STRANGE THINGS JOURNALISTS
THINK ARE TRUE

Where do journalists get these ideas?

Some of the major disasters that have occurred in the past few years have brought to light some of the fallacies many journalists believe are true. The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 produced a flurry of them. Here is a list of the worst ones, with the most frequent ones listed first:

• "A train driver who sees something on the track ahead can stop the train in time to prevent a crash."

  The stopping distance of a train is farther than the driver can see.

  Due to the great weight of a train that makes it an efficient form of transportation, the stopping distance of a train is usually farther than the distance the engine driver can see. This is with the best possible brakes available on each train car.

  This is why trains have the right-of-way over all other kinds of transportation.

• "A 'podium' is a stand in front of the speaker that holds up the microphone and the speaker's notes."

  You don't stand behind a podium. You stand ON a podium.

  That object in front of the speaker is a lectern, stand, or a pulpit. A "podium" is a small box or platform the speaker stands on, to raise him above the audience. A larger platform would be a "dais," a "rostrum," or a "stage".

• "Government can create wealth through stimulus spending."

  Only work can create wealth. Government does not have that power.

  Democrats, liberal schoolteachers, and the press have spread the lie that government can create wealth so much that most people believe it. But it has never worked - not even once. Democrats just took credit for it when the economy recovered for other reasons.

  Note that printing more money does not put any more wealth into the economy. It inflates the money, distributing the existing wealth among more dollars. Only work done to make a useful product for sale on the open market can create wealth.

• "Radio devices (e.g. cell phone, GPS, wireless, remote control, comlinks, etc) will work underwater." †

  Radio waves cannot pass through water.

  Radio waves cannot pass through electrical conductors (such as steel buildings or aircraft fuselages). Since water is an electrical conductor, radio waves cannot pass through it. So even if the devices are sealed in plastic to prevent water damage, the radio waves can't pass through the water to get to or from these devices.

• "Government can give you something for nothing."

  Nobody can get something for nothing. To gain requires work.

  Journalists overwhelmingly supported Obamacare because they thought they would be getting something for nothing. They even slanted their reporting on candidates to get this for themselves. But, because government has no power to create any wealth, the monthly premiums for Obamacare will likely rise above $2000 per person per month.

  In order for government to give anyone anything, it must take things away from other people. To give someone wealth, it must steal the value of that amount of work from others.

• "The word 'transpire' means 'happen' or 'occur'."

  Something that transpires leaks out.

  The word "transpire" actually means "leak out". Public officials and journalists get this wrong all the time.

• "Police officers kill more black people because the officers are racist."

  Police kill people who resist the authority of the police.

  Police officers kill more black people because black people tend to resist police more, trying to get out of being arrested. For years, they have been told by black leaders that the police will harm them, so they do the wrong thing by fighting back.

  The press amplifies this misperception by making a big story every time police kill a black man who was resisting police. This makes more blacks believe the police are racist.

  The time of arrest is not the time to protest wrongful police action. The time to protest anything the police did is in a calmer situation, during the interview at the police station, or in court.

• "Raising the minimum wage helps the poor."

  Raising the minimum wage does nothing but inflate the money.

  The poor do not gain, because employers have to raise prices to pay the new higher wages. The main effect of raising the minimum wage is inflation. The money buys less, so the poor person can't buy any more than he could before.

  Raising the minimum wage hurts retired people on fixed pensions, because their pensions buy less than they could before the change.

• "Raising the minimum wage doesn't hurt the economy."

  Raising the minimum wage causes many economic problems:

  Raising the minimum wage causes the following problems:

  • To pay a higher minimum wage, employers must charge higher prices for their products and services.
  • This price increase inflates the currency so that it offsets the benefits of the minimum wage increase.
  • The inflation reduces the buying power of minimum-wage employees to what it was before the minimum wage was raised.
  • The inflation reduces the buying power of every retired person's pension.
  • The inflation reduces the buying power of every damage settlement annuity.
  • Many minimum wage jobs are lost to provide the money to pay the increased wages for other minimum wage workers.
• "The minimum wage should be indexed to inflation."

