you should, or I’m done with OffG.
Don’t start dropping ultimatums Norman, that’s not friendly or helpful. I appreciate you’re feeling riled up but no one at OffG is responsible for anything St Aug says. The issue is between you both, not us. I’ve asked him, along with you, to drop the snarkiness. Maybe it might be a good idea to let the whole thing go for now.
Apologies for the ultimatum. I’ll be seeing you around.
Hello Norman Pilon – so you are pissed off.
But why the appeal to higher powers and accompanying ultimatum?
You could have stated the essence of this directly to StAug?
Are you free to engage and disengage with what you find relevant that resonates worthy of joining with?
I sense that arguing whether those astronauts ‘did or did not go to the Moon’ or whether NASA ‘did or did not fake it’, framed the conversation in failure from the outset.
But even that is genuine feedback by which to grow or learn.
Dear Binra, ” so you are pissed off.” No. Comments are sometimes posted for dramatic effect. As for appealing to a higher power, the point is that if someone is not contributing to a discussion, but is being ‘obviously’ disruptive, the mods can (and perhaps should) do something about it. Which they did, kinda. But for me, from my point of view, it could have been “a little more.” Not an outright ban, but a proscription from further participating in this particular discussion. Capiche? “You could have stated the essence of this directly to StAug?” And I didn’t? Neither directly nor indirectly? “Are you free to engage and disengage with what you find relevant that resonates worthy of joining with?” Yes. “I sense that arguing whether those astronauts ‘did or did not go to the Moon’ or whether NASA ‘did or did not fake it’, framed the conversation in failure… Read more »
It makes it difficult, doesn’t it, StAug, when we simply cannot reproduce one iota of the alleged faked stuff because it’s just too hard. You see that’s a point in itself, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter where we turn we simply cannot fake a single thing – because … too hard. But you see, to my mind, no matter what soundstages were set up, no matter what is happening in earpieces – it makes no difference to me, I don’t think it could have been faked, StAug and when I see all the atrociously obvious fakery in all the staged events happening now even moreso. I know that the power elite justify their hoaxing of us by making it obvious but perhaps in the case of the moon landings, for whatever reason, they really wanted to fool us without giving us clues and they went all out in their fakery.… Read more »
So funny. I finally looked at the video revealing alleged wire and I cannot see anything at all that is wire or alleged wire. Not a thing except a couple of flashes. Must be blind. Regardless, if this alleged wire can only be seen in this footage it’s really so very non-compelling and if I can’t see it … what more can I say?
But what ARE those flashes? This isn’t the earth. There’s no random reflections and no atmosphere to disperse the light. There should be no flashes. That is a legitimate point that deserves more than mockery.
It’s probably not a wire – but what IS it?
I’m not being mocking – I simply think it’s funny that I finally looked at the video and simply could not see a wire at all. Back on the JFK article, Matt explained that the flashes could be “lens flare” (see para below). But we don’t need to explain everything Moriarty, only things that would make us question authenticity. I don’t think random flashes do that, however, to call what seem like flashes, wires is wrong. “Firstly, out of all the hours of footage of astronauts walking around on the moon, not a single wire is ever seen. Besides a single wire will allow the astronaut to rotate while off the ground, this never happens. A two-wire support would be needed as it does on stage acts. This double the chances of it being seen, but neither is ever recorded. Sometimes a flare of light is seen above an astronaut… Read more »
“it’s probably not a wire, but what is it?” If any of a number of lighting incongruities and other disparities within and between video and still shots led you to accept that either extra lighting was taken despite NASA saying it was not – or that it was filmed on Set or location elsewhere – then wires would be probable rather than probably not. I thought the video of jumping up with no visible support – when one of them was kneeling – was hard to assign anything else. I cant jump from my knees. Like you I don’t presume that faked Moon information means that no none ever went. Or explores why or for what such an act would be undertaken. Narratives for public consumption used to be a national or local phenomenon, but at the cusp of its technology it went global. The military industrial complex took off… Read more »
My reaction was the same. It seems StAug realized is arguments had been debunked, which he had deeply believed for many years, so he chose a vague, impossible-to-address point: a blurry video with random glimmers of light being evidence of “wires” that NASA uses to suspend astronauts in mid-air.
I’m done with this debate.
