This is how you do it

I’m pretty annoyed with CNN these days. I have called them “recklessly irresponsible” for failing to apply the slightest skepticism to the administration’s absurd claims of sonic weapon attacks in Cuba. Then there’s their website’s autoplay videos, which shrink, move to the sidebar, and keep playing if you scroll past them. Because obviously, when you scroll past a video to read a story, what you want is to see the video.

But Brianna Keilar nails it in this interview with Georgia State Senator Michael Williams:

That’s right, she asked the exact question I’ve criticized CNN for failing to ask: how do you know that? And Senator Williams dances a beautiful little jig in his effort to dodge her question.

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Sonic weapons on Skeptoid

Cuba

Photo credit: Aexandre Meneghini/Reuters/Newscom.

I’ve been meaning to get back to the absurd claims of Cuban “sonic weapons” for a while now (Sonic stupidity; It may seem the stuff of sci-fi novels; More acoustic credulity; No means, no motive, and no suspect; Cuba’s “magical sci-fi sound gun”; More Cuban science fiction), but Brian Dunning has beaten me to it. The latest episode of Skeptoid is all about the alleged attacks on the U.S. embassy, and it leaves the administration’s claims in tatters:

Beginning in early 2016, American diplomats stationed in Cuba began reporting a mysterious illness. They believed they were under attack by what they described as a sonic weapon. No culprit could be identified, no such weapons were found, no clear motive could be established…

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The pitiful cowardice of “fake news”

Donald Trump’s accusations of ‘fake news’ aren’t just disingenuous, they’re cowardly. Some of those accusations are specific, and those are usually smacked down, hard:

Those aren’t the ones I’m talking about. At least, in those cases, he’s making a claim that can be fact-checked. More often, it’s just poisoning the well against (essentially all) legitimate news organizations:

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No means, no motive, and no suspect

I don’t want this to become the ‘Cuba’s sonic weapons are bullshit’ blog, and I apologize for my readers who are just here for the Volvox. But there is a massive failure on the part of major news organizations to apply the most rudimentary skepticism to outlandish claims of mysterious weapons, and there’s every reason to think that it’s affecting United States foreign policy toward Cuba.

The story is starting to change as news organizations acknowledge what their experts have been telling them from the start, namely that sonic or acoustic weapons are not a plausible explanation for the reported symptoms of U.S. embassy personnel in Cuba. CBS, one of the least skeptical sources right from the start, is desperately clinging to the magic sound gun narrative:

Investigators are now probing whether the attacks were caused by something more than just mysterious sonic devices after U.S. government personnel complained about hearing loud, bizarre and unexplained grinding and insect-sounding noises in homes and hotels, sources tell CBS News.

“My own multiple sources are saying that some of the evidence, medical evidence, being shown by the patients that have been affected could not all be related to sonic waves,” said Dr. Andy Gomez, interim director of the University of Miami’s Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies. “What other measures did whoever the perpetrator was committing these acts do to cause these health issues with our U.S. personnel in Havana?”

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More acoustic credulity

Last week, I said that the State Department was ‘flirting with’ making decisions about United States foreign policy toward Cuba based on pseudoscience. They’re done flirting.

From BBC News:

The US has expelled 15 Cuban diplomats, saying Havana failed to protect US diplomats from mysterious acoustic attacks.

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“It may seem the stuff of sci-fi novels”

This Associate Press report is almost two weeks old, but it reinforces my impression that the alleged ‘sonic attacks’ on the U.S. embassy in Cuba are imaginary:

New details learned by The Associated Press indicate at least some of the incidents were confined to specific rooms or even parts of rooms with laser-like specificity, baffling U.S. officials who say the facts and the physics don’t add up.

“None of this has a reasonable explanation,” said Fulton Armstrong, a former CIA official who served in Havana long before America re-opened an embassy there. “It’s just mystery after mystery after mystery.”

As I said yesterday, sonic weapons are not a plausible explanation for the range of (often contradictory) reports and health complaints of the affected diplomats.

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Sonic stupidity

You and I may disagree about politics. It’s a near certainty that we disagree about at least some political issues. But I hope we can agree that United States foreign policy shouldn’t be based on pseudoscientific claims with no plausibility.

The Executive Branch is flirting with doing just that. Whether or not you think reversing Obama-era warming of relations with Cuba is a good idea, I hope you agree that we shouldn’t do it based on phantom attacks using a non-existent weapon. I’m talking about the so-called ‘sonic attacks’ that, until recently, were being touted as a reason to close the U.S. embassy in Cuba:

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Volvox live wallpaper for Android

Anybody remember iGoogle? Kind of a customizable home page for your web browser. I used it until they shut it down, and I even spent a few hours designing a Volvox iGoogle theme (when I should have been writing my thesis):

igoogle

I think three or four people used it; Google would only tell me “less than 100.” Nevertheless, if you feel the need for some Volvox in your life but you don’t have a handy supply of AF-6 medium, lighted incubator, and dissecting scope, there’s still a way:

We have a good news for all VOLVOX fans. You can grow VOLVOX on your smartphone!

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