"Touching shuttle debris may cause bad spirits to invade your body!"

[John Kelsey]

At 10:19 AM 2/2/03 -0800, Tim May wrote:
...
>Speaking of journalists, why does Wolf Blitzer repeat this obvious lie 
>about the metal bits and pieces being tainted by evil spirits? Because 
>these so-called journalists are stooges for the state.

Well, the bit about "18 times the speed of light," and other mistakes I've 
seen through the years, make me suspect that Wolf and company simply don't 
have the technical background and built-in BS detectors necessary to catch 
things like this.  (For some reason I've never been able to fathom, many 
journalists seem to be remarkably gullable, when they're told something 
from the right kind of source, especially a government agency or other 
official source.)

>A real journalist would just roll his eyes and say "Look, folks, NASA 
>wants these pieces to be aid in reconstructing the accident. There are no 
>traces of liquid propellants and deadly chemicals on these pieces. And 
>they certainly didn't stay hot for long. NASA is trying to get us to feed 
>you jive so you'll be properly frightened and won't touch them.?"

I recall a guy on NPR saying something like this, a bit more 
politely.  Something like "The pieces surely aren't going to be dangerous, 
but moving them is going to mess up the investigation of the crash."  Which 
presumably is what everyone with any technical background and common sense 
was thinking when they heard the original warning, right?

>--Tim May, Occupied America

John Kelsey, kelsey.j at ix.netcom.com