Interesting. After having many, many false statements by yourself debunked, on countless topics, you seem to have settled on a certain strategy. The strategy here, quite arrogantly, is to claim that anyone who believes the U.S. landed humans on the moon is in agreement with the U.S. government, and therefore, is supporting “American propaganda”. Mix in some references to Orwell and you’re good to go. Such fallacious thinking. Just because we agree on something with the U.S. government, does not magically make us “propagandists”. This is a filthy smear, ad hominem, that you’ve resorted to after your arguments were debunked line-by-line by me. Let’s do it again: “why no blast crater, or surface disturbance, under the “Lunar Module” Google the above quote by yourself. Do it. Read the very first link: https://pseudoastro.wordpress.com/2009/07/14/the-apollo-moon-hoax-why-is-there-no-blast-crater-under-the-lunar-module/ The following will educate you: “First, some numbers: The lunar module (LM) descent stage engine had a maximum… Read more »
The “Lunar” Module weighed c. 34,000 pounds (not counting the crew weight) on Earth, prior to “launch”. On the Moon, it would have weighed c. 5,000 pounds (two VW buses?), therefore. In order for the Module to land gently on “the lunar surface”, the thrust from the supposed “rocket engine” would have had to nearly-nullify the Module’s weight (the essence of a “soft landing”) all the way down to the surface. The Module’s “thruster” is gravity’s counter-force; the subtle extent to which the thruster does not counter-balance the Module’s weight is proportional to the rate of descent: clearly, a rapid descent (in the last stage of descent), and powerful impact, are undesirable. Until the moment the “lunar” module has safely (hypothetically) touched down, the thruster is exerting a (hypothetical) force very nearly equal, and opposite to, the gravitational force exerted by the Moon as it attracts this c. 5,000 pound… Read more »
We don’t ban people StAug. 🙂 I didn’t mean you should stop discussing the Apollo program, just that you and Norman were getting locked into a fruitless and personalised conflict which might be better brought to an end. By all means continue this debate as long as anyone wants to.
There are so many basic mistakes in your math and physics that this is embarrassing, even more so after you made the following comment: “In other words, to anyone but a liar or an idiot (or both)….” You physics knowledge is not even at the high school level. Let’s begin class, ladies and gentlemen: ” On the Moon, it would have weighed c. 5,000 pounds (two VW buses?), therefore. In order for the Module to land gently on “the lunar surface”, the thrust from the supposed “rocket engine” would have had to nearly-nullify the Module’s weight (the essence of a “soft landing”) all the way down to the surface. ” Thrust is not measured in one unit, as you think it is. Thrust is measured in units per unit. The reason for that is because thrust is a force spread out across the surface. So yes, the lunar module weighed… Read more »
“Let’s begin class, ladies and gentlemen:” Are you expecting this to be taken seriously. Whether you actually have such ‘qualifications in physics’ or not – you are transparent in using its presentation as a character assassination. The sort of thing you called ‘filthy ad hominem attack’. I don’t care who does it first! When ‘experts’ seek to intimidate – they invalidate anything they may otherwise have contributed – as far as I am concerned. This Moon (landing stuff) is full of holes – not like cheese but anomalies, and while someone or some human beings may have landed there – I remain sceptical at best – I would be cynical at worst – but I have better things to do. Of course you have come to your own conclusions and I have no issue with that. The mass of disinfo makes it a mess and dragging people into a mess… Read more »
@ Matt This is the kind of over-reaching claim that makes the hoax idea sound more plausible. It’s utter pseudo-science. That website is playing a maths trick on you. Think about it. If the pressure of a footprint was three times greater than the force of the LEM’s descent thrust then the weight of the LEM + engines must be exerting only 1/6 of the downward force of a man walking on the surface. But we know the LEM weighed a lot more than a man, and the force of the thrust had to be equal and opposite to that weight in order to hold the LEM in controlled descent . So, the force needed to hold it above the surface would be a lot more than the force needed to hold up a man. Do you think Armstrong could have lain on his back and held the LEM above… Read more »
No, it seems you have not realized that thrust is spread out across a surface, hence units “psi”. Pounds per square inch. Yes, the lunar module weighed a lot, but its surface area was much greater than that of a human foot. If you read my quoted post carefully it states that the diameter of the nozzle was 63 inches, which is an area of about 3120 in^2. Divide into thrust and you get 0.4-3.2 psi. When Apollo 11 landed, the thrust was down to about 1/3 of max, about 1 psi. This is basic math. The same math is used with the human footstep, accounting for the smaller surface area. Average weight is 150 lbs, and the average human footprint has a surface area of 50 in^2 (62 times less than Apollo’s nozzle’s surface area). 150 lbs/50 in^2 = 3 psi. In other words, three times more thrust than… Read more »
Matt, you are quite obviously simply re-stating the nonsense from that website with no comprehension of what it means. Try a simple experiment. Get a hair dryer. Make a DIY thruster nozzle out of paper or card and attach it to said hairdryer. Fill a large bowl with dry sand. Turn the hairdryer to its lowest setting and point it straight down at the sand. Tell us how much psi is needed to disturb the sand. Tell us if you still think there would be absolutely no disturbance of the dust when the LEM landed. Remember the Moon has 1/6 gravity, so the dust would require less force to disturb it. As I said, maybe there is some physics going on we don’t understand that explains the total lack of a blast crater, or even of disturbed dust under the LEM, but this kind of maths trickery is just intended… Read more »
I think I now understand why everyone is so confused: you are all forgetting that there is no air on the moon, so there is no air to push down and create a blast crater. This is why only the force of thrust must be relied upon to shift the ground, without any help from air. And this is why no blast crater was formed: the lost level of thrust, about 1 psi, was enough to life the module in microgravity and have it escape the moon’s weak gravity, but not enough to actually shift the ground underneath. Again, there is no air there, so the hair dryer example you gave can not be used as an analogy. The hair dryer pushes air itself to move the sand. But if there is no air being pushed, then you have to rely on the force of thrust alone to shift the… Read more »
Just for clarification in hopes of avoiding too much needless argument, what is creating the thrust if it’s not gas of some sort?
