James McCanney stated on his internet-based "radio show" tonight that JPL has apparently staged a "complete news blackout" regarding Cassini/Huygens -- insinuating once again that data is being hidden from the public, and that there's been nothing new released since the first of the month.

A quick perusal of the main Cassini mission page not only demonstrates this completely incorrect, with new imagery posted prior to JM's "broadcast" tonight, but also details why there was an interruption, due to that pesky Sun being in the way.

I really hate to waste keystrokes talking about this person, but found this particularly hilarious. How anyone can take JM seriously, I'll never know.

The sun must be in on the conspiracy, too.

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"First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?" -- Hadden, Contact

I can bend minds with my spoon.

As if the material in the OP wasn't funny enough... JM later stated that magnetic pole reversals on Earth are impossible without outside influence. Any guesses as to where this is going?

*cues game show music*













[Don Pardo]

If you guessed that the causal mechanism cited for a polar flip was the "passing of a very large celestial object, which would be in the form of a comet", you're absolutely correct!

[/Don Pardo]

Hoo boy. The "plasma discharge model" has been expanded to account for past magnetic polar reversals.

=D> #-o ](*,)

Ah, good, I was wondering if the sun was going to interfer with data transmissions. Now I don't have to ask.

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You're a coward and a liar and a thOOF - Bart Sibrel

Grumble... I was waiting for someone to say something stupid like that. Almost surprised it took this long, what with the number of woo-woo's out there. :x

It is kinda annoying for conjunction to happen so soon after SOI, but them's the breaks.

And just in-case anyone's wondering, we've gotten data down this week. I haven't looked at it yet, but Cassini is still running just fine.

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"What do you care what other people think?" -- Richard Feynman
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." -- Feynman, at the conclusion of his Challenger report

I feel sorry for the woo woos. Every time science is successful, like sending a spacecraft all the way to Saturn and then receiving data from it, they have to work that much harder to find ways to claim science is wrong. Suppression of data is such a tired old complaint. If NASA/JPL/TPTB were going to do this, then why publicize sending the craft to begin with? Why make any data available at all? At the very least, wait until the mission is over, then begin spoonfeeding selected data to the masses. These "blackouts" only make sense to the conspiracy-minded.

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Help! Marxist literary critics are following me!

Come to think of it... I think you're on to something here!

Note in the following picture that the Sun is clearly smiling at us!!!

Why is it that no matter how good an explanation you give a koo koo or a woo woo it is never good enough? There always has to be some conspiracy or whatever and it can p... me off to the point where you go...........AAAAAAAAAAArrrrrgggggggggh never mind you you you ah whatever

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Consumatum est-nune est bibendum.

Because for woo-woos there is some need to believe something that is so fantastical and mythical, and for some reason, these same folks gravitate to either BEING the one with the answers or sucking up to one who DOES have answers. Quite the opposite of reasoned, scientific pursuit of knowledge, but that doesn't seem to stop them. Hoagland, for example, for all his bloviating about NASA conspiracies and coverups, etc., still comes across to me as a somewhat pompous, venal, and self-aggrandizing man, and if I were looking for someone to father a child, I'd be very leery of letting his seed touch mine.

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Starry, starry night...

My site TheSpacewriter.com
and my blog: TheSpaceWriter's Ramblings

Heh. With a wink and a nod, at that !

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Keep Cool, But Do Not Freeze
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Click cover image for more info.

Let's hope it never comes to that!

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Help! Marxist literary critics are following me!

*scrubs brain with brillo pad*

I hear ya...

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Starry, starry night...

My site TheSpacewriter.com
and my blog: TheSpaceWriter's Ramblings

Well, they pre-conspired on this one... the comms outage was forecast and described in materials distributed by JPL before SOI.

It's a conspiracy! And they told us all about it! CONSPIRACY!

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"I'm making wheatloaf. It's like meatloaf, only with wheat"
"Isn't that just...bread?"

I think it's gonna take some bleach to get that image out

<shudder>

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Free speech is no problem
It's listening that costs

Ah, Wolv, I was wondering if you listened to his show. I was laughing through a lot of it. He has an amazing ability to misinterpret -- willingly or otherwise -- a lot of obvious stuff. He is claiming, for example, that Titan is hot and not cold. Of course, he is ignoring a lot of infrared observations showing it's cold (much like he ignores all the data that shows comets are cold, have ice, etc).

He is also either ignoring or is unaware of my webpage about his claims. Given how he railed against the Earth Changes TV site and Mitch Battros, it's hard to imagine he wouldn't mention it if he knew about it.

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Phil Plait
The Bad Astronomer
http://www.badastronomy.com
badastro@badastronomy.com

Even better, we'll have to contend with about 11 days or so of Mars being behind the sun, thus a similar blackout period before the Mars orbiters can send back the data they received from the rovers.. but NO, of course, the conspiracy dudes will be all over it saying they took those 11 days to erase/edit/manipulate images so that we wouldn't know "the truth."

#-o

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jest

"Don't worry, everything is getting nicely out of control." -Douglas Adams

At the bottom half of the program when JM came back from the break, and stated that there was a certain website with which he took serious issue, I was wondering if he was going to offer a rebuttal to the section you'd added. To my surprise, he offered his criticism of Battros' page instead. I was primed and ready for a moment.

You'd think he'd be aware of the BA debunking section by now... (well, perhaps not).

Heh. I was thinking the same thing! I even grabbed a pencil and paper to take notes, knowing he would say all sorts of nonsense. Oh well. Maybe this Thursday. 8)

I dropped him an e-mail with the link. 8)

Really? Heh. Well, we'll see what comes of it.

I have more material about his stuff I didn't even use. I want to do some more reading and research first, and my time is pretty short right now.

The days must be pretty short at the sout pole right about now... lol

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They call 'em fingers, but i've never seen em fing..... oh there they go!! otto

Even if there wasn't a Solar conjunction, Cassini is in no position to be sending back any more spectacular closeups of the inner Saturnian system because it is approaching its first apoapsis. The distance of that apoapsis is approximately the same as the distance Cassini was at in [edited]late[/edited] June, so any pictures Cassini takes now will not be any better than the ones it took on approach.

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Not to mention that I am indeed heading to the southern hemisphere later this year!

:P more crackpot theories

Hmm, "...Titan is hot and not cold.", sounds very familiar... I wonder if McCanney has in fact visited here, using the name "John T". :-k

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What ever happened with that claim?

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Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

I've been wondering the same thing, but all I hear are crickets.