Mail mail mail mail.

First, we understand that some Firefox users are seeing white patches on the sides of the site. Guess what? It is your fault, Firefox users. We recommend you upgrade to Thrace 13.2, which not only fixes it but finally gets Flash to work in 3D. This applies only to those running the DUX OS 3.3 or higher; if you can’t get it in the 21st Century, don’t blame us—get your own time hopping robot.

Second, ScottO writes in:

Dread and Awful Czar,

I was puzzled by your assertion: “Watergate serious? Not so far.” As far as I can remember (and I was but a young tyke at the time), the Watergate scandal did not involve anybody’s death. Not during the activities that caused the scandal, anyway.

If you mean that there is no clear implication of the occupant of the Oval Office in any of the scandals you mention, then I agree. But the effects of the scandalous actions–from handing out a half-billion dollars to the deaths of several citizens including at least one law enforcement officer–are much more serious than anything I recall from Watergate.

Your humble minion,
ScottO

None of the scandals have been linked, at present, to Barack Obama himself, whereas in Watergate they were most definitely tied to Richard Nixon. Hence, Teapot Dome scandal, which were not necessarily linked to Harding, although they probably were in reality. And the Teapot Dome scandal may have had one fatality—some people suspect President Harding himself was killed over it.

And frankly, the Czar is going to stop discussing physics in layperson’s terms, because the Castle doors fly open with corrections. First, chronologically, is Dr. (KN)J:

O Most Dread and awful, etc. etc.

One quick adjustment to your most recent discussion of neutrinos: because of the square root in that gamma formula, it does not follow that faster-than-light means time-flows-backwards. It really means that formula simply doesn’t apply without modification when v > c (naively, the flow of time becomes imaginary, not negative, and it’s unclear what, if anything, that means).

Other than that, carry on…one can never bash the popular media too much. Even if this turns out to be precisely correct, it doesn’t mean that “Einstein was wrong” but rather that there’s something else going on that even Einstein didn’t know about, which is, in technical terms, way cool. Of course, it’s much more likely that it’s an error of some sort. I’ve personally solved many world-famous problems on many occasions until I checked it all out again the next day and, you know, found the mistake…

Dr. (KN)J
Royal Mathematician to the Gormogons

The Czar asked GorT if time travel was possible, and GorT simply handed us a note with yesterday’s date on it that said “Yes, dummy.” Then, weirdly, this came in the day before the Czar wrote that explanation:

Czar,
in paragraph 8 of your post, “gamma is nearly zero” should read “gamma is nearly one,” multiplicative identity and all that;)

Regards,
@meadabawdy

Quit messing with the Czar. We can split an atom with an axe. And by atom, of course, we mean skulls. Except, you are correct. γ = 1.0 at rest. At canned ham speeds, which you know is 45 mph, γ = 1.0000000000000022. At light speed, it becomes infinite.

Here is a much nicer note that does not amend or correct anything from MC, who is back from tuning up our orbiting mind control weapon (at the expense of UARS…well, one of them had to go):

Dread, awful, satellite-smashing Czar,

You probably saved me an hour or more of figuring out just what the media got wrong about that CERN paper. I have a cardinal rule which has yet to fail me regarding cutting-edge research “news” in the major media – ignore it. Nothing of importance will come of any discovery that is announced by the mainstream media within hours or days of its publication. In fact, more often than not it’ll turn out to be totally wrong or useless. The really, really good stuff takes a lot longer to bake and is recognized only in hindsight.

Yes. Thank you. See? Not so hard, is it (KN)J and @meadabawdy?

Now fight for our amusement. And do the Star Trek fight music.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.