[baudrunner]

That's a lot of wondering about a couple of silly ideas.

When a body is in close orbit around another body it will have a tendency to rotate once for every revolution around that body. The same pehenomenon is observed for the planet Mercury, which always keeps one side turned toward the sun. This occurs as a matter of fact and probably is analogous to some kind of quantum threshold connotation real physicists can perhaps better explain, but in short the speed of rotation is matched to the rate of revolution such that this is what is observed. Furthermore the axis of rotation of the moon is not vertical to the earth at all but in fact the two axes are closer to being parallel, otherwise we would see the man in the moon spinning around in circles all the time, which he doesn't.

As for your little cloud, when it is generally clear, they occur over geographical locations like lakes and damp regions that evaporate a lot of water when the sun's heat stimulates their production. They are localized over these areas and tend to vaporize away, ie. dry out, when the wind blows them off centre. No particularly unusual phenomenon can be observed with respect to their velocity in relation to any still point. It is just an effect.