Admin:
https://www.livescience.com/34475-how-do-space-rockets-work-without-air.html
I learned this in Grade 11 physics.
Thanks, Matt. I assure you that at least, as far as I’m concerned, your efforts (and Norm’s) are not in vain – and nor are StAug’s. I will read over everyone’s points carefully – I really haven’t had time so far to give them due consideration – to help with my 10 point Occam’s Razor exercise I plan to do.
I think I know what it is that really makes the moon footage look so authentic to me. It’s the fact that the surface is lit while the sky is black – I looked it up – because there’s no atmosphere on the moon the sky is black in daylight, right? If you’re still reading SrAug, can you explain how this would be faked?
If all lights are off – excepting of course that needed to replicate the Sun – with backgrounds to portray the ‘distance – like a film set.
or in fact… a film set!
But Matt, if there was no force acting on the Moon surface, how is the LEM being supported in its descent? Newtonian physics still applies on the Moon you know.
Let me explain quickly about rocketry – the ignited fuel behaves just like the air in the hairdryer and acts upon the surface dust in just the same way, producing thrust. Therefore the thrust from the LEM would produce turbulence and disturbance of the surface.
Maybe your Grade 11 physics didn’t cover that?
Reply to MoriartysLeftSock:
“the ignited fuel behaves just like the air in the hairdryer and acts upon the surface dust”
This is not what happens – you are still thinking it works the same way as on Earth. The thrust force does not act against the surface – there is no air being pushed. It acts against the force of gravity. That is the only force it is acting against. No air is being produced to shift the ground.
Thus, the thrust force is enough to escape the moon’s gravity.
The thrust force does not act against the surface – there is no air being pushed. It acts against the force of gravity. Of course there’s no air Matt, but there is ignited fuel acting in the same way the air in the hairdryer acts. How else do you suppose the downward thrust is created? Of course the thruster acts against the force of gravity. Everything that stops you falling down acts against the force of gravity. A chair acts against the force of gravity. Your legs act against the force of gravity. A hot air balloon acts against the force of gravity. A plane acts against the force of gravity. The thrusters of a lunar entry module landing on the Moon act against the force of gravity. The question is – how do they do it without creating an equal and opposite reaction? You understand Newton’s Third Law, right?… Read more »
I hesitate to weigh in here but a comment on the Vintage Space video on the lack of blast crater says this:
I will have to disagree with you on this one. I think if you look at the photos you can actually see the blast crater. It is very shallow as the pressure was very low, probably comparable with a helicopter landing on a beach. If you look at photo AS11-40-5921 you can see ray like effects from the engine and in AS11-40-5864, and AS11-40-5892 you can see the effects of the exhaust plume. You would only expect a crater a couple of inches (~5cm) deep and that is what one can see.
AS11-40-5921 – https://www.flickr.com/photos/projectapolloarchive/21039126353
AS11-40-5864 – https://www.flickr.com/photos/projectapolloarchive/21473323859
AS11-40-5892 – https://www.flickr.com/photos/projectapolloarchive/21037477664
Regarding HOW rockets work in space: (assuming of course that they do) Go back to the livescience linked article and look down the comments. The assigning to Newton’s third law is in error – it is the second that pertains. or simpler perhaps https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=28976.0 Somewhere back in my teens, I received the impression that the gases initially ejected became the matter against which further – gases expanding with force through the nozzle – from the combustion process. In the case of the lunar launch – the force and direction of expelled gas material is unknown to me. The presumption that it maintains its trajectory may not be so in a near vacuum – and if it in fact meets a greater force of expansion into the vacuum – then this may ‘spread’ the force greatly and change the effect of its disturbance to the ground below. So I wouldn’t pin… Read more »
And it doesn’t make any fumes to obscure or burn the Moon on descent and or dust disturbance to settle on the feet!