  Indexing the minimum wage to inflation would cause hyperinflation.

  Since raising the minimum wage causes inflation, indexing the minimum wage to inflation would cause an endless cycle of wage increases, price increases, and inflation. Hyperinflation!

• "Employees can be paid any wage the employer wants to pay.

  Employers are usually wage takers, not wage makers.

  Most people are totally ignorant about how much an employee is paid:

  • Employers usually have to take the going rate for wages.
  • If an employer pays too low a wage, nobody will work there.
  • If an employer pays too high a wage, people will besiege the place for jobs.
  • The employer can't afford to pay an employee more than the amount of money the work of the employee brings into the company. The employee is paid out of that money.
  • Contrary to what unions say, employers do not have any "extra" money that could be used to pay higher wages. If they had it, they would pay more.
• "The military can get a jet into the area of an event in a minute or two." †

  Depending on where the jet is needed, it might take an hour.

  It takes a lot longer than a couple of minutes. The time depends on several factors, including whether or not the country is at war:

  • Fueling up the plane (peacetime)
  • Getting the pilot to the plane (peacetime)
  • Starting up the plane and taking off
  • After taking off, the plane must turn in the direction of the event.
  • The plane must avoid other air traffic already in the air.
  • Getting from the air base to the scene. Even at 600 mph, 100 miles takes 10 minutes.

  If the nearest air base is 600 miles away, a jet can take over an hour to arrive.

  During wartime, some of those things would have already been done before the need arises, and the plane might already be in the air.

• "The election system used in the United States of America is fair."

  The Plurality Voting System we use is inherently unfair.

  Our elections are biased, but not because someone is deliberately causing a bias.

  The Plurality Voting System (vote for only one) is the system used in the United States. It has built-in biases that appear whenever more than two candidates run for the same office:

  • The Plurality Voting Systems favors loner candidates that are extremist or oddball.
  • Plurality Voting works against multiple candidates running on similar platforms.

  This explains how we get the awful candidates we end up with from the primary elections. The party primary system makes this worse. Plurality Voting chooses the two oddest candidates to run against each other in the main election.

  Plurality voting is also the reason we have a two-party system. Other parties can't survive in it.

  Some journalists favor the Plurality Voting System because it is "easier to use" for voters. They say that voting takes longer and is more complicated with other systems.

  The Independent Voting System (vote on each choice separately) is the only system that is totally fair. It always chooses the candidate who pleases the largest number of people. It is also easy to use.

  Another cause of unfairness in the elections is the "straight-party function". It biases local elections to match the vote on national elections. It should be abolished.

• "UFOs cause lots of strange things, such as power failures."

  Journalists think of UFOs whenever something strange happens.

  Here is a list of events that make journalists think of UFOs:

  • Unexplained power failures
  • Extremely-large-area unexplained power failures
  • Unexplained fires
  • Unexplained aircraft disappearance †
  • Large number of unexplained dead birds, fish, or animals found
  • Unexplained substances found on the ground
  • Unexplained falls of various kinds of animals, plants, or substances from the sky (mostly due to tornadoes or cargo falling from aircraft)
  • Unexplained holes found in the ground
  • Earthquakes
  • Unexplained lights seen in the sky, or seen underwater

  In many cases, the effect the journalist thought the UFO caused actually caused the UFO sighting:

  • Power failures often cause strange lights in the sky.
  • Fires can cause strange lights in the sky.
  • Earthquakes can cause strange lights in the sky.
  • Police actions often cause strange lights in the sky.
  • When they hear about UFO sightings, pranksters release fire balloons to cause more UFO sightings.
• "UFOs are vehicles from outer space."

