[mtnman]

I HATE this BS FEers try to pull. It is such a bogus line of hypocritical garbage and they know it. What experiments have YOU performed? You say the Earth is flat, prove it. Satellites don't exist - right... I blew Tom Bishop up on this a while back. Had him backed into such a corner that he started claiming there was a conspiracy after claiming there isn't one. Rushy, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you aren't even remotely qualified to perform anything more than very basic "backyard science" sort of experiments. If you can't test it, it can't be true. Sigh, willful ignorance is such a sad thing.

Yes, it's just sad.

In my limited time here, I've seen that excuse rolled out several times. But I can't think of any post that I've seen where one of the FE faithful have reported on their own experimental data. Other than, I looked at the horizon and it looked flat to me. Or that canal experiment from the 1800's.

[3DGeek]

No magic in gravity. Mass attracts. Newton and Kepler figured it out a few hundred years ago.

If you believe in universal acceleration, please explain what is making the Earth accelerate. And why we observe star light shifted to the red end of the spectrum (things moving further away) rather than the opposite. If the Earth is accelerating, shouldn't you believe we are getting closer to the stars and other things we observe in the sky?

I think the claim is that those things (stars, etc) are responding to the same universal acceleration effect as the Flat Earth disk - that's presumably why it's called "universal".

The problem is that this effect is somehow selective.   Universal acceleration applies to the (flat) earth - but not to a rock that's made of the same 'stuff'.   When you dig a deep hole with steep sides, it tends to collapse - which would be odd if all of the rocks were susceptible to this acceleration.

So we'd have to imagine some kind of magical substrate beneath the rocks that's feeling the acceleration - while the rocks themselves (along with trees, houses, cars, people, etc) are immune to it's effects.

Whatever this magical stuff is - must be the same thing that sun, moon, stars and planets are made of because they are evidently accelerating too.

But then you get into the ikky corner cases.   There are asteroids and comets up there - which MOSTLY accelerate along with the earth (so they are made of magical accelerating stuff) - but sometimes one of them falls out of the sky and kills a few billion dinosaurs - or flattens a million acres of Russian forest.   We can even find some of these things ("meteorites") lying around on the ground - and it seems that if you drop one, it falls to the ground.

So do comets and meteors sometimes get "un-magicked" so they are no longer being accelerated upwards by this "universal" force?

Like all FE theories, it kinda sorta works at first glance - but then fails horribly when you think past that and start to consider the effects of it.

...and (sorry to keep saying this) it can't explain tides or the lesser force of gravity at the equator or the greater force at the poles.

Also, an acceleration implies a force - and a motion through a distance - and THAT requires "ENERGY" - so what is the energy source behind this acceleration?   There must be a hell of a lot of it to keep the Earth and all of those other bodies accelerating continually like that.  Will it run out so we'll all go into free-fall one day?

In RET, Gravity is a force - but it doesn't move through a distance - so the Earth doesn't need a power supply.

[mtnman]

No magic in gravity. Mass attracts. Newton and Kepler figured it out a few hundred years ago.

If you believe in universal acceleration, please explain what is making the Earth accelerate. And why we observe star light shifted to the red end of the spectrum (things moving further away) rather than the opposite. If the Earth is accelerating, shouldn't you believe we are getting closer to the stars and other things we observe in the sky?

I think the claim is that those things (stars, etc) are responding to the same universal acceleration effect as the Flat Earth disk - that's presumably why it's called "universal".

Here is the reason I posed that question. If you assume that the Earth is flat, and being accelerated constantly, you can't be expected to know about the force pushing the Earth up, since it is below the flat Earth and not visible. But that is not the case for the stars "above" us. So if something is accelerating them, shouldn't we be able to see some evidence of whatever is causing that force? Just another attempt to get them to answer some logical questions, which I know they can't do.

[Rushy]

For the record, I didn't say anything about GPS formulas using relativity, someone else made that comment. I actually had not heard that before, but considering the orbital speed of the satellites and their altitude, I suppose that makes sense. What with speed and lessor gravitational fields having effects and all.

It's a sad little world you have chosen for yourself where no accomplishments can be appreciated or knowledge gained based on the experiences of others.

Did you hear that someone climbed to the summit of Mt Everest? But wait, I can't comment on that since I didn't do that myself, and you probably haven't been there. So I guess you don't believe in that either.