Maybe the rockets are ‘show’ and it runs on vortex tech?
Regarding HOW rockets work in space: (assuming of course that they do) Somewhere back in my teens, I received the impression that the gases initially ejected became the mass against which further gases under great force push against. Not so. There’s a lot of controversy… Perhaps https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=28976.0 helps to get the gist.. In the case of the lunar launch – the force and direction of expelled gas material is unknown to me. The presumption that it maintains its trajectory may not be so in a near vacuum – and if it in fact meets a greater force of expansion into the vacuum – then this may ‘spread’ the force greatly and change the effect of its disturbance to the ground below. So I wouldn’t pin my sense of ‘no-one returned from the Moon’ on the rocket issue 😉 … until I watched this: http://www.aulis.com/moon_pt2.htm Which spoke to this matter and… Read more »
Relevant to the absence of a “blast” crater that the LEM apparently should have created upon landing, let alone have moved a little dust around, a bunch of links to an excellent series of videos produced by Phil Webb that pretty much lays this entire “debate” to rest:
No Blast Crater
I met this one already and it flags my browser security warnings as a disinfo site! One of my disinclinations to invest in this ‘debate’ is because so much disinfo is operating all sides of the ‘debate’. Disinfo is a vital part of undermining communication. Now there may be be facts within a ‘debunker’s intent’ – but when I see the overall nature of the framing of the narrative – I’d rather have an honest illusion! Who is a fully qualified initiate of the priesthood of mathematical and scientific or economic bollox? Complexity is a weapon and a shield. But when it comes to the quality of the communication – it is not rocket science (oh that’s nice!) to smell a rat and pause from reacting as if the information is reliable. There are so many angles on this that focusing on specific technical issues that can be made into… Read more »
Hi Binra, Speaking only to the “blast crater” issue: people who argue that there should be “craters” of greater dimensions than obvious in the photographic evidence need to argue, if their arguments are to be based on “evidence” and not merely a priori belief, why the lunar surface disturbances at the Apollo sites should be greater than they were. This means understanding something about how rocket engines work in a vacuum, and in particular, the exhaust profiles of the specific rocket engines of the LEMs; furthermore, they would have to explain “why” the lunar regolith at the landing sites should have been excavated to the (as yet unspecified) degree that they believe it should have been, that is to say, they would have to know something about the compaction of that regolith and thereby, in principle, be able to provide a quantifiable analysis of why the energy imparted to the… Read more »
Well I’m not sure I have argued for a blast crater! But I have pondered how rockets work in vacuums and wondered at the light ‘footprint’ of an event that raises dust and surely would move material – but indeed the variables and nature of this is hardly my everyday line of work…
If anything gives cause to suspect veracity – there will be a different eye than under presumption that all is as it seems. That of course can become a fixation that distorts or wants to find errors – and that then becomes an investment in being right in proving wrong – which is quite different from not believing all is as is seemed or is presented.
Never A Straight Answer is a popular acronym. Perhaps lack of transparency or evasions lead those asking questions with… even more questions.
Blast the crater – its time for touchdown!
😉
😉
“Well I’m not sure I have argued for a blast crater!”
Indeed. But this thread is about that, isn’t? Or am I in the wrong place?
And yes, it’s almost that time . . .
I thought it was about the PR of the Apollo Space program – linking from JF Kennedy’s speech re landing a man on the Moon, (Though it since seems LBJ was the main mover), as leading to a ‘space race’ (good cop bad cop), by which to draw vast budgets and provide cover for setting up global space-tech industry, of weapons (including psi/PR weapons), and surveillance over the people of the Earth. Us. If a technical detail of a contended point was the one thing on which the whole case depended… but it isn’t. Even the matter of how rockets operate in the vacuum of space has a failure of understanding in terms of internet communication (oh what doesn’t!) – but despite not being trained in rocket science, it feels reasonable to ask questions and voice doubts. If provided ‘answers’ are either not altogether convincing, understandable or mixed up with… Read more »
Correction:
“. . . they would have to know something about the compaction of that regolith and thereby, in principle, be able to provide a quantifiable analysis of why the energy imparted to the lunar regolith in those specific places “should” have resulted in a greater degree of excavation than was allegedly photographed.“
Before I say anything else, I would like for everyone to please read this excellent link: http://www.clavius.org/techcrater.html The author addresses the “no crater” theory and the entire website is devoted to debunking common claims. Reply to MoriartysLeftSock: “Of course there’s no air Matt, but there is ignited fuel acting in the same way the air in the hairdryer acts. How else do you suppose the downward thrust is created?” This is a fundamental misunderstanding of how propulsion works. Ask yourself: how does the module fly at high altitudes? If what you say is true, that the thrust force is exerting a pressure on the surface, then this would mean that somehow, the lunar module can exert a pressure on the surface even at extremely high altitudes. This is wrong. It’s not how propulsion works. When a spacecraft is flying in space, it’s simple acting against microgravity, there is no “surface”… Read more »
LOL Matt, just give that one up. There are valid arguments to be made for the absence of a blast crater, and that site you link to makes some, but please note the site does NOT make the claim you are making. No one with a science background has ever made the claim you are making – because it’s silly. When a spacecraft is flying in space, it’s simple acting against microgravity, there is no “surface” for it to act on. It doesn’t “push” itself off the ground. Well, quite, , but the LEM wasn’t in deep space, it was descending to the surface of the Moon and working in opposition to the Moon’s gravitational field. This has nothing to do with “pushing” itself off the ground, and everything to do with Newton’s Third Law. ‘For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.’ The result of the force… Read more »
PS – the site you link to also explains a bit about Newton’s Third Law, which might be helpful for you.
