Dateline UFO Report

This is the entire episode form Dateline on Sunday. They decided to examine UFOs and here are the clips.

'The Pheonix Lights'


'The New Zealand Orbs'


'The Stephenville Sighting'


'Tinley Park Triangle'


'Air Force Encounter'


'The Hudson Boomerang'


'The Belgium Triangle'


'The Florida Mystery'


'The Galactic Encounter'


'The McMinnville Sightings'


'The Cartet Sightings'


'Minnesota Sightings a UFO Case?'


'What was behind the Soviet Obsession with UFOs?'


I think these are in the right order. They are presented on a case by case basis. I provided the labels for them that are on the msnbc website. Here's a step by step breakdown of this disgraceful show.

'The Pheonix Lights'
Announcer starts the talk of UFOs. A witness starts the actual clip. She describes an intelligence looking at her... ohhh shes a doctor. James Fox is somehow able to be a specialist for this. He interviewed a great deal of witnesses who could judge distance in the sky. The skeptic talks about the difference between witnesses testimonies. And seems to attack the witnesses. The Governor had it investigated and pulled a joke from that with an aid dressed as an alien. The military finally admitted to a training mission with dropped flares. Again the eye witnesses don't believe it. "I'm not saying it is a UFO, but it isn't military flare." Then the governor becomes a witness suddenly. A skeptic talks about the governor as a witness. Back to the witnesses.

'The New Zealand Orbs'
A news reporter starts out with his description along with a second hand story from pilots. The announcer is not funny. He said the camera man was having troubles getting footage and the sound reporter wouldn't try and go a second time. It is suddenly an alien sighting. Some people say it was a squid boat fishing and a skeptic gets his chance. Of course the 'investigator' doesn't believe it and points out some of the then debunked "problems." Die, announcer, die!!!!

'The Stephenville Sighting'
The center of Texas and people are the "back bone of Aerica" and "not prone to fancy." Nice set up. It starts with a police officer/ witness describing what he sees. Ken Cheery from MUFON is the 'specialist.' He talks about 1 person out of the hundreds who saw it said it was bigger than a super Wal-Mart. Because you can tell when it's in the sky. The government said they were flying jets. But the specialist believes the credibility of the witnesses not the specialists.

'Tinley Park Triangle'
More witness testimony starts off. 'Specialist' uses big words like 'isocolese' and 'illuminations' so he must be legit. The witness contacted a UFO invesigator. Great... The specialist talks about all the different witnesses. Somehow the jet is at the exact same height as a jet. Michal Shermer is labeled a skeptic and shows patterns and connecting dots, flares and balloons. The 'specialist' says he doesn't have to say where it came from and leans more towards extraterrestrial. The witness says it's not man-made. He must be right.

'Air Force Encounter'
The title of this one worried me because pilots cannot be wrong and neither can military people. This one is presented just as terribly as the rest. I wish the female announcer would stay out of it. They couldn't locate the radar blip and heat at the same place. The announcer chimes in, I hate her. Robert Schafer talks about oil flares. Their "specialist" talks about an unexplained radar target in spit of other stuff. The skeptic still doesn't get a good say.

'The Hudson Boomerang'
This is from 1983 to 1989 in the East Coast. There's another specialist who talks about how great the witnesses were. He talks about their jobs and how he witnessed it too. The skeptics are presented as saying it was hoaxers flying private aircrafts "lights on, lights off." The "investigator says there is no way it could have been planes and that skeptics wouldn't be skeptics if they had seen something.


'The Belgium Triangle'
A huge object appeared and some guyswho havetudied UFOs and so is therefore a specialist. They describe information collected from Belgium and envoke Star Trek. "All this" can't sway the skeptics. They are depicted as the outsiders and don't give any other evidence and seem to be attacking. Phil Embrogno, one of the UFO 'specialists' he sounds very knowledgable. D*mn.

'The Florida Mystery'
I was interested to see how they presented this one since I had previously read about it in depth. They opening description is really discouraging. They got the guy taking the pics wrong. He said it was someone else giving it to him. Other people came over and said they saw it too. This is all stuff that had been hashed and rehashed. They talk to a witness. They bring out the skeptics and their ideas that its a prank. They discuss the finding of the model in Ed Walters attic. End with the "there are still those who believe..."

