I Love It When This Happens

Talking about the upcoming debate on Hardfire, one of the Deniers says about Mark (Gravy) Roberts:

Don't let him pull his usual "you think the firemen were in on it" lazy tactic, just remind him that WHOEVER was behind the attacks the firemen and rescue workers are national heroes who went into those building regardless of who purpatrated (sic) these acts.It takes absolutly (sic) nothing away from the firemen who gave there (sic) lifes (sic) to save others.

Dylan responds:

he plays that card EVERYWHERE. they insist that's what you've said, even if there's no verifiable record of it being done. and he claims we fabricate things?

Jason Bermas at Ground Zero on 9/9/06:

"Listen, people have to keep silent if they want to keep their government jobs. The firefighters are paid off!"

Best part? This is Dylan's own video! Time to "do-over" again!

Update: As James notes above, Bermas has apologized for his comment. It's not my place to judge whether his apology is sincere or not, but this part does cause me a little concern:

I truly believe that they were threatened in the aftermath of the event that not only traumatized a country, but still affect their lives deeply to this very day. Many of these men have families, and would do anything to keep them safe.

I'll put a little post up top about that.

I Love It When This Happens

Talking about the upcoming debate on Hardfire, one of the Deniers says about Mark (Gravy) Roberts:

Don't let him pull his usual "you think the firemen were in on it" lazy tactic, just remind him that WHOEVER was behind the attacks the firemen and rescue workers are national heroes who went into those building regardless of who purpatrated (sic) these acts.It takes absolutly (sic) nothing away from the firemen who gave there (sic) lifes (sic) to save others.

Dylan responds:

he plays that card EVERYWHERE. they insist that's what you've said, even if there's no verifiable record of it being done. and he claims we fabricate things?

Jason Bermas at Ground Zero on 9/9/06:

"Listen, people have to keep silent if they want to keep their government jobs. The firefighters are paid off!"

Best part? This is Dylan's own video! Time to "do-over" again!

SETI Radio Interview Up

The SETI Radio interview I participated in is now up on the Internet. I forgot to mention the fireproofing and the diesel fuel. Doh!

Enjoy.

Cockburn on the 9-11 Nutbars

Apparently Counterpunch is pulling out all the stops to discredit the 9-11 Deniers. In addition to the physics article that James highlights in the next post down, there is an editorial by Alexander Cockburn on the Deniers that hits on a lot of excellent points:

A central characteristic of the conspiracists is that they have a devout, albeit preposterous belief in American efficiency. Many of them start with the racist premise--frequently voiced in as many words in their writings -- that "Arabs in caves" weren't capable of the mission. They believe that military systems should work they way Pentagon press flacks and aerospace salesmen say they should work. They believe that at 8.14 am, when AA flight 11 switched off its radio and transponder, an FAA flight controller should have called the National Military Command center and NORAD. They believe, citing reverently (this is high priest Griffin) "the US Air Force's own website," that an F-15 could have intercepted AA flight 11 "by 8.24, and certainly no later than 8.30."

They appear to have read no military history, which is too bad because if they did they'd know that minutely planned operations--let alone by-the-book responses to an unprecedented emergency -- screw up with monotonous regularity, by reason of stupidity, cowardice, venality and all the other failings, not excepting sudden changes in the weather.

The Physics of 9/11

Once again showing this is a non-partisan issue, the left-of-center site "Counterpunch" runs an excellent article on the Physics of 9/11 by engineering PhD, Manuel Garcia. It is too long to excerpt in any meaningful way here, but it is well worth reading.

For some odd reason he didn't go with the Star Wars death beam theory...

Smart Loose Change Post of the Day

That's right, a smart post (actually several of them) at the Loose Change forum. Needless to say, they're made by debunkers in the Skeptics Forum. It starts out with the famed Monty Hall problem:

A game show host hides a prize behind one of three doors. The contestant has to guess which door hides the prize. The rules of the game are as follows.

Firstly, the contestant chooses a door and tells the host this is the one she thinks the prize is behind. The host must then open one of the other doors. Of course, the host does not want to reveal the whereabouts of the prize so he always opens a losing door.