  UFOs are Unidentified Flying Objects

  Unidentified means that we do NOT know what it is. Here are the facts:

  • We do not have ANY evidence that any vehicles from outer space have ever come to the earth.
  • Most UFO sightings are positively identified by scientific means as ordinary things seen under unusual conditions.
  • Some UFOs are pranks released by curiosity seekers.
  • Some UFOs were flights of secret military aircraft (U-2, SR-71, B2, and F117).
  • Some UFO reports were fake stories used to check for security leaks.

  If we ever identified a UFO as being an alien spacecraft, it would no longer be a UFO - it would no longer be unidentified.

• "Satellites can hover over any place on the earth to monitor it." †

  Satellites can't hover. They must orbit the earth.

  Unless that place is on the equator, it is not possible for a satellite to stay over it. Satellites must follow orbits that have the center of the earth as one focus of an ellipse. The ellipse must be in a single flat plane that includes the center of the earth. So satellites can have only certain behaviors, relative to places on the surface of the earth.

  Here is a list of the possible orbits, each with its frequency of observation of one point on the surface of the earth:

  • Stay over a small area on the equator (orbiting at the same angular velocity as that of the earth) - continuous observation
  • Move directly north and south of a point on the equator (orbiting at the same angular velocity as that of the earth, but with a tilted orbit) - twice a day
  • Move in a figure-8 pattern north and south of a point on the equator (orbiting at the same angular velocity as that of the earth, with a polar orbit) - once or twice a day
  • Orbiting along the equator - up to 17 per day
  • Low polar earth orbit - depends on orbital period
  • Low earth orbit - depends on orbital period and inclination
• "Satellite websites will have an image available for any date and time at any location." †

  Satellites can't stay over most places on the earth.

  Satellites can't stay over locations other than on the equator. Photos are taken when a photo satellite does pass over. But cloudy weather, darkness, and other factors often prevent a usable photo.

  After a satellite passes over an area, it takes at least 88 minutes for it to orbit the earth once. But because the earth turns, it probably will not pass over the same place on the next orbit. Depending on the orbit, it could be days before that satellite passes over the same place again.

  When a satellite website is used with a specific date and time, it provides the image that was most recently taken at that location, but before the selected date and time.

• "A government can unilaterally end a war by refusing to fight it."

  To end a war, both sides must want to stop fighting.

  This belief in unilaterally ending a war is true only if the enemy also wants to end the fighting.

  If the enemy wants to continue fighting, there is nothing the country that wants to end the war can do to stop it, other than:

  • Surrender, and let the other country win. Often this is the end of the government that surrenders.
  • Defeat the enemy.
  • Negotiate a peace treaty. Usually both countries lose when this happens.
• "Air traffic control RADAR can track airplane flights over the entire surface of the earth." †

  Land-based RADAR can't track planes farther than 200 miles from land.

  RADAR does not normally track airplanes flying over open ocean. Due to the curvature of the earth, land-based RADAR usually has a maximum range of 150 to 200 miles. The exact distance depends on the altitude of the plane.

  Large parts of Africa, South America, Australia, Antarctica, Siberia, China, and Canada also have no RADAR coverage. The expense of providing and staffing RADAR stations in these places outweighs the need to track airplanes over these areas.

• "RADAR should use the kind of radio waves that follow the curve of the earth to track planes over oceans." †

  Airplanes don't reflect that kind of radio waves.

  Radio waves that can follow the curvature of the earth can also bend around the airplane without being reflected back to the RADAR set.

  There are RADAR sets that reflect RADAR energy from the ionosphere to see over the horizon. They cannot track the positions of airplanes, but only detect their presence within a large area. Australia has such a system called JORN.

• "What scientists report is always true."

  Science is not always what scientists do.

  Many reporters come across preliminary scientific reports in scientific journals. They don't see the difference between an unverified preliminary report and an independently verified report. They wrongly publish the preliminary report to the general public, in violation of accepted scientific procedure.

  Often the reporter wrongly publishes the preliminary report because the results are so dire or earthshaking that the reporter "feels" that this must become known before the scientific process is complete. Then, when the preliminary results have been refuted through the verification process, it is impossible to convince the public that they were wrong.