'The Galactic Encounter'
This is from the fall of '66. The astronauts saw a flashing light outside one of the portholes. One took pictures of the blobby spots. NASA "couldn't explain" so NORAD said it could be a booster from a Soviet rocket. They then debunk it for the UFOlogists, but come back to a skeptic who says that it may have been something jettisenned by the astronauts. But invariably come back to "we can't prove" and "something weird".

'The McMinnville Sightings'
This is a revamping of a 1950s case in McMinnville, Oregon. A farmer and his wife photographed a spaceship. Some unnamed men talk about what the photos show. A physicist with the Navy who has been investigating the sightings says, "this is a real case." He goes through the photos talking about how it must have been built. Robert Schaffer says the couple made it and put it over the phone wires to explain Mrs. Trent having seen UFOs and people not believing here. End with the same usual "People still don't know and believe in UFOs" garbage.

'The Cartet Sightings'
Some witnesses from one family describe a set of lights. The talk about how the news media covers it and find nothing. They talk a great deal about who and what. Robert Schaffer says that something was sent up in a balloon (a whole 30 seconds of skepticism). Very much a witnesses say what they want and don't believe the skeptic who gets to give one possible explanation.

'Minnesota Sightings a UFO Case?'

'What was behind the Soviet Obsession with UFOs?'
This a very brief discussion of how unknown soviet launches coul be behind some sightings.

All in all it was a trashy exploitation of people's gullibility. It had the token skeptics looking like they were attacking the credibility of witnesses instead of presenting information about witness testimony. The specialists are not credible in their arguements and too much emphasis is put on distance judging in the sky and often at night. UFOs automatically mean aliens in this documentary. It was garbage and MSNBC should be ashamed of themselves for presenting this on their Dateline show.

Pick and Choose

I hate being a female, southern, white college student in this political atmosphere. No matter whom I argue for or against I get flack. If I like Obama it is because I am young and like the change movement. If I argue against Obama I am racist. If I like Hillary, it’s because I am female (and for some because I want to get abortions). If I argue against her it is because I am taken in by the flash and flare of the newer Obama campaign. I am almost ready to scream with all of these ridiculous arguments. At this point, I don’t like either of them.

Obama is too new for my liking and seems a little wet behind the ears to be made president. I don’t even want him to be a majority leader! I have heard his arguments and they sound nice but, like most politicians, he seems to side step some tougher questions and issues and gives very inspirational speeches that when taken apart seem to only say, “Gee. We should make things better. And aren’t those guys up there all stuck in their ways?” The problem I have with his youthfulness in the national political scene is that we don’t know how well he will follow through with some of his campaign promises. I worry that if we do elect him, thinking we will get something “new,” we will all be very disappointed. I think I am the only person who doesn’t see him as anything “new.” He still has lobbyists and everything everyone else has. The only difference is that it takes a great deal for him to attack someone, but that’s okay because he has people to do that for him.

Clinton is set in her ways and okay off politically. I, however, don’t see her time in the White House as training to be president. After going through her senate votes (as well as Obama’s) I agree on her with most things and her service on the Armed Services Committee is very great at this time in our nation’s history. The problem I have is some of her choice in staff and attacks. Granted, she wasn’t expecting to have to fight, but some of the shots she has taken are far below the belt (way *hee-hee*). The tone did become rather bothersome for me because it took away from real issues that I wanted to hear discussed. With the reconcilliary tone she has come to take now, I find it better, but wish she’d used it before this point. Now we get to hear more about issues and John McCain is getting attacked for the ridiculous things he says. (American troops are being welcomed home... well... those we still don’t have there.)

With the turn in the campaigns to the general election, hits on John McCain are growing and people do not like some of the attacks he is leveling against Barak Obama. If the head of the KKK said he wanted McCain to be president people would not say, “John McCain is prejudice and against the rights and solving problems in Sudan.” It doesn’t work either way and he needs to stop saying these things. He sounds like Bush when he swift-boated McCain in 2000. Now he is backing the president and ensuring the cry of duplication of the Bush presidency in his own workings. He is no maverick, he is not a straight talker, and he is a charlatan pulling the wool over the eyes of people looking for security in the future. He is the boy-who-cries-wolf of politicians right now saying that “bearings” evokes age and Obama supports terrorists. If that is so than so does McCain, he even sought the endorsement of a man who said we deserved 9-11. He has lost his “bearings,” as has any person who thinks that people who make more than $200k are the middle class to be helped in the coming presidency. Senator McCain is constantly asking for Olbermann’s one-line, which his campaign has complained about, “Old man yells at cloud!”