The host then asks the contestant if she would like to stick with the door she originally chose or switch to the other unopened one.

Should she switch doors?

Of course, the answer, (counterintuitively) is that she should indeed switch doors. Calcas and A Very Sly Denial do a terrific job of schooling PDoh:

For instance, let's take just one of your "statistically significant" events. You say that it's statistically significant that they managed to hit 75% of their targets, but you are assigning importance as if that was the intention. What if they had hit 100%? Then you'd say "what are the odds of hitting all of the targets!". What if they were completely thwarted? Then you'd say "what are the odds that the gov't could have stopped every attack? You are assigning importance after the fact.

Exactly! For example, they say, "What were the odds that all 19 hijackers would get into the country?" But of course we know they tried and failed to get at least one more hijacker into the country.

Smart Loose Change Post of the Day

That's right, a smart post (actually several of them) at the Loose Change forum. Needless to say, they're made by debunkers in the Skeptics Forum. It starts out with the famed Monty Hall problem:

A game show host hides a prize behind one of three doors. The contestant has to guess which door hides the prize. The rules of the game are as follows.

Firstly, the contestant chooses a door and tells the host this is the one she thinks the prize is behind. The host must then open one of the other doors. Of course, the host does not want to reveal the whereabouts of the prize so he always opens a losing door.

The host then asks the contestant if she would like to stick with the door she originally chose or switch to the other unopened one.

Should she switch doors?

Of course, the answer, (counterintuitively) is that she should indeed switch doors. Calcas and A Very Sly Denial do a terrific job of schooling PDoh:

For instance, let's take just one of your "statistically significant" events. You say that it's statistically significant that they managed to hit 75% of their targets, but you are assigning importance as if that was the intention. What if they had hit 100%? Then you'd say "what are the odds of hitting all of the targets!". What if they were completely thwarted? Then you'd say "what are the odds that the gov't could have stopped every attack? You are assigning importance after the fact.

Exactly! For example, they say, "What were the odds that all 19 hijackers would get into the country?" But of course we know they tried and failed to get at least one more hijacker into the country.

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About The Pentagon Strike

9-11 Debunker has completed the analysis of the Pentagon attack. This is the most complete and up-to-date analysis of the Pentagon strike I've seen, even better than the famed Catherder post over at ATS.

What's In Suriname?

9-11 Deniers, apparently.

After looking at the movies on the first day of the event, which discussed the mainstream media in the USA, one of the journalists who attended the event said “I had absolutely no idea things were THIS bad with the media in the USA, no idea.” And this coming from a journalist. And many other people made similar remarks as well.

Suriname is the old Dutch Guyana. According to Wikipedia, its principal export appears to be footballers (soccer players).

Stupid Loose Change Forum Post of the Day

Now I am used to stupid posts on this forum, but this one was so idiotic, I am not sure if it is a joke. None of the other posters are correcting him though. I should give a prize to the person who can point out the most errors.

Here are some of the main points that depict the government responsible for the 9/11 attacks:

· Why was molten metal, literally 3000 degrees, found at ground zero six months after the attacks when jet fuel (The government’s reason of why the towers fell was from jet fuel fires) cant burn past 1800 degrees?

· Why was a special steel cutting thermite found on the steel of the WTC ( Thermite is a favorite substance in the controlled demolition business.)·

Is it a coincidence that George Bush’s brother made all the decision for the security company that provided insurance for the entire WTC site and Dulles Airport (Where one plane was hijacked) and is it a coincidence that he stepped down from his position on September 10th and the person who preceded him died in his office on September 11th? Also, is it a coincidence that the person who replaced him was a top anti-terrorism agent who investigated and captured many top terrorists after the
1993 WTC attacks?

· Why did Donald Rumsfeld report on September 10th that the Pentagon just “Lost Track” of 2.2 trillion dollars and say they were going to investigate it. But the next day the world changed and no investigation happened.

· Why did WTC 7 ( a 47 story skyscraper 300 feet from the South and North Towers) fall at 5:20 on September 11, 2001 when it wasn’t even hit by a plane.

