Moonbattery Disguised As News

It looks like a regular news story. It comes from Yahoo, which seems to be a reputable site. It's only when you get into the meat of the article that you notice something's wrong...

The title, "Former Military Air Traffic Controller Claims Comet Collision with Earth on May 25, 2006", look pretty scary -- the kind of headline that makes you want to learn more. Here's what you find out when you read the "article" [emphasis in excerpt mine]:

"Comet Schwassman-Wachmann follows a five-year orbit that crosses the solar system's ecliptic plane. It has followed its five year orbit intact for centuries; but, in 1995, mysteriously fragmented. According to Julien, this is the same year that a crop circle appeared showing the inner solar system with the Earth missing from its orbit. He argues the "Missing Earth" crop circle was a message from higher intelligences warning humanity of the consequences of its destructive nuclear policies. He links this crop circle to May 25, 2006, and identifies the comet Schwassmann-Wachman as the subject of higher intelligence communications...
"...Julien argues that the kinetic energy of even a 'car sized' fragment will impact the Earth with devastating effect. He concludes the May 25 event is tied in to the Bush administration's policy of preemptive use of nuclear weapons against Iran and the effect of nuclear weapons on the realms of higher intelligences..."

OK, so the guy's clearly a nutcase. (The article linked has links to his website; he's so nutty that not even the DUmmies believe him -- well, most of them don't.) The thing is, if someone follows a link to the article on Yahoo, they might not notice that it's under the "press releases" section, and has a small "advertisement" label. I understand web sites need ad revenue, but at some point it seems that they'd want to at least consider whether the ad in question could hurt their reputation.

If you're interested, here's the real story on the comet from NASA.