One piece of evidence is the eccentricity of the orbits of the inner planets. If a planet-sized object was going into the inner solar system every X years it would cause some eccentricity in the orbits of Mercury, Venus .etc. from gravitational interactions. The orbits for the inner planets do not show much eccentricity (and Venus's orbit is nearly circular).

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Well, long period comets certainly match this description. Of course a comet is too small to perturb the planets in any way. I suspect the disturbing influence of a planetary sized body would leave telltale evidence in the orbits of the known planets, but we have not observed this. (TriangleMan already covered this.)

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He's actually a registered member of this forum, though it looks like he hasn't posted in a year. When I get a chance I'll send him an email or PM and see if he'd be willing to come here and provide more information.

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welcome, Montebianco; sounds like you've gotten into the spirit of things around here pretty quickly.

I don't know about Mars or Planet X or whoever needing our women, but I gotta tell you, if I didn't already have a steady gig over at Illuminati-R-Us, I'd volunteer to go just to convince them that they were wrong, and they can do quite nicely without our women after all.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

There is a website attached to this bulletin board.

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

Hey Bob...didja notice? Once we started citing scientific research and facts (various light levels transmitted via welder's glass vs Baader/Thousand Oaks, in this case), the 2WooCrew just sorta vanished into the haze...

...'s funny how they do that, innit?

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Charlie in Dayton, A.AsC.

Pardon me while I wipe the coffee from my monitor...I'm going to be chuckling over that one for the rest of the day. =D>

I'm kind of surprised that thread died so abruptly. I don't think I was getting through to User# 78/68, but at least we had a somewhat polite conversation going. I had been arguing on scientific grounds earlier in the thread but that didn't seem to chase anyone away. I don't know why 78/68 suddenly disappeared.

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...y'know, I'm getting a lot of mileage out of this gag...

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"If a tree is cut down in the rainforest, and is used to make paper to print a book, and the book is really bad, and there's nobody that will read it, do you still hear a sucking sound?"
Charlie in Dayton, A.AsC.

Has this been or could this be used as a technique to recover control of a thread from disruptive Woos? Instead of trying to refute the chop logic and ad homs directly, the folks who know what they're talking about could embark on a detailed technical discussion which is tangentially related, completely ignoring whatever the Woos say until they give up from lack of comprehension / interest.

"Science... boring! Interest... fading..."
- The Tick

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And I'll think you'll regret asking that, because it involves: Atlantis and Annunaki!

"Nibiru" comes from Sumerian culture, but I am affraid modern "interpretations" have skewed original mythology into newage gobledygook. The story goes about that planet being a home for aliens that genetically modified proto-humans (resulting with homo-sapiens) into a workforce in their slave mines. There were two "brothers" Enlil and Enki, and there was a war between them because one wanted to liberate humans, and the other wanted to enslave them even more. Nevertheless, the story goes that the Nibiru will return, Annunaki with them, and they'll try to enslave human race again...

This newage... thing... with Nibiru is pretty widespread, and involves various cults, "11:11" sightings, Mayan prophecies, and of course the Atlantis... #-o

If this was not enough, maybe the name of Zecharia Sitchin would remove any doubts.

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Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle lecture tomorrow at 8:00am OR in the Symposium Hall.

Well, thanks, I've been lurking for a while, that helps a lot

My apologies to your monitor, I normally try to avoid civilian casulaties

I am speaking from inexperience here, as I have visited some of the more, um, colorful boards out there, but as of yet have declined to post in them, knowing I lack the patience for some of the things that go on there. But I would say, it doesn't much matter how many facts you have, if a party not impressed by facts is allowed to control the conversation. If they are determined not to be convinced by any amount of evidence, then probably there is nothing you can do. But maybe you can do something to convince the others who frequent said boards. And to do this, I think it is important to keep the conversation fact-based, and not allow some of the PT Barnum tactics to drive the discussion. So, I would agree, this would probably be an effective tactic, although it is probably difficult to ignore some of the wilder woo antics (and in fact, I know I couldn't do it, which is why I don't post in such places) and keep the eye on those who have at least some chance of listening.

This Planet X stuff is so ludicrous I'm surprised anyone with half a brain has to bother talking about it all. Besides, I thought Planet X destroyed the Earth back in 2003!? :roll:

It was going to, but the Zetas stopped Earth's orbit and are, apparently holding it in it's place, so that it won't hit us, or something like that, anyways, the new doomsday date is 2012. :roll:

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Awww.....I was just about to start getting involved in that thread....

BTW, I stole a paragraph you said on one of those pages for a sig at another message board I attend:

"Having an open mind does not mean openly accepting all ideas regardless of merit. Not all ideas are created equal; some are worthy of consideration while others are simply preposterous. An open mind can filter the good ideas from the garbage." - Bob B

I couldn't fit in the BBAB / link at the end, so I had to leave it at Bob B. :P

with regards

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Not to derail current topics and thread integrety, but could someone give me the origon of woowoo's or 2 woos or whatever. There are several words and phrases bandied about on this BBS that still are not in my vernacular.

That thread was going strong and then just suddenly died about a week ago. I don’t suppose it matters much because I wasn't getting through to anybody anyway. User #78/68 was polite enough but gave no indication he/she was actually learning anything from my posts, or even taking any of it under advisement.

I’m glad something useful came out of the thread.

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no one's quite sure. there is much speculation, but no definitive etymology. (and I generally see it as woo-woo, woowoo, or woo2, which last would be "woo squared.")

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Some of your posts were pretty interesting.

with regards

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All words, phrases, definitions and theories provided in the above post are, unless otherwise stated, the property of Champion Munch © 2005.

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