  There are several reasons why people should be suspicious of what scientists report:

  1. The report is often a preliminary report, without the necessary independent confirmation by scientists without any stake in the outcome. This must be done to prevent the following errors:
     • Poorly designed experiments
           e.g. Vitamin C prevents colds (it masks the symptoms)
     • Bad science (wrong theory, procedure, analysis, or interpretation)
           e.g. The claims that the 09/11/2001 fallen buildings were intentionally sabotaged
     • Misinterpretation of what happened
           e.g. Heredity causes rickets
     • Fluke results caused by factors the experimenter was unaware of
          e.g. Cold fusion (unexpected chemical reaction from impurities)
  2. The report may have been made with motives other than obtaining scientific knowledge. Examples:
     • Bad science done to prove a political belief
           e.g. Hereditary homosexuality
     • Bad science to sell a product
           e.g. The Pogue 100 mpg carburetor scam
     • Results faked to finish a college degree on time after work was destroyed
           e.g. cyclamates cause cancer (lab animals accidentally killed)
     • Funding for research depends on obtaining certain results
          e.g. No funding from government unless global warming is confirmed

  More on this: Worst examples of bad science

• "When an airliner disappears from transponder RADAR, military RADAR should see only one unidentified blip." †

  There are always hundreds of unidentified blips on primary RADAR.

  It is not true that there would be only one blip. Every private plane without a transponder will produce a blip on military RADAR while it is in the air. The airliner would be lost in a large number of unidentified blips.

  This is the reason the air traffic controllers and military RADARs could not find the hijacked planes on 09/11/2001. They were lost in a sea of private aviation blips.

  Likewise, reporters thought that Malaysian flight 370 would be the only unidentified blip on the military RADAR. They were wrong.

• "The military has the track of an airliner that disappears from transponder RADAR in real time." †

  They would have to know which blip to follow to do that.

  Actually, they have to reconstruct the track of the missing plane by reconstructing the paths of all of the private planes recorded on the RADAR records. This can take hours, or even days.

• "Christian opposition to homosexual marriage is due to hate."

  Christians want to obey God. God prohibits homosexuality.

  Journalists see homosexuality as a "lifestyle", not as disobedience of God:

  • The Bible (Leviticus 18:22) says that homosexual acts are sexual immorality (wrongdoing).
        This refutes the liberal argument that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality.
  • The Bible (Romans 1:25-27) says that homosexual cravings are caused by worshiping created things instead of God.
        This partially refutes the liberal belief that homosexuality is congenital.

    Often this worship of created things is in the form of worshiping sex acts or worshiping the environment.

  • The Bible (Exodus 23:2) says not to join or assist others in doing wrong.
        If someone asks you to do wrong, don't do it.

  Reporters have the wrong idea that freeing homosexuals from "religious tyranny" is similar to freeing the slaves. But these reporters are siding with evil.

  Evil is defined as deliberately disobeying God.

  For more on this, see Why are Christians Against Homosexuality?

  It's amazing how intolerant reporters are when discussing Christian beliefs.

  Reporters forget that forcing Christians to disobey God is discriminating against them.

• "Satellites can be sent to any locations where they are needed for disaster or reconnaissance work." †

  Satellites can't be sent anywhere.

  Most satellites have no way to change course. Unlike aircraft, which have the air to hold them up, satellites have only their orbits to hold them up, so they can't turn or change speed.

  Also, there are so many satellites in orbit that a satellite orbit must be chosen very carefully. Otherwise it would crash into other satellites.

• "Once the air is pumped into a football, nothing can change the pressure inside it."

  Footballs must obey the laws of physics, including the gas laws.

  Just like all other objects, footballs have to obey the laws of physics. Temperature affects the pressure inside a football.

  This is one of the cases where common sense is wrong. Common sense says that, since the same amount of air is still in the football, the pressure should be the same. But common sense does not take into account the fact that the space that a gas molecule takes up will change with the temperature.

