Re: ZetaBabble [tm]

In Article  <avdphn$gv9$2@oasis.ccit.arizona.edu> Jim Scotti wrote:
> If the Earth were to stop rotation, as you claim
> it will, no amount of preparation - moving to the
> top of Mt. Everest or anywhere else on this planet
> would do any good anyway - It's never done that
> before and it isn't anytime soon.

Beyond the record of RECENT geological changes, worldwide, between
3,000-4,000 years ago as best mankind can register these changes, there
is the folklore.

    The Book of Joshua, compiled from the more ancient
    Book of Jasher, states that the sun stood still over
    Gibeon and the moon over the valley of Ajalon. This
    description of the position of the luminaries implies
    that the sun was in the forenoon position. The Book
    of Joshua says that the luminaries stood in the midst
    of the sky. Allowing for the difference in longitude, it
    must have been early morning or night in the Western
    Hemisphere.

    We go to the shelf where stand books with the
    historical traditions of the aborigines of Central America.
    The sailors of Columbus and Cortes, arriving in
    America, found there literate peoples who had books
    of their own. In the Mexican Annals of Cuauhtitlan,
    written in Nahua-Indian, it is related that during a
    cosmic catastrophe that occurred in the remote past,
    the night did not end for a long time.

    Sahagun, the Spanish savant who came to America
    a generation after Columbus and gathered the
    traditions of the aborigines, wrote that at the time of
    one cosmic catastrophe the sun rose only a little way
    over the horizon and remained there without moving.
    The moon also stood still. The biblical stories were
    not know to the aborigines. Also, the tradition
    preserved by Sahagun bears no trace of having been
    introduced by the missionaries.

    The traditions of the people of Peru tell that for a
    period of time the sun was not in the sky, and then the
    ocean left the shore and with a terrible din broke over
    the continent. The Choctaw Indians of Oklahoma
    relate: "The earth was plunged in darkness for a long
    time". Finally a dark light appeared in the north, "but
    it was mountain-high waves, rapidly coming nearer".
    According to the Lapland epic, after the sea-wall fell
    on the continent, gigantic waves continued to roll and
    dead bodies were dashed about in the dark waters.

And you know, Jim, mankind survived to tell the tale! So much for YOUR
pronostication.

>> What harm does honest examination of the skies do?
>
> None whatsoever, and when they find nothing, don't
> call them liars as you have honest astronomers who
> have examined your claims and found them false.

The ones who find otherwise, who honestly LOOK, and want to honestly
TALK about it, don’t get called liars, they get called crazy, a cult
member, a drone.  Their data does not get examined, THEY get personally
attacked.  Just look at what happened last summer, when I essentially
STOPPED posting on sci.astro.  It became alt.flame.zetatalk, and still
running in that manner! Of course, this worked in my favor, as the
gentleman who posted that when encountering a crazy person you just
“walk on by”, you don’t rant endlessly at them. I can’t tell you the
number of people who suddenly took ZetaTalk SERIOUSLY because the
disinformation campaign was run in such an obvious manner.  I was
supposed to be at the dance, and when I just didn’t GO, they all got on
the dance floor anyway!

But then, I digress, we’re talking about honest examination of the
skies, not clumsily run disinformation campaigns.  Now why would all
THAT noise be necessary, if there was nothing there, if a crazy woman
was just pointing to noise?  Why would it be necessary to twist the
description of what to look for so that the seeker is expecting to see a
brilliant star, the brightest thing in the skies, asserting this is what
ZetaTalk states, if there is nothing there?  Its like the front page
article in Washington Post on Dec 31, 1983, announcing that the IRAS
team has found something by infrared, out toward Orion, and then
suddenly SILENCE!  For 10 years.  If they’d have been smart, they’d have
described SOMETHING, casually, and let it die.  But NOOOO, they had to
deny all, grimly, for 10 years.

> Jim Scotti
> Lunar & Planetary Laboratory
> University of Arizona
> Tucson, AZ 85721 USA http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~jscotti/