· The government says the building fell because it was damaged by the collapse of the Twin Towers yet the buildings directly under the WTC stood standing for months.

· Why did Norad and other U.S. air defenses fail to scramble jets to the other 3 hijacked planes some over an hour after the first plane was hijacked?

· Why did the government release a report in 2000 called the Project for The New American Century where it said this, “"Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor.”

If You Want to Publish Kooky Stuff

Just send it to the Tehran Times, like 9-11 fruitcake John Conner did.

President Bush ‘worships Satan’ and is a phony Christian and is an ‘antichrist’ many Americans say.

It is difficult, to say the least, to comprehend the ramifications of such statements. What could be worse than being labeled someone who worships Satan? For those who don’t understand Satanism and the New World Order, such allegations are utterly ludicrous. For those who fully understand what is happening in our world, and the extent of the Luciferian takeover, many may not be surprised, and many already know this. George W. Bush is a Satanist and an antichrist.

Hey, John, I hear the Pyongyang Post-Intelligencer is looking for submissions, too!

Strawman?

Conspiracy theorists are constantly saying we are making a "strawman argument" whenever we say that they are accusing the New York Fire Department of being involved in the plot. "Nobody ever said that", they scream.

Excerpts from Alex Jones' Prison Planet website:

Larry Silverstein, the owner of the WTC complex, admitted on a September 2002 PBS documentary, 'America Rebuilds' that he and the NYFD decided to 'pull' WTC 7 on the day of the attack. The word 'pull' is industry jargon for taking a building down with explosives.

Update: World Trade Center 7 Imploded by Silverstein, FDNY and others

Update: People Died in WTC 7: This Makes Silverstein and the FDNY guilty of AT LEAST Manslaughter

Nobody?

Gravy Debunks the Idiots at Ground Zero

And amazingly, they film it and put it up on the web (Quicktime file) thinking it helps their cause. By the way, the Denier who seems reasonable (brings up Paul Thompson), really isn't if you check the TruthMove site that he mentions.

• For over an hour, NORAD air defense failed to intercept any of the hijacked aircraft. Fighter jets are commonly "scrambled" and reach out-of-contact or off-course aircraft within 10-20 minutes.

That's their first piece of "evidence" and it's garbage. As we have discussed many times, the most famous recent incident of an "out-of-contact or off-course" aircraft was Payne Stewart's Learjet; in that case the fighter jets reached it in 81 minutes, not 10-20 minutes.

So Much For 84%

Pat has been posting about truthers who think the NWO order is tapping their phones and trying to intimidate them, so I was amused to listen to Kevin Barrett, interviewing Bill Woodward on his Truth Jihad radio show, who seems almost upset that they aren't threatening him, and can't wonder why they can't get more support. A hilarious exchange ensues:

Barrett: I haven’t been taken out, pulled out in the middle of the night and tortured very often, let me count the times (laughter). No, it has and hasn’t. There has been no physical coercion at all exercised against me. Who knows, maybe a couple of hidden microwave weapons or something (laughter). As far as I can tell, they’re leaving me alone, and I am saying some very harsh things. So it seems like, if there is no physical coercion, and we have been brought up to speak out and defend our freedom… I wonder why… there should be a few more on the campuses… really.

Woodward: Yeah, we have… How many do we have? (laughter)

Barrett: In Scholars?

Woodward: Two (laughter) or 3 who are willing to talk about this. But then in our peace activist group people are foaming at the mouth. They are quite excited about this. But then again it is a minority. Uhh…. Uhh… 95 people on the mailing list in an area of 100,000 people. Those would be 9/11 activists. And there are a thousand on the Seacoast Peace Response mailing list. So you get a sense of 10% of the peace activists and 1% of the community.

Barret: Who are interested in 9/11 truth?

Woodward: Yeah

Barrett: Right. And that is kind of odd given the polls, which show, I think 36% of the American people last year believed that the US government officials had either made it happen or let it happen on purpose which of course would be high treason, or conspiracy to mass murder either way.

I take it he isn't a math professor...