OK, that's enough for now. I'm going to go back to the baseball game I'm watching on my satellite TV, which I assume you don't believe in either.

There's a big difference between claiming you can climb a mountain versus saying the earth is a shape that it isn't.

I HATE this BS FEers try to pull. It is such a bogus line of hypocritical garbage and they know it. What experiments have YOU performed? You say the Earth is flat, prove it. Satellites don't exist - right... I blew Tom Bishop up on this a while back. Had him backed into such a corner that he started claiming there was a conspiracy after claiming there isn't one. Rushy, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you aren't even remotely qualified to perform anything more than very basic "backyard science" sort of experiments. If you can't test it, it can't be true. Sigh, willful ignorance is such a sad thing.

The Bedford Level experiment is really all you need. On a curved world the size that RET claims it to be, water would curve at about an 8 inch drop per mile, and yet this doesn't exist. I've done it, you can do it too, all you need is a large lake or river and a laser pointer. Simple stuff, I imagine even you could do it, but you're not going to. You'll just continue to sit here and insist I'm doing the same thing you are: nothing.

[mtnman]

For the record, I didn't say anything about GPS formulas using relativity, someone else made that comment. I actually had not heard that before, but considering the orbital speed of the satellites and their altitude, I suppose that makes sense. What with speed and lessor gravitational fields having effects and all.

It's a sad little world you have chosen for yourself where no accomplishments can be appreciated or knowledge gained based on the experiences of others.

Did you hear that someone climbed to the summit of Mt Everest? But wait, I can't comment on that since I didn't do that myself, and you probably haven't been there. So I guess you don't believe in that either.

OK, that's enough for now. I'm going to go back to the baseball game I'm watching on my satellite TV, which I assume you don't believe in either.

There's a big difference between claiming you can climb a mountain versus saying the earth is a shape that it isn't.

I HATE this BS FEers try to pull. It is such a bogus line of hypocritical garbage and they know it. What experiments have YOU performed? You say the Earth is flat, prove it. Satellites don't exist - right... I blew Tom Bishop up on this a while back. Had him backed into such a corner that he started claiming there was a conspiracy after claiming there isn't one. Rushy, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you aren't even remotely qualified to perform anything more than very basic "backyard science" sort of experiments. If you can't test it, it can't be true. Sigh, willful ignorance is such a sad thing.

The Bedford Level experiment is really all you need. On a curved world the size that RET claims it to be, water would curve at about an 8 inch drop per mile, and yet this doesn't exist. I've done it, you can do it too, all you need is a large lake or river and a laser pointer. Simple stuff, I imagine even you could do it, but you're not going to. You'll just continue to sit here and insist I'm doing the same thing you are: nothing.

No, it's exactly the same thing. You are saying I can't claim any fact without having proven it myself.

I claim that the summit of Everest was reached by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. I could give you links to articles written about it, pictures from the expedition. If you were to consistently apply your FE standard of proof, you would claim that since I wasn't there I can't prove it happened. I can't prove that the articles and the pictures are not forgeries, therefore, you shouldn't believe it. Granted that it is a different scale of alleged deception, but the concept is exactly the same.

I could claim that the Dodgers won Word Series game 1 last night. But I can't prove it since I watched it by receiving a broadcast signal from a satellite, which you say doesn't exist.

So you've called me out by showing that I personally didn't measure the red shift of certain distant galaxies. Wow, you got me there. It's a convenient method you have to make yourself feel superior and comfortable in ignoring knowledge gained by talented people that have access to high levels of education and advanced tools. But you have to ignore all of astronomy because it conflicts with your belief system.

As far as doing anything myself...

Example 1: I was at the beach a few weeks back. Used my DSLR zoom lens to take pictures of the most distant building I could along the coast. I took shots from the beach level and then from my 11th floor balcony. I forget the exact measurements (have them written down somewhere), the other building was about 12-14 miles away. The 8 inch/mile² thing said that from the balcony I should have nothing obscured and from the beach level there should have been 20 or 30 feet obscured. The zoom wasn't strong enough to make out individual floors to get an exact count, but it was quite clear that the beach in front of the other building could be viewed from my balcony, but not from the beach view photo. I had intended to post the pictures, but kept seeing the noise about refraction along the water from similar pictures and didn't think it would be worth the bother. But it confirmed the curvature in my mind.

