Talk:Moon/Archive 6

Light falling on the Earth from the Moon is called "inlunation".

Never heard of that, nor can it be found on the Web.

Nor it can. I had back-formed it from insolation. So had a friend of mine with whom I was having a conversation. Anyway, thanks for deleting it. --drj

The fact that the Moon seen from the earth appears to be exactly the same size as the Sun has been used by some people to suggest that life on Earth has been set up by some external agent.

Huh? Would you please elaborate?

Slapped wrists - I think this edit was mine, and yeah 'Some people' do include the below ~~freaks~~ searchers for the truth. I can't find any real evidence for it, either. [Dave McKee]

Yeah, that's a new one on me. Do "some people" include Billy Joe and his cousin Ralph, UFO cults, or some more distinguished subsection of the population?

Yes, that idea is sheer lunacy. [BAD PUN]

Probably so, but someone wrote "This fact has been used by some people to suggest that life on Earth has been set up by some external agent," and if that's true, the article should say so only if it's some appreciable minority of the populace who thinks so--you know, a few wacko exobiologists, or something. --LMS

Hey- Billy Joe here -- <grin> Just because you don't think that the 'coincidence' is important doesn't mean other people don't. In fact, I would expect that if I did a survey in the right environment, that most people would consider the fact that you don't believe it is a sign that an external agent (ie: God) created the earth and all that is in it as a sign that you are close-minded and generally lacking in 'common sense'. That is not to try to be judgemental or derogatory, but the folks that feel this way have as much ability to draw their conclusions from nature as you do.

Billy Joe, if you would please answer my question, I would be happier. --LMS

But notice that Isil, the Moon in Tolkien's Middle Earth, is male, while Anar, the Sun, is female

I like Tolkien as much as the next person, possibly more, but this does seem kind of out of place here. There are so many mythologies we're not even going to try and represent, why would we single Tolkien's out?

It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)

Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors .. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.

Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!

Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down

Oooo... kaaaay. Anyway, assuming for the moment that Earth's moon is in fact real and not an evil government plot of some kind, there's something I'm thinking of doing that I wanted to run past folks in Talk: before starting. It's bugged me for some time that two major articles - one on Earth's moon and the other on moons in general - shared the same page like this. But it's always seemed a little too audacious for me to disambiguate; what would the new pages be called?

A couple of ideas for Earth's moon:

Moon (moon)
Moon (Earth)
Luna

And a couple of ideas for moons in general:

Moon (generic)
Moon (general)
Moon (planetary)
Moon (moon) (yeah, the same as above. It would only be used for one, though :)

Does anyone have any ideas or preferences on this matter? Of course, I would do all of the heavy lifting of changing existing links to point to the appropriate new pages once the article is split. Bryan Derksen, Thursday, May 23, 2002

I think it would be good to try to avoid parenthetical disambiguation whenever possible because you can not easily make direct links to these articles within edit windows.

Becasue there is an obvious ambiguity here, I think the Latin form for Earth's moon (Luna) would be best for that entry and natural satelite would be good for the generic "moon". The word "moon" or "Moon" could then be introduced in the first line of the article and used throughout. Moon would then be a disambiguation page. In general, I think we should try to find valid, and easy to link to alternatives for what we name articles when faced with ambiguity (like what was done with the asteroids articles) and avoid using artificial means for disambiguation (such as the use of parenthesis). --maveric149

Heh. Your timing is impeccable. :) I like your idea of natural satellite, I'll move the article over to that in a little while once some more dust settles. I also agree that parentheticals are nice to avoid when possible (though it's not always possible). Bryan Derksen, Friday, May 24, 2002