Mensur Omerbashich

Mensur Omerbashich is a crank scientist who enjoyed relative obscurity before using Comet Elenin to support his ideas. As a result, he became instantly famous among the conspiracy theorists interested in the comet, and his work became incorporated in the cloud of bullshit surrounding it, much to his chagrin. In July 2011, he tried to remove criticism every mention of him from several websites, including RationalWiki and Godlike Productions.
Given the general claims and tone of his website, in addition to his pseudoscientific pursuits and crank magnetism, he exhibits alarming paranoia, to the point that it makes one wonder if he doesn't suffer from some genuine mental illness (writing long rants in CAPITAL LETTERS ONLY and seeing malice towards oneself everywhere do not make one look sane).
==Credentials==
Omerbashich is apparently the proud owner of a Ph.D. in theoretical geophysics from the University of New Brunswick, Canada (no, not a diploma mill, believe it or not) and has a few papers published from there. He has also published 12 papers in ArXiv, although that's like saying that you're a best-selling author because you put a few books up for sale on Lulu.
Omerbashich admits that there were substantial problems with his doctorate thesis and significant abnormal delays in him receiving his degree, including the resignation of several of his committee members. In typical style, he blames this on a grand conspiracy theory. He has also tried to patent his ideas and appears to be in some sort of one-man war with the US patent office.Omerbashich's screed about his US patent
==Comet Elenin and "resonance"==
Omerbashich's main claim regarding Elenin is that there exists tidal "resonance" between the comet and the Earth. This is evidenced by increased levels of earthquakes at specific times. His website consists of a series of "predictions" (scare quotes because he doesn't predict particularly in advance) about the severity of the world's earthquakes. He lists the number that are above a specific magnitude and states, although not very clearly, how this fits perfectly with his predictions of resonance between Elenin and Earth. However, often his website doesn't quite match up with actual quake data from reputable organisations such as the United States Geological SurveyUSGS - atest Earthquakes in the World - Past 7 days (they're probably part of the ZIONIST PLOT™). His purported "QUIESCENT"That's "quiet". period for 17-19 July 2011 happily ignored a 6.1 magnitude quake in Kyrgystan, even though his graph states that it records anything above 6.0. In addition, the measurement method seems highly suspect, having taken into account only the strongest earthquakes reported; any measure of earthquake patterns should take into account all quakes, as there is nothing remarkably different between a 5.9 earthquake and a 6.0 quake. In his offering "Astronomical alignments as the cause of ~M6+ seismicity", he makes quite an audacious claim, predicting - "with 67% confidence" - that a major seismic event will take place September 26-27, 2011. 
These quakes are caused, according to Omerbashich, because Elenin is in resonance with other planets in the solar system. The theory of "resonance" is described with the analogy of soldiers marching in step over a bridge, with their footsteps striking in a successive pattern that causes the bridge to shake. However, as noted by Ian Musgrave, saying that Elenin causes such an effect is like saying that a single ant marching among the soldiers is the cause of the shaking - although an ant is still several times larger compared to a human than Elenin's purported size is relative to the moon. While Omerbashich's theory includes the major planets and comet Elenin, it completely ignores other bodies in the solar system from the asteroids that are several times larger than the average comet nucleus to the myriad dwarf planets that literally dwarf comets.
==Beliefs==
Omerbashich's beliefs are all over the map and published in long, opaque screeds on his timecubesque website. Beyond his claims about comet Elenin, Omerbashich seems particularly obsessed with New World Order conspiracies, with a particular hatred of freemasonry. Basically anyone who disagrees with him is a Freemason stooge out to suppress his brilliant ideas. He even includes a list of ways to spot a Freemason (tell-tale signs include being polite and using Oxford English). 
In addition, Omerbashich claims to be a direct descendent of pretty much every former royal line. In fact, Omerbashich outright claims to be the "pretender to the thrones of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia." Apparently, the New World Order conspiracy dates back to removal of his purported ancestors from their rightful place as kings, and he and his ancestors have some sort of genetic heritage of knowing the truth of the evil masons. 
In typical crank style, Omerbashich appears to be a big fan of Isaac Newton and Nikola Tesla, and a hater of Einstein and a theory of relativity denier. He seems to be strongly anti-Semitic with a particular hatred for Israel. 