  For more information on this, see The Deflate-gate Case.

• "Pilots should not be able to shut off or change settings on airliner RADAR transponders." †

  Pilots must be able to control the transponders.

  Pilots have to be able to shut off the airliner transponder and change its settings for these reasons:

  • The transponder must be off when the engines are off, or the battery will run down.
  • The transponder must not appear on RADAR when the plane is not flying, so it must be off.
  • The pilot must enter the new flight number in the transponder.
  • If the transponder emits gibberish or transmits continuously, the pilot must shut it off.
  • If the transponder breaks and disrupts the plane's electrical system, the pilot must shut off its power.
• "After turning off the transponder, a hijacker would have to do other things to hide the plane from military RADAR." †

  Without the transponder, the plane is already hidden.

  Among the things the press has suggested that the hijacker must do are:

  • Dive below RADAR coverage.
  • Climb above RADAR coverage.
  • Change the transponder to a different flight number instead of turning it off, thus pretending to be a different flight.
  • Fly very close behind another plane, so the RADAR shows only one blip.
  • Constantly change course.

  But this is not true. The hijacker doesn't have to do anything else, for these reasons:

  • Once the transponder is off, transponder RADAR can't see it at all.
  • Civilian and military air traffic controllers with primary RADAR can't track the flight without extra men to follow it blip by blip.
  • The plane is usually lost in a sea of blips - every private plane in the air is one of those many blips.
• "The bracket system is a fair sports tournament"

  The bracket system is the most unfair tournament known.

  The bracket system is biased for all places except first place. Note the following:

  • No team in the same half of the tree as the 1st place winner can win 2nd place.
  • No team in the same quarter of the tree as the 1st place winner can win 3rd or 4th place.
  • No team in the same quarter of the tree as the 2nd place winner can win 3rd or 4th place.
  • No team in the same quarter of the tree as the 3rd place winner can win 4th place.
  • No place beyond 4th can be awarded.
  • No team beaten by any other team can enter the final four.
  • Winning any place other than first is largely based on the luck of the draw.
  • In the NCAA basketball tournament, instead of the 126 × 10⁸⁷ possible finish orders, the bracket system allows only 18 × 10¹⁸.

  The above do not look very fair. Every place except first depends on the luck of the draw. The only fair tournament is a complete round-robin system where every team plays every other team.

• "Round-robin sports tournaments are a waste of time and team energy."

  Sports reporters dislike round-robin tournaments for other reasons.

  There are several reasons journalists dislike round-robin tournaments:

  • The round-robin tournament takes way too long to be an exciting news story.
  • A round-robin is usually an entire season of play.
  • There is no way to keep track of which teams are winning or losing until the end of the tournament.
  • It is impossible to determine in advance which games are crucial games.
  • Reporters usually do not know which games are worth covering.
  • The final game is usually not a tournament-deciding game.
  • There is no paper-selling and ratings-garnering build-up to a fantastic finish that decides the winner.

  Reporters would rather have an unfair tournament that has an exciting outcome-deciding finish instead of a fair tournament that does not have an exciting finish.

• "Enough searchers should be able to find a missing airplane in very little time." †

  The world is an awfully big place, especially when it is being searched.

  Actually, it has taken many years to find some missing planes. Others have never been found:

  • An airliner flying over the Andes on approach to Santiago Chile was lost in 1947. It was accidentally found in 1998, 51 years later.
  • Another airliner flying over the Andes on approach to Santiago Chile was lost in 1961. It was accidentally found in 2015, 54 years later.
  • The 5 TBM Avenger planes of flight 19, lost in a 1945 training mission after ditching together in the ocean, have never been found.
  • More than 50 airliners that were lost over the period of commercial air flight have never been found.
  • Ocean currents do move wreckage. Some aircraft and boats lost near Miami FL have been recently found off the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina. Some of these are known to have sunk near Miami in the view of authorities.
• "Election machine companies would design them to bias elections."