Example 2: Before the same trip I decided to test FE vs. Timeanddate.com. That site allowed me to enter a location and date, it gave me the exact times and angles for sunset/rise, moonset/rise, etc. I posted a question here about how to calculate where (compass angle) the sun should set according to FE math. Got one response that gave me a formula that would work only if calculated for one of the equinox dates. Seems FE math isn't very advanced. But it worked out since my trip was only one week from the equinox, close enough for government work as they say. So I used my compass and atomic clock phone app and watched the sunset. It happened exactly where timeanddate said it would, which was about 25 degrees off from the FE prediction. I posted these results, and of course, none of the FE faithful had any comment. I will link to the thread if you want to review it. https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6862.0

So now that I've shared some of my work, let's hear about one of your experiments! I look forward to it.

[StinkyOne]

For the record, I didn't say anything about GPS formulas using relativity, someone else made that comment. I actually had not heard that before, but considering the orbital speed of the satellites and their altitude, I suppose that makes sense. What with speed and lessor gravitational fields having effects and all.

It's a sad little world you have chosen for yourself where no accomplishments can be appreciated or knowledge gained based on the experiences of others.

Did you hear that someone climbed to the summit of Mt Everest? But wait, I can't comment on that since I didn't do that myself, and you probably haven't been there. So I guess you don't believe in that either.

OK, that's enough for now. I'm going to go back to the baseball game I'm watching on my satellite TV, which I assume you don't believe in either.

There's a big difference between claiming you can climb a mountain versus saying the earth is a shape that it isn't.

I HATE this BS FEers try to pull. It is such a bogus line of hypocritical garbage and they know it. What experiments have YOU performed? You say the Earth is flat, prove it. Satellites don't exist - right... I blew Tom Bishop up on this a while back. Had him backed into such a corner that he started claiming there was a conspiracy after claiming there isn't one. Rushy, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you aren't even remotely qualified to perform anything more than very basic "backyard science" sort of experiments. If you can't test it, it can't be true. Sigh, willful ignorance is such a sad thing.

The Bedford Level experiment is really all you need. On a curved world the size that RET claims it to be, water would curve at about an 8 inch drop per mile, and yet this doesn't exist. I've done it, you can do it too, all you need is a large lake or river and a laser pointer. Simple stuff, I imagine even you could do it, but you're not going to. You'll just continue to sit here and insist I'm doing the same thing you are: nothing.

Have you confirmed the test results? What allowance did you make for light refraction? You also know that the test was invalidated upon peer review.

It does appear the Rowbotham seems to have thought himself right even when he was wrong:

When finally pinned down to a challenge in Plymouth in 1864 by allegations that he wouldn't agree to a test, Parallax appeared on Plymouth Hoe at the appointed time, witnessed by Richard A. Proctor, a writer on astronomy, and proceeded to the beach where a telescope had been set up. His opponents had claimed that only the lantern of the Eddystone Lighthouse, some 14 miles out to sea, would be visible. In fact, only half the lantern was visible, yet Rowbotham claimed his opponents were wrong and that it proved the Earth was indeed flat so that many Plymouth folk left the Hoe agreeing that "some of the most important conclusions of modern astronomy had been seriously invalidated"

[3DGeek]

The Bedford Level experiment is really all you need. On a curved world the size that RET claims it to be, water would curve at about an 8 inch drop per mile, and yet this doesn't exist. I've done it, you can do it too, all you need is a large lake or river and a laser pointer. Simple stuff, I imagine even you could do it, but you're not going to. You'll just continue to sit here and insist I'm doing the same thing you are: nothing.

Have you confirmed the test results? What allowance did you make for light refraction? You also know that the test was invalidated upon peer review.

It does appear the Rowbotham seems to have thought himself right even when he was wrong:

When finally pinned down to a challenge in Plymouth in 1864 by allegations that he wouldn't agree to a test, Parallax appeared on Plymouth Hoe at the appointed time, witnessed by Richard A. Proctor, a writer on astronomy, and proceeded to the beach where a telescope had been set up. His opponents had claimed that only the lantern of the Eddystone Lighthouse, some 14 miles out to sea, would be visible. In fact, only half the lantern was visible, yet Rowbotham claimed his opponents were wrong and that it proved the Earth was indeed flat so that many Plymouth folk left the Hoe agreeing that "some of the most important conclusions of modern astronomy had been seriously invalidated"

I agree - but I'd also say this:  I'm something of an expert on lasers (I own some seriously big ones!).