The Counter-Revolution Has Begun

I have been somewhat joking with the Trotsky, counter-revolution, and Animal Farm references, but as I have mentioned these people are beyond parody. Now Rick Siegel is claiming that attorney Alex Floum has taken over the "Scholars" website from Jim Fetzer, who just kicked out Steven Jones to prevent his takeover. In turn, Siegel accuses Floum of being some sort of government operative and spreading misinformation.

" In startling news the lawyer Alex Floum aka attorney@email.com, has taken Scholars for 911 Truth website founded by Professor James Fetzer. Floum has banned Fetzer from access by deleting his password and taken it on himself to
edit the site.

Alex Floum may be a stranger to you, but not to many others. This writer had personal experience more than a year ago with this guy as he interjected himself in a deal with 911eyewitness footage and Loose change blowing everything to the wind and creating a huge division among these researchers that has never repaired. Thanks for that one Alex.It has been shown that Alex works with government agencies in a law firm that deals with the attorn of intellectual rights and government contracts.

At the bottom here is the actual email sent to Jim Fetzer informing him that Floum aka attorney@email.com, has taken the liberty of editing Fetzer’s creation “doing what is best for all” in his myopic opinion.

He goes further to join with the organizations in trying to categorize this author with being a “no planer” when it is plain I encourage all research. This mis-information spreading further division and fanning the flames with distractions from the lies and crimes of Professor Jones.

Let the games begin.

Loose Change Forum Post Of The Day

These twits never fail to provide something to remind us that they didn't grow up in Lake Wobegone (where all the children are above-average). A contributor to the Loose Change Forums asks what other conspiracy theories are out there. JREFer JA Stewart points out Holocaust Denial. And they're off to the races.

Sarah wants to know:

Is it ok to deny the numbers or statistics?

Yes, Sarah, it's quite alright to deny the numbers or statistics when you're hanging out with Eric Hufschmid.

Ixnay's apparently done quite a bit of research:

I believe the Holocaust happened. I find that's something no one can deny. There's too much evidence.

But I disagree that 6 million Jews were murdered by the Germans. I'd put it closer to 1 million.

Rei Murasame, who occasionally chides others over there for giving us ammunition, hands us a grenade:

I'd say it's very okay, because certain people have over-inflated, and fabricated quite a few details - and they continue to dredge it up to legitimise everything they do. Then any-one who questions it, gets called a 'nazi' - but the irony is, that most of the people who throw that word around as an insult, are covering for their own mass-murdering sprees.

and:

The United States, maintaining that they were somehow a moral superiority, while in 1946 managing to rape more women than the whole of Axis did in 4yrs of war.

Russia, who stooped as low as to rape girls as young as 9yrs old, frequently, in Churches, giving them STDs deliberately.

Unfortunately no citations for these two rather interesting (and clearly false) claims.

Profile of KC Deniers

Speaking of paranoid, check out this (fairly sympathetic) profile of the Kansas City wing of 9-11 Denial.

The mothers circling the stacks ignore Matthews. She says she's positive that she's being watched.

"I don't have some sense that they are out to persecute truth seekers," Matthews says of the phantom G-men she thinks she's seen around town. "I think they are just doing their jobs."

In July 2005, she organized the D.C. Emergency Truth Convergence in Washington, D.C. The conference pulled together various watchdog groups, including Project Censored and the Oklahoma City Bombing Committee. She says their cell phones didn't work at the event, their remote-control car-door openers failed and their computers crashed. "Then we realized it was all electronic jamming," she says. Returning to Kansas City, Matthews found her front door unlocked. She believes her computer was hacked.

Oh, yeah, we've been using those remote-control car-door opener electronic jammers for awhile now. But we wouldn't leave her front door unlocked.

Just Because You're Paranoid

Doesn't mean that somebody isn't trying to kill you. Here's a fear-tinged post over at the Loose Change Forums.

