Singing Potatoes
Tuesday, 22 June 2004
Ah, accuracy.

I just saw an ad for Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 which began, "Fahrenheit: the temperature in the atmosphere when it reaches the boiling point."

Um, no. Fahrenheit is a system of measuring temperature, named after the person who devised it. The atmosphere, at least on Earth, is always well above its boiling point (the temperature at which a liquid becomes gaseous). Earth's atmosphere comprises primarily nitrogen (boiling point: -320° Fahrenheit) and oxygen (boiling point: -297.4° Fahrenheit).

With a blatant inaccuracy like that being used to advertise it, I'm not filled with high hopes about the veracity of the film itself.

Posted by godfrey (link)
Comments
Had you heard Ray Bradbury's comments on Michael Moore's appropriation of his title? I believe the exact words were "Michael Moore is a piece of [expletive]." (Yes, including the brackets; science fiction writers can pronounce those.)
What Squelch said. The article is here.
Yeah, I've seen it.

On the one hand, I can understand where Bradbury's coming from. On the other hand, it's a literary allusion, an incredibly commonplace thing which neither requires permission nor usually gets its practitioners branded as pieces of [expletive].

I mean, if it did, Terry Pratchett would be one of the biggest pieces of [expletive] on the planet...