Given the divergence of a typical laser pointer - there is no way you'd be able to see the resulting spot at "horizon" distances - so I'm calling "bullshit" on Rushy's claim to have done this experiment.

Evidence:  The beam divergence of a laser diode (which is all you can physically fit into such a small device) is AT BEST 1.2 milliRadians (more like 1.5 for a reasonably priced laserdiode and more like 2.5 for a typical "Walmart" $5 laser pointer).  Doesn't sound much - but over (say) 3000 meters - 1.2 mRad error is going to produce a 3.8 meter "spot",   With the maximum legal brightness of 5 milliwatts for an unlicensed privately owned laser - the result is an illumination level of 5 milliWatts over 12 square meters.  In reality, atmospheric scattering over a total 6 kilometer path reduces it FAR below that.

This is well below the human visual threshold...but even if it wasn't, claiming to do any kind of a precision experiment with a 3.8 meter fuzzy blob...it's not happening.

So Rushy is LYING TO US.

[TheFoil]

The earth is not flat

[juner]

The earth is not flat

Have a few days off for continuing with low-content posts after multiple warnings.

[J-Man]

Gravity doesn't exist. Just as the dudes at CERN disclosed Matter and antimatter should have cancelled one another out and the universe shouldn't exist. They proved that both are the same in every way and that there must be a God, breathing in and out doing remarkable things that makes no sense to the retards.

The earth is flat as a pancake. The only force is GOD......

"Riddle of matter remains unsolved: Proton and antiproton share fundamental properties"

"All of our observations find a complete symmetry between matter and antimatter, which is why the universe should not actually exist,"
Hey guys it doesn't, it a picture dome above your heads you retards. The bible has been telling you satanists for millenniums.

http://www.uni-mainz.de/presse/aktuell/3027_ENG_HTML.php

[mtnman]

Gravity doesn't exist. Just as the dudes at CERN disclosed Matter and antimatter should have cancelled one another out and the universe shouldn't exist. They proved that both are the same in every way and that there must be a God, breathing in and out doing remarkable things that makes no sense to the retards.

The earth is flat as a pancake. The only force is GOD......

"Riddle of matter remains unsolved: Proton and antiproton share fundamental properties"

"All of our observations find a complete symmetry between matter and antimatter, which is why the universe should not actually exist,"
Hey guys it doesn't, it a picture dome above your heads you retards. The bible has been telling you satanists for millenniums.

http://www.uni-mainz.de/presse/aktuell/3027_ENG_HTML.php

Love how you cherry pick something out of an article and claim it confirms your belief when it obviously doesn't. Do you think do one will actually read the article and just take you at your word? The article makes no reference to gravity. It comments that if protons/anti-protons cancel each other and were originally in symetry, then the universe shouldn't exist. That means we have more to learn since the universe obviously exists. We are both people that live in it.

I also liked the quote regarding the precision...

This is the equivalent of measuring the circumference of the earth to a precision of four centimeters.

These are scientists, they weren't talking about the circumference of your ice wall.

[Rushy]

No, it's exactly the same thing. You are saying I can't claim any fact without having proven it myself.

I claim that the summit of Everest was reached by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. I could give you links to articles written about it, pictures from the expedition. If you were to consistently apply your FE standard of proof, you would claim that since I wasn't there I can't prove it happened. I can't prove that the articles and the pictures are not forgeries, therefore, you shouldn't believe it. Granted that it is a different scale of alleged deception, but the concept is exactly the same.

I could claim that the Dodgers won Word Series game 1 last night. But I can't prove it since I watched it by receiving a broadcast signal from a satellite, which you say doesn't exist.

So you've called me out by showing that I personally didn't measure the red shift of certain distant galaxies. Wow, you got me there. It's a convenient method you have to make yourself feel superior and comfortable in ignoring knowledge gained by talented people that have access to high levels of education and advanced tools. But you have to ignore all of astronomy because it conflicts with your belief system.