I'm worried because. I keep a blog. It was originally for Poker but once I found out about 9/11, I started posting about that. Well, last week, someone said.... "I know who you are. You are a fake. " . Then later on in that same comment section, someone said, "Do you want me to videotape your house and put it on youtube." Ok, once I saw that and then also in that same week was teh garbled phone call that I got as well as two other very strange phone calls, I decided to shut the blog down and take all my 9/11 stuff of it. Also, a few days ago, I saw someone in the back alley where I live, going through my trash can. That's what it appeared to be since the only thing at the part is my trash can and my neighbors trash can. The car that was being driven didn't look like it was from around here. It was too fancy.

You guys don't realize how aggressive I was going about this. I was updating my blog everyday and also posting on about 3 or 4 forums that were completely unrelated to 9/11 about it being an inside job. That reaches a lot of people. I was posting on comedy forums, programming forums, etc. Maybe I pissed some higher-ups off.

Well, Xredx, I can tell you that it's not one of our guys; we make sure not to use too fancy cars for the neighborhood.

Our buddy PDoh knows our methods:

At the moment the government are involved in a disinfo campaign (judy wood star wars beams etc), if that fails then dont be surprised if certain high profile people in the truth movement start dying of mysterious drug overdoses.

Yep, that's the ticket; I hear that Polonium works quite well.

Point-Counterpoint

I had just about given up listening to Jason Bermas' radio show, due to the fact that it is freaking boring, and his Skype connection annoyingly cuts out every 3-4 minutes (even worse in this episode). I finally got around to listening to yesterday's broadcast, and it actually got interesting, when the aforementioned Troy from West Virginia called about 41 minutes in, and the perplexed Bermas actually had to substantiate his points for a few minutes. He also expressed his frustration later that resources like Screw Loose Change are out there for people to reference. Gee, sorry Jason.

Alternatively, for a taste of the bizarre, check out the guy in the second hour who starts quoting Bible verses.

FBI Redux

Dylan Avery must have been getting questions on the disappearance of his recent FBI Stalking Jason Bermas story, because he posted briefly on it on his blog:

Btw, concerning that whole DoJ thing, ITK's higher-ups requested the removal of all the information, so we obliged. Case closed.

Of course, he is leaving out a crucial piece of information, they didn't just ask for the removal of the information, the story as he posted it was wrong. Would it hurt him to just say so?

Let the Counter-Revolution Begin!

The Jones-Fetzer feud continues, with Fetzer going Trotskiy on him and kicking him out of the party. If Jones ends up dead in Mexico City with an ice pick in his head, we know who to suspect. Fetzer posts on their site:

It is the case that policies are in place for conduct on the forum, which members have been known to violate. In this case, however, the members who were banned–one of whom , Rick Siegel of "9/11 Eyewitness" and "9/11 Eyewitness — Hoboken", was in the middle of posting criticism of Steve when he was cut off in mid-post–appeared to me to have been denied access on political grounds, which is completely unacceptable.

For this reason and other actions and communications between us, I have temporarily removed Steve Jones as Co-Chair of Scholars for 9/11 Truth. I took this action because I had concluded that Steve’s conduct was undermining the objectives of the society, as the policies of the society state:

It looks like Judy Wood may be back, only a couple of months after she quit the group in protest:

After considerable reflection, I believe that turning Scholars into a non-profit corporation and relinquishing control of the society to a board of directors who would determine the management of the web site, the moderation of our forum, and the editing of our journal, provides the best solution and greatest promise for out [sic] future. The board of directors, in my view, should include a wide range of perspectives about possible causes of destruction at the WTC, encompassing perspectives as diverse as those of David Ray Griffin, Morgan Reynolds, Rick Siegel, and Judy Wood

Apparently Fetzer also discovers some of Wood's qualifications:

Even though space-based weapons have a history of actual experimental success dating at least from 1991–as Judy Wood, who specializes in optics in relation to mechanics, has observed--several kinds of fallacies can be combined to create enormous confusion in the mind of the public. Selective use of evidence ("special pleading") and personal attacks ("ad hominem") are especially effective against a background of widely held beliefs that may in fact be false ("popular sentiments"). The US has long been pursuing "full spectrum dominance" of air, land, sea, and space and aggressively developing high-tech weapons.