It also seems to be arguing that there both should not be a blast crater and that there is one. This is the kind of over-reaching argument that simply does not help. Stick to one argument Clavius, please.
@ MoriartysLeftSock You write: “LOL Matt, just give that one up. There are valid arguments to be made for the absence of a blast crater, and that site you link to makes some, but please note the site does NOT make the claim you are making.” But you wrote: “But Matt, if there was no force acting on the Moon surface, how is the LEM being supported in its descent? Newtonian physics still applies on the Moon you know. [. . .] the ignited fuel behaves just like the air in the hairdryer and acts upon the surface dust in just the same way, producing thrust. “ Clearly, in what you wrote, there is sufficient ambiguity to interpret what you wrote in the manner that Matt did and that you now attempt to ridicule him for. As far as I can tell, Matt understands perfectly well how rockets in the… Read more »
Reply to MoriartysLeftSock: “But the dust is not disturbed.” “It also seems to be arguing that there both should not be a blast crater and that there is one. This is the kind of over-reaching argument that simply does not help. Stick to one argument Clavius, please.” It seems you have not been following our conversation closely, nor reading my links closely. What I and the author of that webpage are saying are not contradictory at all: there was a very small blast crater, as is visible from photos like below, but the issue is that hoaxers claim the blast crater is too small: http://www.diariodecultura.com.ar/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Crater-alunizaje.jpg That is the point being addressed: not that there is a blast crater, but why it is so small. The website, if you read it carefully, mathematically explains why the crater is as small as it is, using several real-life examples from Earth for people… Read more »
I can’t allow this to stand. The discussion from the beginning has been about the alleged absence of a blast crater. I refer you to your own post here in which you say “hence no blast crater,” and indeed to every other post you have made until now.
Don’t play games. This incredibly esoteric discussion has been going on for days to no very productive result. It’s not going to get any easier to follow if you begin moving goalposts.
That image of the LM is doctored. Go to the NASA site and see if they have that pic. I am betting they don’t. I am betting they have the original undoctored one. Zoom in and you can see quite clearly in close up where it has been shopped with the clone tool etc. I’m not a hoax believer, but I know a doctored pic when I see one.
That pic is Apollo 14 apparently. Here’s the only pic of Apollo 14 on the Moon I can find at NASA, but there might be more. Can anyone find the original of the pic above at NASA? I can’t.
By the way, those shadows mean the sun is directly behind the LM, so the LM should be a sillhouette or very dark at least. Where is that bright light behind the cameraman coming from?
How well coded is the thing you accuse in the other!
Question(s):
If we have never been to the Moon, how do we determine whether “meteorites discovered in Antarctica” are from the Moon and not elsewhere?
And in what year was the first Lunar meteorite found?
So do we know from the samples returned by the Apollo (or Soviet Lunik) Missions, by both their composition and characteristics as baseline references, that the relatively recently discovered Lunar meteorites have their origin on the Moon , or is it the other way around, or was it in the 1960s possible to determine the origins of either the Apollo samples or the Lunar meteorites independently of one another?
Is all Greman science invalid and to be ruled out because of the bad things German’s did during either WWI or WWII?
