NOT from the Onion

[JesusA (imported)]

Mitt Romney Wonders Why Airplane Windows Don't Roll Down

Huffington Post

24 September 2012

Making post-fundraiser comments this weekend, presidential candidate Mitt Romney revealed a tenuous grip on the science of aviation, despite the fact that he and his wife, Ann, have been flying around the country this summer on the campaign trail.

After his wife's plane was forced to make an emergency landing this weekend, Romney told the Los Angeles Times (http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la ... 7962.story), he was worried for her safety. The candidate then continued on a bizarre tangent that showed just how little the Republican nominee understands about flight.

“I appreciate the fact that she is on the ground, safe and sound. And I don’t think she knows just how worried some of us were,” Romney told the paper. “When you have a fire in an aircraft, there’s no place to go, exactly."

Romney said the biggest problem in a distressed aircraft is that "the windows don’t open. I don’t know why they don’t do that. It’s a real problem. So it’s very dangerous."

The main reason airplane windows don't open is because there isn't enough oxygen at cruising altitude to keep passengers alive. (The fear of window or cabin failures, which would lead to potentially fatal hypoxia, is why many planes are equipped with emergency oxygen masks.)

"You can’t find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don’t open," Romney told the Times, suggesting that additional oxygen in the cabin during the electrical malfunction could've alleviated the problem. In fact, if there were an electrical fire on board, additional oxygen would have fed the flames.

Strangely, Romney seemed to acknowledge the importance of oxygen later in his comments. "Fortunately, there was enough oxygen for the pilot and copilot to make a safe landing in Denver," he said.

Hypoxia aboard aircraft has led to many fatalities over the years, including the 1999 crash that killed golfer Payne Stewart. In 2005, Helios Airways Flight 522 crashed, killing all 121 aboard after the crew was incapacitated.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/2 ... 10930.html

[Losethem (imported)]

Does this surprise anyone? He is the current standard bearer of the party that wants to write laws based on religion and not science.

--LT

[Paolo]

I'm not the least bit surprised.

[Elizabeth (imported)]

When my son told me about this, I thought he was joking. How could a guy smart enough pay less tax than most millionaires be so stupid that he doesn't even know something basic like air pressure? And this is the guy the righties think will be a good president. A guy who thinks of himself as the ruling class and the rest of us peasants not deserving of food, healthcare, or anything else the government pays for, like police, fire protection, roads, tax breaks for rich people, etc. etc.

Elizabeth

[Slammr (imported)]

Pity the poor guy; he's sick. He has a severe case of Foot in the mouth disease. Every time he opens his mouth, he sticks his foot in it.

[Dave (imported)]

>>This is like poker -- I'll see you one "foot in mouth" and up it with a "dumb as a box of rocks"

>>It's my belief that a pair of "Dumb as a box of rocks" beats an ace high singleton of "foot in mouth"

>>

Mon Sep 24, 2012 at 01:15 PM PDT

More Mitt Romney science: He believes University of Utah 'solved' cold fusion

by Jed Lewison

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/2 ... old-fusion

Captain Seamus in December 2011 (audio clip below the fold), rolling down the window on what he believes to be true about cold fusion:

I do believe in basic science. I believe in participating in space. I believe in analysis of new sources of energy. I believe in laboratories, looking at ways to conduct electricity with -- with cold fusion, if we can come up with it. It was the University of Utah that solved that. We somehow can’t figure out how to duplicate it.

Um. I'll be gentle here. Other than to point out this New York Times article, published on May 3, 1989—more than 22 years earlier—completely debunking Mitt Romney's cold fusion claim.

Physicists Debunk Claim Of a New Kind of Fusion

By MALCOLM W. BROWNE, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES

BALTIMORE—Hopes that a new kind of nuclear fusion might give the world an unlimited source of cheap energy appear to have been dealt a devastating blow by scientific evidence presented here.

In two days of meetings lasting until midnight, members of the American Physical Society heard fresh experimental evidence from many researchers that nuclear fusion in a jar of water does not exist.

Physicists seemed generally persuaded as the sessions ended that assertions of "cold fusion" were based on nothing more than experimental errors by scientists in Utah.

So the reason they couldn't duplicate their experiment is that there was nothing to duplicate. I know Mitt loves Utah, but the University of Utah most definitely didn't solve that. And more than two decades later, not only has Mitt Romney failed to figure that out, he's still confused about why you can't roll down the windows on jet airplanes.

To be fair to Mitt, however, there is something of a double standard at work here. I mean, can you imagine the ridicule if Sarah Palin had said these things?

1:42 PM PT: Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. He doesn't even have a clue about what the discovery of cold fusion was supposed to mean. It had nothing to do with conducting electricity. It was about generating power.

Here's audio of Romney's cold fusion statement: (I can't load the video go to KOS)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/2 ... old-fusion

[Riverwind (imported)]

I think it would be a great idea to fit a plane with a window that Mitt can roll down at lets say 30k ft. Make it a big window, Make sure nobody else is in the cabin.

Please somebody tell me that this latest group of republicans are not really this stupid?

River

[Slammr (imported)]

I think it would be a great idea to fit a plane with a window that Mitt can roll down at lets say 30k ft. Make it a big window, Make sure nobody else is in the cabin.

Please somebody tell me that this latest group of republicans are not really this stupid?

River

Last election, the moron (for what came out of her mouth) was the second person on the ticket. This election I'll have to give that spot to Romney, the first person on the ticket. Is the man too stupid to realize everything he says and has said is recorded? Does he not think that his contradictions won't be played back time and time again? What the hell does this guy believe? He's taken both sides of every possible position at one time or the other.

That's not saying I rank Ryan much higher than I rate Romney.

[Dave (imported)]

REMEMBER,

This man is going to give EVERYONE a tax cut and it's going to be revenue neutral and all the details will be worked out after he's elected...