As far as doing anything myself...

Example 1: I was at the beach a few weeks back. Used my DSLR zoom lens to take pictures of the most distant building I could along the coast. I took shots from the beach level and then from my 11th floor balcony. I forget the exact measurements (have them written down somewhere), the other building was about 12-14 miles away. The 8 inch/mile² thing said that from the balcony I should have nothing obscured and from the beach level there should have been 20 or 30 feet obscured. The zoom wasn't strong enough to make out individual floors to get an exact count, but it was quite clear that the beach in front of the other building could be viewed from my balcony, but not from the beach view photo. I had intended to post the pictures, but kept seeing the noise about refraction along the water from similar pictures and didn't think it would be worth the bother. But it confirmed the curvature in my mind.

Example 2: Before the same trip I decided to test FE vs. Timeanddate.com. That site allowed me to enter a location and date, it gave me the exact times and angles for sunset/rise, moonset/rise, etc. I posted a question here about how to calculate where (compass angle) the sun should set according to FE math. Got one response that gave me a formula that would work only if calculated for one of the equinox dates. Seems FE math isn't very advanced. But it worked out since my trip was only one week from the equinox, close enough for government work as they say. So I used my compass and atomic clock phone app and watched the sunset. It happened exactly where timeanddate said it would, which was about 25 degrees off from the FE prediction. I posted these results, and of course, none of the FE faithful had any comment. I will link to the thread if you want to review it. https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6862.0

So now that I've shared some of my work, let's hear about one of your experiments! I look forward to it.

Those aren't experiments. One is just you literally taking a picture of the horizon and the other is you googling times and doing "calculations" without actually explaining what those calculations consisted of. If this is your standard for experimentation, then it's no surprised that you believe the earth is a big ball.

[mtnman]

Example 1: I was at the beach a few weeks back. Used my DSLR zoom lens to take pictures of the most distant building I could along the coast. I took shots from the beach level and then from my 11th floor balcony. I forget the exact measurements (have them written down somewhere), the other building was about 12-14 miles away. The 8 inch/mile² thing said that from the balcony I should have nothing obscured and from the beach level there should have been 20 or 30 feet obscured. The zoom wasn't strong enough to make out individual floors to get an exact count, but it was quite clear that the beach in front of the other building could be viewed from my balcony, but not from the beach view photo. I had intended to post the pictures, but kept seeing the noise about refraction along the water from similar pictures and didn't think it would be worth the bother. But it confirmed the curvature in my mind.

Example 2: Before the same trip I decided to test FE vs. Timeanddate.com. That site allowed me to enter a location and date, it gave me the exact times and angles for sunset/rise, moonset/rise, etc. I posted a question here about how to calculate where (compass angle) the sun should set according to FE math. Got one response that gave me a formula that would work only if calculated for one of the equinox dates. Seems FE math isn't very advanced. But it worked out since my trip was only one week from the equinox, close enough for government work as they say. So I used my compass and atomic clock phone app and watched the sunset. It happened exactly where timeanddate said it would, which was about 25 degrees off from the FE prediction. I posted these results, and of course, none of the FE faithful had any comment. I will link to the thread if you want to review it. https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=6862.0

So now that I've shared some of my work, let's hear about one of your experiments! I look forward to it.

Those aren't experiments. One is just you literally taking a picture of the horizon and the other is you googling times and doing "calculations" without actually explaining what those calculations consisted of. If this is your standard for experimentation, then it's no surprised that you believe the earth is a big ball.

They are experiments. Simple ones I grant you, but they are experiments. Really you just want to ignore them because you don't like the results.

#1 If the Earth was curved, I should be able to see more ground level detail from a higher altitude. I was.

#2 Forget about timeanddate.com being exactly correct. The FE math given to me on this forum predicted the direction of sunset would be 56 degrees north of due west (316 degrees). It actually set at 275 degrees, close to due west. That is 41 degrees wrong. That is an experiment that FE failed miserably.

The way you guys flip on standard of proof is so funny. You can view a hundred hours of ISS footage, find one unexplained spec floating on the screen and that is iron clad proof that NASA lies and the Earth is flat. The prediction of how the sunset works (based on data verified by one of your believers) is wrong by 41 degrees and that doesn't prove anything. LOL

I'm still looking forward to you posting some of your experimental results.