“If we have never been to the Moon, how do we determine whether “meteorites discovered in Antarctica” are from the Moon and not elsewhere?” I would make the same point. To save time by condensing info, anticipating several possible exchanges, into one data dump: https://youtu.be/0eDaQo29E-w?t=41 (c. 6 minutes should cover it) “Is all Greman science invalid and to be ruled out because of the bad things German’s did during either WWI or WWII?” As I pointed out: I cite the seriousness of both von Braun’s and Strughold’s “former” Naziticity in order to break through the Disneyfied outer shell of the Propaganda surrounding NAZA: these were not mere geeks applying genius to Uncle Sam’s cause, they were psychopaths who exploited worked-to-death slave labor (von Braun) and performed grisly lethal experiments on living human subjects (Strughold). If the psychological conditioning to see these people in a rosy light can be broken, for… Read more »
“Or use Moon rocks gathered by un-manned probes like “the samples returned by three Soviet Luna unmanned probes in the 1970s” (Wiki).” Uh-huh. Yup. Because once you have the mineral and isotopic profile of 300 grams of Lunar rocks brought back by the 3 Russian missions of the Luna program, anyone with an extensive background in science can easily either synthesize or find 382 kilograms of Lunar material, here, on earth, the exact mass that was allegedly brought back by all of the Apollo missions. Because what counts is the intersection of Facts/Logic. Yes, of course, Steve. (I’m willing to bet that if you keep laying out your case, Steve — although I thought you had already said that you had already laid it out completely — it will eventually become indistinguishable from an actual trip to the moon. No one will be able to tell the difference. Not even… Read more »
This is a bizarre comment, Norm. No one needs to “synthesize” Moon rocks. One need only either fob Earth-found lunar meteorites off as Moon rocks, or gather Moon rocks with an unmanned probe. The central paragraph of your comment is bizarre, and the final paragraph is… bizarre as well. You could question the notion of secret Luna-like unmanned, sample-gathering probes to the Moon and you can question the possible sample-size of the return payload… without making a bizarre comment (I think). Bearing in mind that this is a minor issue, as nowhere do I suggest that probe-gathered rock samples is the chief or only possibility. I think the “Moon rocks” are Earth rocks (see vid I just linked) or Earth-found Lunar meteorites (see same vid)… when they’re not just fossilized wood, of course.
Since I hit the wrong “Reply” widget, I’ll re-submit what was intended for you there, here: In the last thread, I put a question to you, you know, just before you abandoned it, telling us that you had spent enough time presenting your airtight arguments and that, in any case, you had said absolutely everything you had to say on the fakery of the Moon landings. But now that you are back and blithely blathering on again in both the same vein and condescending tone, let me remind you of something you wrote in the last thread: ” The sheer enormousness of the achievement of making a roundtrip journey to the moon with living payloads was far beyond 1969 technology, and it’s still beyond 2017 technology, as NASA has admitted.” So again: do you have a reference as to where NASA has admitted that making a round trip to the… Read more »
http://www.aulis.com/index.html
is an interesting site
I’m watching one of their vids
You write:
“This is a bizarre comment, Norm. No one needs to “synthesize” Moon rocks.”
You mean “bizzare” like this (you need only go to the 4 minute mark, but others might want to view the entire video, as interesting as it is) Just so you don’t miss it, Steve, Jarrah White is the guy talking and claiming that the “moon rocks” were, yes, indeed synthesized:
https://youtu.be/-xvgM5FTTu4
Worth the watch, in my opinion:
From the YouTube summary:
“Writer/director S G Collins of Postwar Media debunks every theory that the Apollo Moon landings could have been faked in a studio. The filmmaker takes a look at the video technology of the late 1960’s, showing alleged fraud was simply not possible.”
https://youtu.be/_loUDS4c3Cs
I remember when this clip came out; what a charming guy! The best propaganda is always the most charming, isn’t it? But what counts is actually the intersection of Facts/ Logic:
And, just to save myself some time later: the follow-up video, responding to Collins’ response to the video I link above:
Good job, Jarrah!
If it was possible to fake the missions, then they were certainly faked. Right, Steve? Facts and logic, eh? Case closed, then — I guess.
Jarrah’s goal in that video is merely to bust up the magical effect of Collins’ charm offensive (Collins gregariously-satirical facial expressions are so authoritative, aren’t they?) using Facts/ Logic. At which he is successful (Collins’ response video is loads less self-assured, as he is forced to concede that faking the Apollo missions wasn’t open-and-shut “impossible” as his marvelously entertaining first video assured us). The larger case against Apollo does not hinge on this video.
Me thinks you miss my point, Steve. Though I can’t imagine why that would be.
“Me thinks you miss my point, Steve.”
Well, Norm, it’s customary for someone who has made a statement like this to follow it with a clarification of their actual intended point. Care to…?