A-please-ment

This is important so I thought I would say something today instead of posting what I was planning on writing.

If I hear one more republican water carrier say the word appeasement without defining exactly what the appeasers did I am going to freak; especially if they want to use it as an attack.



This, if it works, is a video of Chris Matthews of Hardball on MSNBC catching one of his guests out when he tries to connect Obama to anti-Israeli feelings and Neville Chamberlain but does not even know what Chamberlain did and takes 5 minutes and 16 seconds to admit it. White House people, but not the press secretary, said this was about Obama. This is getting ridiculous. I wish I had entered into a pool for how long McCain could uphold his nice, attack-free campaign. I had it pegged for the middle of this week and it happened on Thursday that he compared Obama to Chamberlain. The problem they all seem to have is the same one that has been plaguing them for this entire presidency. They do not know history. They didn’t remember the occupation of the Philippines and compare it to Iraq or think of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The adage is true, history does repeat itself.

An even bigger problem is that they do not know the difference between diplomacy an d appeasement. Appeasement is when something is given away in exchange for a guarantee of a certain action while diplomacy requires no give and take. If they are telling the truth that this is not about Obama, then it must be them. They are calling to negotiate with Iran and are actively negotiating with North Korea. That Condoleezza Rice, she is so much like those conservatives and republicans who sought to appease the Nazis...oh wait.

Belief and Debate

A quick dedication to "Eric." If you read this and know it's you no worries mate this is just why I get angry when you try and debate me.

Belief is defined by dictionary.com (based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary) as:

1. An opinion or conviction
2. Confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof
3. Confidence; faith; trust
4. A religious tenet or tenets.

I don’t understand the point of belief. It is a useful word especially when used as in case one or two as in, “I believe his story over yours.” The third definition and the forth definition are the ones that give me trouble. I don’t understand the equivalence between belief and faith the way many religious people use the words.

When speaking to people at my school I sometimes hear that something is the way it is because they have faith and believe it to be so. This means that in some of actual arguments they do not see their belief as an opinion or simple confidence in their idea. They present it as a fully supportable fact with an unbending strength which is where I grow weary. There is no argument one can present to disagree with them or debate anything. They will not give on a single aspect. The belief shot is where an argument dies. Case in point: me and a fried I will call “Eric” were discussing evolution. I was trying to understand how he could say that God created one of each species and it became all sorts of the species (like having grizzlies and pandas) without evolution having happened at all, guided or not. “Eric” stayed firm and kept restating his belief, which I did not mind, but as he grew more repetitive and I had different arguments for each point, “Eric” threw his trump card. He said, “This is my belief because I have faith.” There is no way of trumping that. “Eric” and I have had several discussions and almost all of them ended in this same statement.

As time has passed I have come to wonder, why did he use the word belief, especially in his discussions about God? The way he thinks of God is in a factual nature, the same way as I think about the wind. The problem I run into is that I would never say, “I believe in the wind,” or, “I have faith that the wind moved the leaves.” This is ludicrous to me. It is there I see the effects and can explain its origins and the nature behind it and that is how “Eric” feels about God. This is where I strain. Why say “believe” or “faith?” If it exists and can be proven in your mind, why should one use these straddling terms? There are people, who argue that the earth is the center of the universe and argue most vehemently their case for a heliocentric universe. Those of us who disagree with their ideals do not say that we believe the sun is at the center and the only thing rotating around the earth (besides man-made objects and debris) is the moon. We know it. It is fact. Why add the ambiguity of belief to the situation?

When religious believers like “Eric” debate they speak of belief in the same way I speak of theories. It is something known and just short of fact. This is where people who want to argue with the vehemently religious need to see the connection. If, in a debate about the beginning of the universe, a leading scientist says, “Well, the Big Bang Theory allows us to...” he will quickly be stuck in an argument about an absolute beginning and who started the Big Bang. Instead, if the scientist would just say, “I believe in the Big Bang,” they would be just as stumped as everyone else is when debating them. So this is my call for all scientists to use their beliefs in facts and fight fire with fire and for people who would argue a belief as fact think of what life would be like if we all went around saying things like, “I believe in this table and will therefore put my drink down on it.”