Now I have followed the "Scholars" as much as anyone, but I have never heard this. On her Clemson website, back when she actually was employed as an academic, she made no mention of this "specialty". Can anyone point to the peer-reviewed research she has done in this area?

Fetzer hilariously also complains about the perils of appearing on TV:

The potential to shift focus from devastating criticisms to comparative trivialities places apologists at a considerable rhetorical advantage. It is easy to lie and it can be difficult–even very difficult!–to explain why a deliberate falsehood is untrue. That is why our all too infrequent appearances on "Hannity & Colmes", "Scarborough Country", and even "The Factor" with Bill O’Reilly have become occasions for rejoicing or cringing. We run risks by appearing on some of these programs, but those risks are unavoidable if we are to reach out to their audience, which is an important segment of the American community.

I will agree, usually his appearances are occasions for cringing.

Barrett on CNN

I'm not thrilled at the ending, where they claim that the university is "standing up for the right to teach controversial ideas." As I have said elsewhere, 1+1=7 is controversial, too.

Screw Loose Change on the Radio

I had the honor of giving an interview for the SETI Radio Network, which will be running next week on Sirius Sattelite radio, along with interviews with a guy from 911truth.org and a couple of academics.

We hear the arguments from the author of a web site claiming government involvement in 9/11, and from several experts about how plausible this conspiratorial view might be, and why unconventional theories are so quickly embraced. Also, Phil Plait gives the low-down on one of the most looney of conspiracy theories: the claim that astronauts never set foot on the moon. It’s Skeptical Sunday, but don’t take our word for it.

Guests:
Michael Berger, spokesperson for the organization 911Truth.org
James Bennett, author of web blog “screw loose change”
Najib Abboud, Associate Principal at Weidlinger Associates, New York
Nicholas Lemann, Dean of the Columbia School of Journalism, New York
Mark Fenster, Associate Professor of Law a the University of Florida, and author of Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture

Phil Plait, astronomer and author of the book and website http://www.badastronomy.com/

It will also be available on the net, which I will probably be listening to, as I don't have sattelite radio. This is only my second radio interview, so I hope I did a decent job. It was one of those cases where immediately after the interview I thought of 20 different things I could have said. I know for sure I was way too easy on the conspiracy theorists, it must have been that Thanksgiving Day spirit.

Psst, Don't Tell Anyone

We have mentioned before the self absorbed idiot referring to himself as "John Conner". How can you forget someone who jaywalks for "9/11 truth"?. Recently he has taken to interrupting college classes to promote himself, receiving the appropriate adulation from the truther community. Now he has decided to promote his events ahead of time. From the Loose Change forums:

From: The Resistance Manifesto JOHN CONNER (UNAUTHORIZED) BOOK SIGNING. FRIDAY DECEMBER 15. BARNES AND NOBLE IN ENCINITAS, CA. 8:00 P.M. IN THE STARBUCKS. BE THERE AT 8:00 SHARP BECAUSE HE'LL PROBABLY GET THROWN OUT...AND DON'T CALL B&N AND ASK THEM ABOUT IT, BECAUSE ITS UNAUTHORIZED. AND DON'T ASK THE CLERKS WHERE THE JOHN CONNER BOOK SIGNING IS BECAUSE THEY'LL HAVE NO
IDEA. NO BOOKS WILL BE SOLD...YOU MUST BRING YOUR OWN BOOK. FREE MANIFESTOS TO THE FIRST 20 PEOPLE.

Apparently there are laws against doing business inside another business without permision so we will not be conducting business by selling manifestos. B&N doesn't carry the book. Stop on by, meet John, meet others in The Resistance in the San Diego area. He'll give a short speech about the NWO, and have a Q & A.

BRING SIGNS AND BANNERS ABOUT 9/11 TRUTH AND THE NWO IF YOU LIKE, AND WE CAN HANG THEM UP ALL OVER THE BOOKSTORE AND HAVE SOME FUN.

If you haven't seen the college campus crashing videos then check the site.

- The Resistance Manifesto Staff

Whatever you do, don't tell anyone.