Omerbashich also has a very poor understanding of copyright law and free speech, viciously attacking anyone who disagrees with him, not only on a personal level but also on their right to criticize him. Apparently, he believes he should be subject to nothing but praise.
To fully appreciate his intense paranoia, check out the rants on the "Masonic haters" sub-page of his site. Originally, it was a section of the main page. After it grew, he split it into a sub-page with "masonry" in the URL, entitled "On masonic haters, Web statistics, etc.". Later, it was moved several times to a different URL, the last incarnation as of May 2012 being this.
==Hissy-fitting==
It seems that in July 2011, Omerbashich became increasingly fed up with the attention his work had brought him. Around July 19th, he contacted several websites that have discussed his claims and tried to threaten them into removing every mention of him, citing some kind of copyright/author's rights violations.
The Australian amateur astronomer Ian Musgrave had written several posts debunking bullshit about Comet Elenin on his blog. Omerbashich managed to get Blogger to take down three of them for an alleged violation of the DMCA.If You are Looking For "Comet Elenin a FAQ for the worried"..., Ian Musgrave, Astroblog, 19 July 2011 Only one of the posts actually discussed and quoted Omerbashich's work (Comet 2010 X1 Elenin, Earthquakes, Astronomical Alignments and Mensur Omerbashich).Of the other two, one was a FAQ that contained a link to the debunking post,Comet Elenin: the FAQ for the worried., Ian Musgrave, Astroblog, 23 April 2011 and the other one contained no mention of Omerbashich in its main text - his name was mentioned only in the comment section!From Super Moons to Comet Elenin – we will NOT get killer earthquakes from the sky, Ian Musgrave, Astroblog, 16 March 2011. Omerbashich is mentioned for the first time in this comment. Musgrave was successful in complaining to Blogger and getting his posts back on the next day.And We Are Back ...., Ian Musgrave, Astroblog, 20 July 2011 In a demonstration of the Streisand effect, several people had offered to host the offending pages and Universe Today actually did publish the FAQ post.Worried About Comet Elenin? FAQs from Ian Musgrave, Universe Today, 20 July 2011
Another attempted victim was the Godlike Productions conspiracy forum. Omerbashich's threatening e-mails were made public by TrInItY, the site owner and administrator, resulting in a multi-page thread laden with profanity and vitriol against Omerbashich.Comet ELENIN Scientist Guy "Dr Mensur Omerbashich PhD" Wants GLP To Stop Talking About His Work, Godlike Productions, thread started 20 July 2011 The thread spent some time "pinned" to the main page and reached 18 pages before being unpinned.
He also targeted RationalWiki itself (this site, if you are not paying attention), threatening legal action over his very brief mention in the Comet Elenin article.Version of the Comet Elenin article at the time of the complaint His complaint was dismissed, and a residual effect was the creation of this article - up until then, his mention in the Comet Elenin article was not even a red link. After finding out that RationalWiki's "crank" article lists Ron Paul and Nick Begich as cranks,"Crank", version as of 23 July Omerbashich announced that being branded as a crank by RationalWiki is a badge of honor.
Filing a groundless DMCA complaint opens the applicant to civil and perhaps criminal liability. Given the e-mail exchange with Trinity and some texts on his website though, it seems that Omerbashich tried to base his claims on "moral rights" or "publicity rights" that are recognized as separate from copyright in several jurisdictions (continental Europe's "author's rights" tradition in copyright law), trying to twist them into an interpretation that would make quoting and criticism impossible.
==External links==
By Omerbashich:
*Earthquake Alignments, Mensur Omerbashich's website at Google Pages (Archived by WebCite®)
*seismo.info, Omerbashich's earthquakes prediction/warning website (warning: massively overburdened with various Flash and Java stuff, so it may cause your browser to hang)
*Bosnia for Dummies - HRH Sovereign Duke of Bosnia, his blog
*The Royal House of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia, apparently their "official" site (the domain was registered by Omerbashich)
*All of Omerbashich's papers (published or not) at the arXiv
On Omerbashich and his claims:
*Revisiting Comet 2010 X1 Elenin, Earthquakes, Astronomical Alignments and Mensur Omerbashich, Ian Musgrave, Astroblog, 29 July 2011
==References==
Category:Conspiracy theorists
Category:Pissed at us
Category:Living people