The point is simply this: both you and Jarrah make the elementary mistake of concluding that if you manage to envisage what to your way of thinking is a possible or plausible way in which NASA could have “faked” what you already believe they faked, then you’ve thereby proved that that’s what they did. Except that you haven’t. How do you know, for instance (and so as to hopefully make the point more obvious for you), that you’ve considered all possible plausible ways in which they might have faked what you believe they did? Perhaps there are other possibilities that haven’t yet occurred to you or Jarrah and that are equally plausible. Then if you did hit upon them, how would you go about deciding which of the equally possible and plausible alternatives was the one that NASA had undertaken? Possibilities and plausibilities can be many and varied, and there… Read more »
“The point is simply this: both you and Jarrah make the elementary mistake of concluding that if you manage to envisage what to your way of thinking is a possible or plausible way in which NASA could have “faked” what you already believe they faked, then you’ve thereby proved that that’s what they did.” I got that attempted point the first time around, Norm; I thought that was clear in my first response? You implied that very point, fallaciously, in order to respond to the debunking of Collins’ “no sufficient vid tech to fake Apollo existed” presentation. I responded that the vid (which, as we now know, proved that faking Apollo was not impossible… at least by Collins’ own admission) , is not the crux of the basic (and by now standard) arguments that NAZA never put men on the Moon (or not, at least, the ones they claimed to,… Read more »
“I got that attempted point the first time around,” Did you, now? “Norm; I thought that was clear in my first response? “” Apparently not. “I mean, Norm, it’s obvious that you’re going to think whatever you want to think about what you think I think (laugh), and you will serve your own needs in doing so… so: whatever.” Quite evidently, as will you. “Honestly, I’d rather argue with someone who’s been thinking long and hard about these specific things for a few years, at least.” Right. Because I’m a little slow on the uptake, and can’t see the “obvious” lack of “scientific” discrimination in your assertions. “And I get the feeling you just have an ongoing compulsion to go around attempting to “debunk” “conspiracy theorists”” Well, I can’t do anything about your feeling. But I”m sorry you feel that way. ” I have the feeling that you haven’t really… Read more »
@StAug – as I’ve said already to Norman and yourself, the tone is getting a bit personal and snarky on both sides. Maybe best to let this subject lie for a while.
I’m not being “snarky”, I’m being blunt. And, yes, PLEASE, no more of this time-wasting hobby.
@Norman:
So, this is what happened:
1) You posted a link to a video that claims it would be impossible to fake the Apollo footage.
2) StAug responds by posting a video that shows this claim is false, and indeed has been retracted by the original claimant.
3) You responded by saying StAug was totally missing the point and that being able to fake the footage wasn’t proof that they did.
You see where you moved the goal posts? You were the one claiming the footage could not be faked. StAug merely responded by showing this was false. He did not claim this as proof of anything. You merely opted to change the narrative in order to avoid having to acknowledge your original error.
Excuse me? I moved the goal post? So, Jarrah and StAug are not already, first, convinced of the “fact” of the fakery and, then, casting about for “evidence” of it? Yet that is the pattern that I clearly see. Already it begins, eh. Do you think it possible to let this whole thing rest for a minute or two? At the moment, as I have already made clear, I’m not in the mood. Pushing me — at this moment — will only increase the likelihood that I will not return to this exchange. And notice how you yourself are now about “me” and not about the “issues.” What was it I said about the well already having been poisoned? Well, maybe I am the “issue,” and I’ve been engaging in disingenuous tactics from the beginning, and you, too, like StAug, have “caught” me out. Under this circumstance, under this cloud… Read more »
This will be, for the time being, my last reply:
You write:
“You see where you moved the goal posts? You were the one claiming the footage could not be faked. ”
Show me where in MY comments I claimed the “footage could not be faked.” This is a clear example of misattribution that YOU are making. Mr. Collins, not I, claims that the footage could not be faked.
Or have I once again “moved the goal post?”
All that stuff is way too complicated for me, that’s why, as I’ve said I like to stick to things I can understand easily. I believe that in many cases easy-to-understand stuff alone can prove things one way or the other. Whether or not they could have faked the footage somehow the millions who believe we didn’t go have never tried to replicate this faking, have they? And whether it was fakeable or not it doesn’t look faked, as far as I’m concerned. I do not buy the wires thing at all. If the conversations of the astronauts could be faked, I’d like to have examples of this fakeable dialogue from the “moon hoaxers”. Way less complicated than trying to fake astronauts bouncing on the moon, way less. So let’s hear it from the moon hoaxers. Just a couple need to get together and perform extempore or copy the astronauts’… Read more »
That man is another populist idiot. Where are the scientists who could do a proper job of dealing with these questions? There is no reason to descend into lies and stupidity.
Excuse me? So, let me get this straight: first I get it from StAug, and now from you, and I did say that I would reply later in the week, but apparently, my coming reply, whatever it might have been, has been preemptively characterized as stupidity. And you wanted to have a “rational” exchange of ideas? I’m done.
I was talking about the guy in the video, Norman, not you! He is the kind of over-reaching idiot that gives the Apollo program a bad name and fuels the claims of fraud. He talked nonsense and then was forced to partially retract. If these “defenders” of NASA would stick to the known facts and openly admit the areas of uncertainty they would make a stronger case not a weaker one.
