UFO Damages Wind Turbine (NOT)

In some breaking news, a wind turbine at Conisholme, England has lost one of its 20M blades and had another damaged has UFO idiots experts fruitcakes researchers believers in a frenzy. UFOolgists as they like to be called (I can think of a lot of other things) are now crawling all over the site like ants scouring for clues.

Not surprisingly, the local and even national press is abuzz with the story of the millenium - little green men are real after all and we're being invaded! Strange lights have been reported in the sky around the area and mysterious sounds have been heard.

Uh huh!

Although Dale Vince one of the site owners wasn't saying much, the MOD are being rather more sober.

They're not even vaguely interested, in fact.

What the UFOidiots want us to believe is that a massive spaceship could navigate its way across the vastness of space, successfully get into low earth atmosphere and then crash into a wind farm!

Photos of the structure appear here, although they're not that clear. Even looking at that, I have another explanation which is closer to home and rather more believable and I can sum it up in two words:

Metal fatigue.

I may be wrong, but my immediate guess is that the missing blade actually came loose or began to bend while the turbine was rotating at speed. As it flailed around it collided with a second blade causing that severe damage before eventually falling off completely.

Occam's razor folks.

You read it here first. I'll update this story if any clearer explanation appears.

UPDATE:

and here it is, just 30 minutes after I posted my results, Associated Press puts this on the wire (courtesy of Google and copyright Associated Press)!

"Fraser McLachlan, chief executive of GCube, which insures more than 25,000 wind turbines worldwide, said that although it is unusual, this type of incident happens about five or six times a year. It does happen that a blade will sometimes just come off a machine for one reason or another," he said. "The main reason is the blade may shear."

FUCK YOU Ufologists!

Reason wins again.

Those bright lights are just that, everyday bright lights or more likely fake memories. More on this in my upcoming book which may even come out this year.

UPDATE 2:

The brilliantly sober Financial Times has an explanation for the lights in addition to a carried away "expert" as its Energy Editor, Ed Crooks writes at lunchtime today:

Nick Pope, a UFO expert, said it could be “one of the most significant UFO incidents for years.”

The Financial Times can reveal, however, that the likely cause of the lights seen in the area was a firework display.

Peter Bell, a retired farmer who lives close to the wind farm site, celebrated his 80th birthday on Saturday night with a party that culminated with fireworks being let off in the back garden.

In another priceless quote (this one appears in a newspaper from Thailand!) the amazingly gullible Russ Kellett, from the Flying Saucer Bureau, said witnesses had reported:

“Balls of light in the sky and the MoD (ministry of defence) has no explanation. We are very, very excited about this. To hit two of the blades, any object must have been about 170 feet long."

Where do they find these people? The MoD isn't interested Nicky boy. They don't give a fuck because they have better things to than chase your flying spaghetti monsters. As for an explanation, I rather think they came to the same conclusion as I did.

Dear God, if we weren't in such a recession I'd be screaming, "Get a fucking job, you idiot!" but now I'm denied that comeback.

Those weird lights in the sky were fucking fireworks! Not aliens from the planet Zod, but common or garden display fireworks all the way from down town China.

UPDATE 3:

My head is starting to hurt with all this as the story spreads across the globe. A sober report in the Louth Leader's website, "louthleader.co.uk" lists several other instances of blade failure along with a quote from the "tentacle man", John Harrison. Looking from his landing window, he saw:

"a 'massive ball of light' with 'tentacles going right down to the ground' over Conisholme wind farm."

"It was huge. At first I thought it must have been a hole where the moon was shining through but then I saw the tentacles – it looked just like an octopus. It was an incredible site; I have never seen anything like it before. I have no idea what it was, all I can say is what I saw".

Dear god, does this man wear spectacles - does he need to? Has he ever seen fireworks before? The paper doesn't elaborate on these points but that's the sort of thing I'd be asking. Seems that Mr Harrison (no age given) has gotten caught up in all the hype and just gone along with it.

Paraphrasing what Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel crooned in, The Boxer, "a man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest."

He sure has done here.

UPDATE 4:

The story has finally hit the US with Fox news carrying a story from The Sun which says:A woman motorist told how she saw a UFO zoom towards the wind farm and strike the turbine.

"There was no trace of the missing blade."

Which is patently bullshit - the bloody thing was there for everyone to see. This is the result of overexcited early reports, but the Currant Bun isn't going to let a few facts get in the way:

An [unidentified] UFO expert said: "We are very excited."