First: On the McCain Campaign

The Presidential election is an important time for our country. It is a time for redefinition of our political ideas, if we so wish. There are always group pushing to keep the status quo. In the last several weeks of this contest there has been a great deal of focus on Hillary and Barack, the only real competition left. The sad part of the story is that people are missing important details like that John McCain is getting less than 80% of the vote when he is the immanent nominee (I cannot rightly say that he is the only nominee, keep going Ron Paul). Tonight I am going to examine why this may be so, his potential problems running against Barak, and some of his recent comments and the controversy behind them.

John McCain the war hero has done so much for this country and I honor him immensely for the sacrifices he has made for us here in the United States. However when he enters the political field I do not see any reason for candy coating our comments. Senator McCain is no longer driving the “straight talk express.” He has, pardon my language, kowtowed to the whims of a party which, by the polls, is not fully backing him. There are three central features which I see playing an important role in this up-and-coming election: the economy, the war, and the comparison to the current president. Introduction of social issues is a possibility, but I do not see it as large of a factor in this year’s race unless something is started by recent comments which I will address later. His lack of backing by those considered the base of the party lies in his history as a semi-moderate in the Senate and current conditions of his changing sides on ideas like global warming, illegal immigration, and torture. These flip-flops played a major role in the stopping of John Kerry in the 2004 election and raise questions among true die-hard conservatives about his convictions on ideas they see no debate in.

This leads to the strong possibility of him running against Barack Obama in the fall and the problems he will most likely have in the competition. He says he wants to run a clean campaign which is great but this relies heavily on 529 groups doing the dirty work for him. If they just debate the issues he faces major stoppages for flip-flopping and the conviction question, so attacks to take down Obama on character are important. The problem is what is he going to use? If he uses the Reverend Wright controversy, not only will his own “pastor problems” be brought up, but he may even get a huge yawn from those of us who are already tired of hearing about it. Whoever is going to attack Obama needs something scandalous enough to stick, so far the Reverend Wright controversy has stuck but everything else rolls off of Obama like water off of a duck and Obama has passed a vetting by the Clinton attack team without even a scratch that McCain has a chance of reopening. Besides the problem of what he can hit Obama with there is the question of where. John McCain is not the best debater while Obama’s oratory skills are amazing and inspiring even if he really isn’t saying anything that any other democrat hasn’t already said. There are many times when McCain looks rehearsed and uncomfortable talking to groups and that discomfort could be his downfall. There is one issue which McCain has more than earned the right to attack Obama on and that is experience. McCain simply has more of it. And though it is the “old Washington” experience, it has a value of its own that cannot be matched. John McCain’s label as a maverick is important here. Though he fell in line with the more conservative end of the party more recently, he has put forth some ideas that were considered to be risky for a republican senator. Here is where people reach a fork in the road, should they think about that and go with his experience or go with the new rhetoric he has been spouting.

Recent comments by McCain about the conservatism of judges are very chilling not for the fact that he wants more conservative judges but for the fact that he wants judges who would be at the whims of voters. Judging by popular demand undermines our justice system not to mention the system of checks and balances set forth by the rarely read US constitution. By the way, small plug, Scott Ritter, former chief U.N. weapons inspector for Iraq, recently gave a talk at my university and was awesome. The best and most important point in his lecture was not about lies or stopping the war, it was about knowing the constitution and what rights we as Americans are guaranteed. To the main point, if he appoints judges who bow to the whims of the people, that means the laws will bow which means that, in a largely skewed view if criminals get to be a majority, the crime could be stricken from the record. The problem with following the majority is 1) is it a majority or a passionate and vocal minority, 2) what if the majority changes, and 3) what if you are suddenly found in the minority. These are three points I wish any person to examine before starting anything as suggested by John McCain.

Thus ends my first blog. I don’t know what I am going to right about next. Probably oil prices unless something more delicious catches my eye. Please comment on what you like or don’t like. I tried to touch on high news items so that no one is left in the dark but if you would like more info, let me know and I will try and provide it. I apologize for all misspellings and grammar issues. If you want anything in particular researched or talked about comment about it and I will try and blog about that next though I would prefer further discussion on the same topic. DO NOT ARGUE BLINDLY!!! This is an observation based on the facts I know and I do not want a yeah-ha, nuh-uh argument. Thanks for reading.