Look. Who posted the video? I did. For reasons of my own and that I still consider to be “rational” if as yet unexplained. But if you come along and point to what I posted as an example of something that blatantly descends into “lies and stupidity,” by implication, I myself have descended into “lies and stupidity” to the extent that I am in sympathy with the content of Mr. Collins purports. That’s the optic of my reaction to your comment and, furthermore, I don’t consider that Mr. Collins is either a liar or stupid, however much of what he presents he may have had to, as you put, “recant.” I understand the temptation to characterize what we perceive as nonsense in what others say or write as a manifestation of “stupidity,” which it may or may not be, that is to say, a manifestation of an inability, based on… Read more »
Well if you are determined to take offence I suspect there is nothing much I can do., except repeat i would never dream of calling you “stupid.” Please note, I don’t all the man in the video “stupid” because he believes we went to the Moon. I respect that belief and and far from disagreeing with it. I call him “stupid” because in pursuit of convincing everyone to share his belief he oversells it and comes off as a fraud. It’s simply ridiculous to say that faking the Moon footage was impossible, and indeed the fool later has to conceded he over-stated, which makes him look like a boob and allows Jarrah White an easy victory. It was entirely unnecessary, because the question doesn’t rest on whether the footage could be faked (obviously it could), but on whether it was. Was it faked? There is simply no proof either way.… Read more »
The Guardian BLOCKED this American writer who has traveled 8 times to both sides of Israel’s Wall in Palestine after offering UNCENSORED video interviews with Mordechai Vanunu, Israel’s nuclear whistle blower.
My first 2 questions to Vanunu, June 2005:
UNCENSORED “30 Minutes with Vanunu” taped in March 2006 a few weeks after his freedom of speech trial began [outcome was 78 days back in solitary in 2010]
Mordachai is the antithesis of the well crafted and insistent denial by Israel of it’s nuclear arsenal and fission capabilities (including mini nukes using degraded material). Dimona will not be the only site. Many people have known about the 200 nukes buried in the Negev, for some time, but Mordechai’s whistle blowing should have been addressed and his illegal detention lifted permanently.
Three days after Vanunu emerged from 18 yrs. behind bars under draconian restrictions and 24/7 surveillance, Uri Avnery wrote: “Everybody understands that Vanunu has no more secrets. What can a technician know after 18 years in jail, during which technology has advanced with giant steps? “But gradually it becomes clear what the security establishment is really afraid of. Vanunu is in a position to expose the close partnership with the United States in the development of Israel’s nuclear armaments. “This worries Washington so much, that the man responsible in the State Department for ‘arms control’, Under-Secretary John Bolton, has come to Israel in person for the occasion. Vanunu, it appears, can cause severe damage to the mighty super-power. “The Americans, it seems, are very worried. The Israeli security services have to dance to their tune. The world must be prevented by all available means from hearing, from the lips of… Read more »
A Guardian journalist has today described a week watching RT as “surreal” although it’s not at all clear what on Earth he means. The truly surreal thing is watching liberals in the US and now here advocating restricting media they disagree with. Free Soeech is personal it seems to “right minded” people. They came for RT first, next they’ll come for Off-Guardian and anywhere else that “contrary views” offend.
I must I find the Guardian surreal and sometimes The Times is little better. Would you believe it, Oxfords Regius Professor of Theology wrote today that the British Empire was a good thing. As I ascerbically wrote to the Letters email address, no doubt the miscreant would be in for a spot of chains on a boat prior to slavery in West Africa for black slave owners? Or perhaps for Jews in Israel or Muslims in Syria? It really says something when a seriously senior theology academic thought the slave trade, the opium trade and conquest using guns and spears was entirely acceptable in the Christian faith. I always believe in judging something primarily by what happens to the victims. Of course slave owners loved slavery. Of course Jardine Amathieson shareholders loved profits from opium. What did peaceful West Africans do to deserve being captured by invaders, put in chains… Read more »
We have asked the journalist in question to clarify his comments and to confirm he really believes there is no bias in western media, only in RT. He is – perhaps understandably – reluctant to engage with his critics.
The Guardian is going full on anti the World Cup in Russia this week. With ridiculous headlines ‘gays advised not to hold hands in Russia’ – I suspect that would be sound advice in most countries, west or east, to the idiotic Marina Hyde (daughter of lord someone or other) whose stock in trade is pulling off the wings of helpless butterflies in a sarcastic ‘I’m so witty tone’, banging on about Putin invading Crimea, to smears about doping in Russian sports, again no evidence.
As someone born and brought up in Manchester who believed in what the Guardian was supposed to stand for, it amuses me that the rag is forever begging for subscriptions.