  Doing so would probably bankrupt any company that did it.

  There are several reasons why election machine companies would never do this:

  • The election machine companies do not set up the ballots on the machines. Usually county election officials do this.
  • Nobody could be able to create permanent software that could know which ballot slots to favor in advance. There is no way the software could know which candidate will be in which ballot slot.
  • If an election machine company were ever caught perpetrating an unfair election, they would be driven out of the election machine business. Nobody would ever trust them again.
  • Most of these companies also make bank (ATM) machines and security equipment. If they were ever caught perpetrating an unfair election, they would lose all of their bank machine and security business as well.

  Because the election machines are manufactured by corporations, liberals falsely believe those corporations would somehow design them to favor the Republican Party.

  Most of the effects liberals attribute to someone trying to cheat the election are really caused by the biases in the defective Plurality Voting System.

• "When an airliner or ship is missing in the ocean, objects seen in satellite photos must be its wreckage." †

  There are always thousands of unidentified objects floating on the ocean.

  The ocean is full of unidentified objects. All of the following appear on satellite photos of the ocean all the time:

  • Objects that have fallen off ships
  • Fishing equipment lost from fishing boats and ships
  • Shipping containers lost from container ships in storms or accidents
  • Objects washed away from the shore by floods, hurricanes, or tsunamis
  • Small boats that escaped from their moorings.
  • Garbage dumped by barges from cities or jettisoned from ships
  • The sun reflected off the water and into the satellite lens
  • Ships on the ocean
  • Aircraft flying over the ocean
  • Occasionally, submarines detected below the surface

  The objects seen in satellite photos of land areas are even more confusing to searchers.

  Most of the floating material found during the search for MH370 was lost fishing equipment.

• "The government should be able to intercept any terrorist activity in advance."

  Reporters expect a supercompetent government. The opposite is usually true.

  There are several reasons that governments can't stop every terrorist event (or crime) before it happens:

  • They don't have any information.
  • They know who, but have nothing in what, when, or where.
  • They have little bits of information that don't mean anything by themselves.
  • No one person has all of the information.
  • They know what will happen, but not where.
  • If they have all of the information, they don't know how it fits together.
  • They have conflicting information.
  • They don't know what the criminals look like.

  In the case of the 09/11/2001 attacks, they actually had most of the information, but it took the actual event to show how all of the clues fit together.

• "Speed is the major cause of highway deaths."

  Police often cite "speed" when they can't find another cause.

  Too often, the police, liberal officials, and liberal reporters think speed is more dangerous than it is. They also have other motives for blaming speed:

  • Liberal politicians always want to lower speed limits to increase the "margin of safety".
  • Insurance actuaries want speed limits lowered to reduce the possible liability of government if something goes wrong.
  • Many of the one-car off-the-road fatal accidents the police attribute to "excessive speed" (for lack of clues) are actually the victims of the bad driving of other drivers on the road.
  • Liberals afraid of global warming want lower speed limits to lower greenhouse gas emission.

    Note that the most efficient speed range (for environmental purposes) depends on the number of forward gear selections the automatic transmission has. The most efficient speed for a given car is the lowest speed it will stay in its highest gear. See the table below.

• "Lower speed limits always save more energy"

  Not if they cause a car to downshift to a lower gear

  A car can achieve its best gas mileage only if it is in the highest gear. Use this table:

  TRANSMISSION TYPE	MOST EFFICIENT SPEED
  2-speed	20-25 MPH
  3-speed	25-30 MPH
  4-speed	45-50 MPH
  More than 4 speeds	50 MPH up
  Continuously Variable	Depends on design

  The most efficient speed varies by the design of the vehicle.

  At speeds lower than 45 mph, most of today's automatic transmissions shift into a lower gear, lowering the maximum gas mileage the car can achieve.

