The earth is a hollow sphere

... with us on the inside. Or so I've heard. From people who think they know*.

Now I have positive proof. See:

See that horizon? It's bending upwards, like a bowl. Not downwards, as it would be if we were on the outside of a sphere**.

That was looking north from near Kwomais Point. Here's the view looking south:

Hmmm... It looks as though it were slightly raised in the center.

Maybe the hypothesis needs a little work.

More weirdness:

Why do eagles so often sit on the most uncomfortable and treacherous part of a snag?

Yellowlegs in deep water (for him). Can't wait for the tide to go down to catch a worm.

A normal view of Crescent Beach, with gulls and the North Shore mountains. Just because I always love this scene.

* Filed under Crackpottery.
** Or near-sphere.

Is it censorship season or something?

Hard on the heels of the Turkish blocking of all Wordpress accounts, because one Adnan Oktar didn't like what bloggers had written about him, (see my post for links), comes this: a crackpot so-(self)-called scientist, Stuart Pivar, sues PZ Myers for libel.

Because he didn't like PZ's book review. Because PZ called him a "classic crackpot".

That's it. He didn't like the assessment, so he goes ahead and proves that it is appropriate; he acts like a "classic crackpot."

Blake Stacey has the story, updated as new comments come in from other blogs.

PZ, in one of his two book reviews (first edition, second edition of the book), shows a sample of his "research": an illustration of the development of a spider.

Here it is; you be the judge.

I had never seen before a spider with 10 legs. Here's a real spider, with all those legs clearly visible:

8 (eight) (4 per side) legs

Pivar's spider is not as accurate as this one (from an IIDB post):


At least they got the number of legs right. And, by the way, the number of legs is the first piece of information in any definition of the word, "spider".

From Encarta, for example:

spi·der plural spi·ders
noun
Definition: 1. eight-legged animal that spins webs:

Stuart Pivar is a crackpot.