Humm, wonder if that's Nick Pope - who is either nuts or very smart, I can't tell yet. He used to work at the MOD, but is now a TV personality - promoting UFOs. You decide that one.

The Bun goes on:

Dorothy Willows — who lives half a mile from the scene of the hit-and-run — was in her car when "strange lights" loomed in the evening sky.

"The lights were moving across the sky towards the wind farm," she said. "Then I saw a low flying object. It was skimming across the sky towards the turbines."

Isn't it amazing how a simple firework display (as was revealed earlier in this article) suddenly turns into a low-flying object - oh yes, and a moon squid.

I know from personal experience that journos put words into people's mouths, so I can't be sure that's what Mrs Willows said - but I wouldn't be surprised. People are obviously keen to get in on the act and not be outdone. It's the old "It was THIS big" claim.

Hey ho.

More on this as the bullshit, sorry, story develops momentum.

Christine Maggiore Is Finally Dead

As (medical) Doctor Ben Goldacre less gleefully reports, the most famous AIDs denier of them all has finally succumbed to HIV. The author of the disgracefully titled, "What if everything you thought you knew about Aids was wrong?" has been nailed by the virus that fucked up her immune system until there was nothing left to fight an infection which finally killed her.

She was 52.

The US media loved her because she promoted an idea that went against science, medicine and common sense and, for a while, appeared to survive despite refusing anti-retrovirals which could have prolonged her life.

Worse though, when pregnant she refused the ARVs despite the evidence that the reduce the risk of maternal transmission of HIV to the foetus and breast fed her children, refusing them HIV tests.

Her daughter, Eliza Jane Scovill, died three years ago from a similar pnuemonia to that which killed Maggiore.

As Dr. Goldacre writes:

"She set up successful campaigning organisations and counselled HIV-positive pregnant women on how to avoid pressure from medics to use azidothymidine (AZT) during pregnancy to prevent maternal transmission of the virus. She appeared on the cover of Mothering magazine, with a “No AZT” sign painted on her pregnant tummy."

Most embarrassing of all, her fellow denier Prof. Peter Duesberg (University of California), managed to take in Neville Hodgkinson of the Sunday Times - an otherwise respectable paper. Nature described the Times' coverage as “seriously mistaken” and “probably disastrous”.

Fuck you Duesberg and fuck you Maggiore. I have family and friends lost to this virus.

Bad science kills people - the blood of millions is on your hands.

UPDATE: 7 Jan 2009

Seth C. Kalichman, Professor in the Psychology Department at the University of Connecticut has written a book (also mentioned in his comment below) which I am happy to link to here: www.springer.com and priced at £13.99 it's due out in March this year.

Unlike psuedo-scientists, Seth is donating his royalties from sales to buy AIDS medications in Africa. Why Africa? Because America can afford to pay its own way and Africa can't - and it's worse because the bloody Catholic church is still teaching people there that it's "God's will" for them to have sex without condoms; compounding the problem, African men are just as bloody minded and won't wear them either.

Where I will disagree with Seth is (although this might not be entirely disagreeing) is in Maggiore's choice to refuse ARVs while pregnant and her decision to breast feed despite medical advice and all the evidence that her child would suffer harm.

While Maggiore was entirely within her rights to refuse treatment for herself, Eliza Jane had no choice in the matter and had a terribly short life as as result.

The pro-Maggiore brigade are out in force, too. I found this piece of "news" rather interesting:

"Pneumonia doesn't appear to harm HIV-positive patients any more than those without HIV, according to a new international study conducted in part by the University of Alberta. There was also negligible difference in the mortality rate; total deaths among the HIV patients was 3.5 per cent (two of 58 patients), and 4.8 per cent (seven of 174) among the HIV-negative patients."

So from these results, it seems that you're more likely to die from Pneumonia if you're HIV positive. Smelling the sweet scent of denier-bullshit, I did some digging (OK, googling) and discovered that it's the pneumocystic form of pneumonia - not the bacterial form - that occurs most frequently in AIDs patients (indeed, occurrence is often an early indicator of HIV infection!)

The research cited in that article was interesting, but essentially meaningless to the case in point. Bacterial pneumonia is entirely different from the fungal pneumocystic variety - which is so common it's estimated that 75% of children are exposed to (and immune to it) by the age of four.

It killed Maggiore's daughter before her fourth birthday.

Like Autism denier, Jenny McCarthy, Christine Maggiore was both ill-informed, attractive and charismatic. It's a dangerous combination but combined with an apathetic, story-oriented and hungry media is lethal.