  Lower speeds also cause increases in energy consumption under these conditions:

  • Repeatedly stopping cars with traffic controls lowers gas mileage even more.
  • Repeatedly changing the speeds cars must move at lowers gas mileage.
  • A fixed speed on a hilly road uses more fuel than letting the speed change with gravity.
  • Reducing speed to normal city driving speeds increases gas mileage in older cars with 3-speed transmissions, but reduces gas mileage in newer cars with 4 or more speeds.
• "Religion was made by man to control people"

  God is real. Those who earnestly seek God find Him.

  Those who try to find scientific proof of God's existence are doomed to failure. Science has no way to test any religious belief.

  Many have been misled by Atheists teaching in public schools and colleges. They push their belief that there is no God as though it were a scientific fact. But science can't test religious beliefs. The union teachers want to discredit religion to create more Democrat voters.

  The fact that the US Constitution protects religious beliefs from government indicates that there is much more to religion than leaders trying to control the actions of people.

• "Air traffic controllers should be in continuous touch with airliners and each other." †

  There aren't enough radio frequencies or air controllers to continuously keep track of each aircraft.

  A few facts:

  • One air traffic controller can communicate with only one aircraft or other controller at any one time.
  • Usually one communications exchange with one aircraft every few minutes will suffice. And controllers rarely contact each other unless something is wrong.
  • If communication with an aircraft is lost, having more controllers on duty won't increase the chance of regaining contact.
  • One extra man can do the most good by trying to track a plane that has lost transponder contact. He can keep track of the blips on primary RADAR to follow it.
• "They could bring in more pinger locators and submersibles to speed up a search for an airplane lost at sea." †

  Usually there are few of these, if any, available.

  Very few devices such as these are available, because:

  • Very few of these specialized devices exist.

    In the case of MH-370:

    • There were only 2 pinger locators that could operate in water as deep as the search area. Both belong to the US Navy. But the Navy kept one in reserve in case another plane crashed.
    • Fewer than 20 Bluefin submersibles exist. Most of them belong to private companies. The searchers were lucky that the US Navy happened to be renting one at the time. They stopped using it because the lease was up and the owners wanted it back.
    • Other older devices of this type existed, but they could not handle the depths of the water in the areas to be searched.
  • Even though the devices exist, they are busy. The owners are not going to let some foreign government borrow them. They have their own work to do.
  • The submersibles were not designed for underwater searches for crashed aircraft. They were built for scientific research and doing specialized underwater industrial tasks.
• "Government can commandeer any equipment needed for a rescue search" †

  Usually government does not have the power to take and use private property for use in any search-and-rescue purpose.

  This misconception comes from government-worshiping reporters who think governments should be more powerful.

  These are the restrictions on what government has the power to do:

  • No government has the power to take any equipment that is in another country.
  • In most cases, government has no power to take private property for any purpose.
  • Reporters are probably thinking of the very limited power that law enforcement officers have in most states to commandeer transportation when needed for an emergency or a pursuit. But this is a very limited power that lasts only through the actual period of the emergency or pursuit.
  • More often the owners of such property volunteer the use of the property for a search-and-rescue operation. In many cases, they also volunteer their time to operate the equipment. But they are not required to do so.
• "Christians are supposed to be Politically Correct."

  Too many apostate churches have exchanged obeying God for being Politically Correct

  Too many religious denominations have as parts of their charters the congregations taking votes on what church doctrine should be. So when a church denomination has a majority of liberals in its congregations, the church gradually votes to replace sound Bible-based doctrine with the liberal PC religion.

  It is easy to tell which churches are apostate. Those churches believe in any of the following liberal beliefs:

  1. There are many ways to go to heaven.
  2. Hell does not exist.
  3. Political Correctness is part of Christianity.
  4. There is nothing wrong with elective abortion.
  5. There is nothing wrong with homosexuality.
  6. Homosexual behavior is a congenital trait.
  7. There is nothing wrong with homosexual marriage.
  8. There is nothing wrong with recreational drug use.
  9. There is nothing wrong with sexual freedom.
  10. The concept of sin is obsolete.
  11. Christians must work hard to save the environment.
  12. If government spends enough, nobody has to work for a living.
  13. Global Warming is real.
  14. Global Warming is caused by man.
  15. Animals have the same rights as man.
  16. Government can fix the economy by spending more money.
  17. Peace can be achieved by being nice to the enemy.