[J-Man]

I take it you've never been to the movies? The ISS is nothing more than a movie CGI loop. If you watch it for hours on end with great intensity you will see the splice.

Begin.....

[mtnman]

Yes, been to the movies numerous times, don't think that proves anything. And have been watching space exploration since long before CGI existed. Maybe photoshop has been around for your whole life, but there was a time before it existed you know.

[3DGeek]

Yes, been to the movies numerous times, don't think that proves anything. And have been watching space exploration since long before CGI existed. Maybe photoshop has been around for your whole life, but there was a time before it existed you know.

The state of the art for 3D graphics in the glory days of NASA were NOTHING LIKE what we have these days.

The first CGI every used by NASA was done by a good friend of mine - Jim Blinn.  He did the famous Voyager fly-by graphics.  He invented an amazing number of the bag of tricks that are used today.   This work was the best-of-the-best in 1981:



I'd remind everyone that this was 12 years AFTER the first Apollo moon landings...8 years after the first Skylab mission...and the same year that the first Space Shuttle mission (STS-1) orbited the Earth.

Jim won a ton of awards for that - but as you can see - it's really not convincingly real (nor did anyone claim it was).   But that is the best that could be done in 1981 - even when money was no object.

Here in 1985 - after a BUNCH of shuttle flights and a ton of decidedly Round Earth videos - is one of the first commercial 3D graphics videos.  Wikipedia points out:  "The video was one of the first uses of computer-animated human characters and was considered ground-breaking at the time of its release.":



The quality difference is noticeably much worse than NASA's best efforts...and the animation of people - which was state-of-the-art for the time - is CRAP.  (The bits with video of the band isn't CGI - we're talking about the two blocky furniture movers).  There were no 3D modeling packages - everything in the 3D graphics had to be drawn out on graph paper and the coordinates of every triangle typed in by hand.

So when you say something is "CGI" and talking about shuttle missions and earlier - you're looking at about that kind of quality.

[mtnman]

Thanks for the detailed answer 3D, the Dire Straits video is a good example. I say that not just because I'm such a Mark Knopfler fan, but because I remember reading at the time that the rendering (did they call it that yet?) took a full day on a Cray super computer, one of the most powerful at the time.

I think sometimes the generations that have grown up with computers don't really understand the landscape that existed 30-40 years ago.  You know, they think the CGI can fake it now, so it must have always been that way, right? LOL

[xenotolerance]

Those aren't experiments. One is just you literally taking a picture of the horizon and the other is you googling times and doing "calculations" without actually explaining what those calculations consisted of. If this is your standard for experimentation, then it's no surprised that you believe the earth is a big ball flat.

are you describing Rowbotham? it's not clear

/jokes

[juner]

Those aren't experiments. One is just you literally taking a picture of the horizon and the other is you googling times and doing "calculations" without actually explaining what those calculations consisted of. If this is your standard for experimentation, then it's no surprised that you believe the earth is a big ball flat.

are you describing Rowbotham? it's not clear

/jokes

While jokes are appreciated, if you aren't going to add anything else at all to the topic, it isn't appropriate for the FED forum.

Last warning, next one is some time off to review the rules.

[3DGeek]

Those aren't experiments. One is just you literally taking a picture of the horizon and the other is you googling times and doing "calculations" without actually explaining what those calculations consisted of. If this is your standard for experimentation, then it's no surprised that you believe the earth is a big ball flat.

are you describing Rowbotham? it's not clear

/jokes

While jokes are appreciated, if you aren't going to add anything else at all to the topic, it isn't appropriate for the FED forum.

Last warning, next one is some time off to review the rules.

I think this is a bit unfair.  Rushy has been talking about using laser lights to observe the curvature of flat surface - which what Rowbotham did (only without the lasers).  I don't think xenotolerance was joking - it's a genuine request for clarification.  Is Rushy basically just describing a somewhat updated version of the Rowbotham experiment?

If moderation is called for - perhaps you should be concerned about the fact that Rushy lied to us in one of his posts when he claimed to have done this measurement with "a laser pointer".   This kind of downright misinformation is very damaging to the Flat Earth cause.   He should be asked to either clarify his meaning or retract it and admit that he was "economical with the truth".