FACT CHECK: X Image Purporting To Show 2024 Total Solar Eclipse Is AI-Generated
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Media tries to shame MTG for calling eclipse a sign from God, stays mum about Dem's belief that moon is 'mostly ... gases'
Many pundits and mainstream news outlets immediately jeered at Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) for calling Monday's total solar eclipse and other recent phenomena "strong signs" from God, but some of these same pundits and outlets stayed noticeably quiet about strange, eclipse-related comments from one of MTG's Democrat House colleagues.
On Monday, Greene, a professed Christian, wrote on social media that the eclipse many were scrambling to see was a message from God about their sinful behavior. "God is sending America strong signs to tell us to repent. Earthquakes and eclipses and many more things to come. I pray that our country listens," Greene wrote along with a prayer emoji.
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Greene is hardly the only Christian who noticed a spiritual component to the eclipse. "Eclipses flat out PROVE the existence of God," tweeted author and occasional Blaze News contributor Eric Metaxas. "The evidence is absolutely ASTONISHING!"
"If you are worshipping the eclipse as a celebration of 'Mother Nature' or 'science,' you’re missing the point. It’s a God thing," said Red State columnist Buzz Patterson.
In other words, Greene's comments were well in keeping with mainstream Christian conservative discourse. But that fact did not stop many from making fun of her anyway:
- "Although God was unavailable for comment (probably because he’s focused on picking winners for the NCAA Tournament), folks on social media offered their own takes on Greene’s tweet," joked a HuffPost piece on the story.
- "Marjorie Taylor Greene's looking to the heavens for an omen ... and, it seems she's finding them in every natural phenomenon," quipped TMZ.
- "An eclipse is not a surprise natural disaster like an earthquake. Eclipses can be calculated many centuries in advance," tweeted controversial pollster Frank Luntz, even though MTG never stated or implied that eclipses were a "surprise."
- "Fun fact. There are about 3 solar eclipses worldwide per year, and many earthquakes. Both events were predetermined at the creation of the universe," said Adam Kinzinger. "The solar eclipse is not a sign. It’s just a really cool show, if the clouds cooperate[.]This lady is in congress?"
Greene is indeed in Congress, as is Democrat Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, who also made remarks about the eclipse that were panned on social media. Lee, a Yale graduate who once sat on the congressional Science Committee and the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee, told students at Booker R. Washington High School in Houston that the moon is a "planet" that is "made up mostly of gases."
She also told the students that the moon has its own "unique light and energy" that is more "manageable" for humans than that emitted by the sun. "The sun is a mighty powerful heat, but it’s almost impossible to go near the sun," she claimed.
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The moon, of course, emits no light of its own, reflecting instead the light from the sun. It is also not composed "mostly of gases." According to NASA's website, the moon's crust is made up of "lighter minerals" that "crystallized" and "floated to the surface" in the moon's "very early history."
Though Lee's comments were contrary to commonly known facts, many of those laughing at MTG said nothing about SJL. HuffPost and TMZ did not report on Lee's moon speech, and Luntz and Kinzinger said nothing about Lee on social media.
Lee later claimed she "misspoke." She has a history of similarly misspeaking, falsely asserting in 1997 that astronauts had planted an American flag on Mars and claiming in 2014 that the U.S. Constitution was "400 years" old.
Newsweek, which reported on the comments from both congresswomen, reached out to both women for comment.
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Staring at the sun: The eclipse, technology, and the Final Frontier
Staring at the Eclipse with Joe Pappalardo | Return: Tech by Blaze Media youtu.be
The memes about staring at the eclipse were misguided in their assumption: The temptation to stare at the apocalyptic burn would afflict plenty of us.
"I suspect the damage, the potential from the eclipse is kind of overblown,” he says, smiling a bit. “But now I'm not so sure. I'm still seeing spots."
Joe Pappalardo is undoubtedly my favorite science writer. He’s one of my favorite writers in general. As a magazine writer and contributing editor at Popular Mechanics, with bylines in National Geographic, TIME, Esquire, Texas Monthly, and the Smithsonian Magazine, he has given us a writing style that’s part Hemingway, part Kerouac, and part science-minded philosophy.
Joe has written about B-17 gunners, jungle spaceports, Western shootouts, and sunflowers. His book “Sunflowers: The Secret History” charts sunflowers' complicated, mind-blowing history.
Why is there a spaceport in a remote jungle of French Guiana? How will people die on Mars? How do we preserve the Declaration of Independence? Should we be terrified of drones? What was the Wild West like for lawmen and criminals? What would it be like to follow a solar eclipse in a Concorde jet? How bad are the battle scenes in the Star Wars sequel trilogy? Will there ever be a spiritual element of AI? How would it fully achieve original creation? Why did the CIA employ killer monks? Are North Korean nukes an actual threat? Will the future of space exploration depend on the egos of wealthy Big Tech giants? What roles did sunflowers play when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union?
These are just some of the topics that Joe Pappalardo knows well.
So, I wanted to chat with him about the solar eclipse.
And, perfectly, this led us into the cosmos, climbing the stars and whatnot.
You can feel the joyful back-and-forth between wonder and doom throughout this interview. How lovely, a tug like this is, between progress and demolition.
The solar eclipse brought people together and created a sense of unity. "There's very few things that really do sort of unite everybody in an event like this."
Joe also describes a generational divide in embracing new ideas and disruptive technologies, with some people resisting change.
He chatted about the unique characteristics of an astronaut and the future of space travel, which may involve more diverse participants and commercial space flights. SpaceX has ambitious plans for the next couple of years, including launching Starship and landing the booster on the same launch pad.
As Giorgio Agamben put it, “Technology is in fact nothing other than a human action directed at a goal.”
His father influenced Joe's interest in space and science. They’re going to a launch at Starbase this week. We’ll check back with them when they finish their journey.
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This is Up There with 'Guam Will Tip Over' in the Stupid Department