  On the other hand, you can tell real Christian churches by their real beliefs:

  1. Faith in Jesus Christ is the only way to go to heaven.
  2. Hell is the default afterlife.
  3. Political Correctness is a violation of Christian belief.
  4. Elective abortion is murder.
  5. The Bible prohibits homosexual behavior as sexual immorality.
  6. Worshiping created things instead of God causes Homosexual behavior.
  7. Homosexual marriage is an evil act.
  8. The Bible prohibits all forms of recreational drug use.
  9. Sexual freedom is sexual immorality.
  10. All have sinned and fall short of God's glory.
  11. Other than not polluting, the environment does not need saving.
  12. Able-bodied Christians must work for a living.
  13. US Governments have angered God by siding with sin.
  14. Global Warming may be caused by God, due to the sins of man.
  15. Man is different from other animals.
  16. Government can fix the economy by becoming small and obeying God.
  17. Peace can be kept by trusting God and having a position of strength.
• "Everyone should be paid a living wage."

  There is no such thing as a "living wage".

  The truth about the idea of a living wage:

  • Labor unions created the concept of a living wage to gain union membership. It totally disregards the principles of how wages are determined:
  • The employer can't afford to pay an employee more than the amount of money the work of the employee brings into the company. The employee is paid out of that money.
  • There is no clear definition of what a living wage is. How much is needed varies, and is a subjective value.
  • How much the employee "needs" has nothing to do with what the job pays.
• "If the economy is going to recover, businesses need to pay workers more."

  Businesses don't have the money to pay workers more or to hire more workers.

  If employers had the money to hire more workers or pay higher wages, they would be doing so. Employers do not have the money because government has either taken it in taxes or obligated it through Obamacare.

• "The president controls government spending and the economy."

  Congress is really in charge of these.

  The president can't do most of the things that control the economy without Congress first passing the necessary bills:

  • Any kind of government spending requires Congress to pass a spending bill.
  • Any change in regulation requires Congress to pass a bill.
  • Any special program requires Congress to pass a bill.
  • The federal budget has more effect on the economy than any individual program.
  • The federal budget must be passed by Congress before the president signs it.
  • Neither Congress nor the president can control what the Federal Reserve will do.
  • Some programs (e.g. Obamacare) cause loss of jobs and economic troubles as long as they exist.
• "The party having the presidency gets the credit or blame for the state of the economy."

  Congress has more control, but there are other factors.

  It is wrong to solely assign credit or blame to the president for what happens to the economy:

  • The Congress has more power to affect the economy than the president has.
  • Many policy changes have a delayed effect on the economy.
  • Government spending into debt causes delayed inflation.
  • Inflation causes a delayed increase in unemployment.
  • Some programs (e.g. Obamacare) cause loss of jobs and economic troubles as long as they exist.
  • Neither Congress nor the president can control what the Federal Reserve will do.
  • If one of the three legislative powers (house, senate, president) won't pass the bill, action to help the economy can't occur.
  • If one of the three legislative powers refuses to repeal the law, no action to remove a destructive law can happen.
• "Public schools are better than private and parochial schools."

  Most journalists want all schools to teach liberalism and Political Correctness.

  Liberal journalists strongly dislike schools that teach religion and conservative beliefs:

  • They want Obamacare for themselves, so they want schools to make liberal voters.
  • They want government to use a liberal economic policy.
  • They believe in union labor, so they want all teachers to be unionized.
  • They hate religion because most religious people vote conservative.
  • They worship government, so they think government can do a better job of education.
  • They don't trust anyone who makes a profit to educate children.
  • They don't want religious beliefs on homosexuality and abortion taught to children.

† Noted in the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappearance case.