That’s no moon! It’s a . . . wait, no it actually is a moon.
I’ll give points to planet guy though. The woman is absolutely correct that the moon is not a planet, but he is correct on perhaps the more significant point of whether the moon is a giant ball of nuclear fire
I’ve heard Mizrahi at least twice on Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me! when they’ve brought him in to play the “Not My Job” game. He’s always been so funny and charming and seemingly smart I’ve wished they’d bring him in as a panelist.
After hearing him say he doesn’t know what the sun is and that things live on the Moon it’s probably better than they haven’t.
Just think, if no one ever watched QVC, no one would have seen this, and no one would have posted it, and we wouldn’t have to hear about it, and we’d all be happier. Just a thought.
Moon boy: Do not try and bend the moon. That’s impossible. Instead… only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Moon boy: There is no dark side of the moon.
Neo: There is no dark side of the moon?
Moon boy: Then you’ll see, that it is not the moon that has a dark side, As a matter of fact, it is all dark.
Oh I LOVE watching QVC. In fact, it’s such a guilty pleasure that it is one of the main reasons I do not have actual cable (just Roku + Neflix and Amazon). I’d end up watching it and probably buying some crap from them.
They have HOURS of air time to fill and have to talk and talk. Sometimes the products are so plain, but they still have to make the ten minutes they are shilling them interesting. I don’t know why i find it so fascinating, but I think it’s because I am terrible at talking off the cuff and these people do it all day long.
I’m with the planet guy 
[quote]We might look upon the Moon, then, as neither a true satellite of the Earth nor a captured one, but as a planet in its own right, moving about the Sun in careful step with the Earth. From within the Earth–Moon system, the simplest way of picturing the situation is to have the Moon revolve about the Earth; but if you were to draw a picture of the orbits of the Earth and Moon about the Sun exactly to scale, you would see that the Moon’s orbit is everywhere concave toward the Sun. It is always “falling toward” the Sun. All the other satellites, without exception, “fall away” from the Sun through part of their orbits, caught as they are by the superior pull of their primary planets – but not the Moon.
— Isaac Asimov[/quote]
For more fun with Isaac Mizrahi, see the documentary Unzipped. He rolls out of bed like this.
I want to hear them talk about whether the earth is flat or not.
Once more, I post my favorite depressing 20 year old newspaper clipping:
This just in: Earth revolves around sun!
CHICAGO (AP) More than 450 years after Copernicus proved the Earth revolves around the sun, millions of adult Americans seem to think it’s the other way around, a researcher reported yesterday. On very basic ideas, vast numbers of Americans are scientifically illiterate,” said Jon Miller of Northern Illinois University, who conducted a nationwide survey for the National Science Foundation.
In the July telephone survey of 2041 adults 18 or older, people were asked about 75 questions testing their knowledge of basic science. Miller said. Asked whether the Earth goes around the sun or the sun around the Earth, 21 percent replied incorrectly. Seven percent said they didn’t know.
Of the 72 percent who answered correctly, 45 percent said it takes one year for the Earth to orbit the sun, 17 percent said one day, 2 percent said one month and 9 percent didn’t know. The responses indicate that about 55 percent of adult Americans, or some 94 million people, don’t know that the Earth revolves around the sun once a year, Miller said.
It’s adverts all the way down.
This is as depressing as the fact that Bud Light is the best-selling beer in America. Neither says much good about the average intelligence and taste of the American public. SIGH.
God damn it. It’s a fight to show how stupid they are and we are all losing.
From that article;
“a planet is any rocky body that has different layers, is geologically active…”
Which is incorrect.
Wait a painful exchange to witness - “satellite” is the word
Proving only that idiots would take a 75 question telephone survey.
I don’t want to brag, but when I were a lad, I only had to walk about a mile from home to get away from light pollution of the night sky. I became familiar with many interesting features of winter night skies in the Western hemisphere: ** Orion’s belt, the nebula near the tip of his sword (? I guess), Sirius, the Seven Sisters, the Andromeda galaxy, the double star in the handle of the Big Dipper, the pole star, the planets. All with the naked eye and binoculars sometimes.
This might be tied in with over-protection and children’s independence, but I bet my 14 year old has little awareness of anything more than the sun, the moon, and a vague notion of “stars” inhabiting the sky.
Though it’s probably the most massive and spectacular array available to the gazer of night skies, I can’t remember the last time I noticed the Milky Way. How about you? Seems we can’t even see our own galaxy anymore.
Is the pool of potential astronauts and astronomers shrinking?
** Just kidding… winter’s Northern hemisphere.
This still makes them both overqualified to be a Republican member of the Senate Science Committee.
Sounds like you should introduce her to them…