Even The Sane Ones Are Crazy!

I have always considered Russell Pickering one of the more reasonable truthers, although this is a bit like talking about the most sane person in a mental asylum, but even he is not above lying to support his views. From a recent radio appearance with Dylan Avery:

Let's not forget, the Project for a New American Century, published a document in September 2000 that was written and formulated much earlier that called specifically for forward permanent military installations in Iraq.

Yeah, OK. Here is the document, titled Rebuilding America's Defenses. Please point out the section specifically calling for military installations in Iraq.

Hilariously do-over Dylan repeats his claim that in the next version they are going to "cut the fat and cut out all the things we got in trouble for", "whittle out all the bad evidence", and "get all of our ducks in a row". Well this will be their 4th attempt at the truth after all. That is OK Dylan, we know you try hard.

They Even Lie About Their Own Polls

The Jones Fetzer feud continues. Now Fetzer is even accusing Jones of distorting the results of their own internal poll:

Steve reports here that a "poll" taken on the Scholar's forum showed 60% favored a web site run by a 5-person committee, 32% favored voting on what appears by all members, and 8% favored the current arrangement, where I manage the site with advice from the steering committee. This result might be a bit more impressive if he had observed that only 25 out of some 400 members of the society cast votes, each weighing in at 4%.

Most of Fetzer's post regards their ongoing discussion on pianos falling from the top of the World Trade Center. Hilariously there is apparently a big controversy over what type of piano would be appropriate to throw:

Moreover, Steve biased his argument by using a "baby grand" of abnormal weight rather than a Steinway. This is rather troubling.

Judy Wood even has the following to say about Jones:

SJ: "I teach the physics of air drag forces and concomitant terminal velocity..."

JW: One might remark, It's no wonder they took him out of the
classroom!

Now I am not one to defend Steven Jones' academic reputation, but this is a bit cheeky coming from someone who couldn't even get picked up for tenure in the first place.

Are these people for real?

Jones at Berkeley

Here's a video of Steven Jones at Berkeley last week. Comments:

1. Jones spends a great deal of time giving his credentials; there is a long discussion of his work on cold fusion, with far too much detail for the audience.

2. Jones has a self-deprecating wit that is quite disarming if a trifle dry. It is difficult to dislike him, unlike, for example, Uncle Fetzer, who is a little prickly at times, and at times you can remove the "ly" from that description.

3. Jones once again emphasizes WTC-7; we get the familiar claim that "If you dropped a steel ball off the roof, it wouldn't fall much faster."

4. Jones also claims that controlled demolition causes buildings to fall at close to free-fall times. I would like to see his evidence for this. The few occasions I have timed actual controlled demolitions, they took longer than free-fall.

5. Jones claims that the NIST study underway on WTC-7 includes only floors 8-46. He also states that he hopes that the NIST study will consider explosives. Of course, if Jones had been reading Screw Loose Change, he would know that the NIST study will include:

Investigation of hypothetical blast scenarios
Evaluation of thermite as a possible blast substance

6. At 35:00, Jones cites Joseph M. Phelps, who helps us understand with regard to WTC-7's collapse, "That airplane couldn't cause this." This puts Mr Phelps, who's apparently quite an expert on the structural engineering of golf courses, squarely in the OCT camp, since nobody I know claims that an airplane caused WTC-7's collapse, at least not directly (of course, American Airlines Flight 11 indirectly caused it).

I decided to take a break at this point, since Jones moves on to discussion of the collapse times of the two towers.

Believing Your Own Press

Here's another example of somebody who apparently believes the nutty poll results that Alex Jones and company cite.

...[J]udging by a number of recent opinion polls, exactly what is the mainstream position of the American public on the government's 9/11 explanation? In a recent CBS poll, only 16% implicitly believed the government's story: 53% believed they are covering up something, and 28% believe they are outright lying, while 3% didn't venture an opinion. An MSNBC poll found 62% of those polled thought that the government were covering up the truth. Although not strictly a scientifically rigorous poll, the sample size was significant, with over 70,000 respondents! If the poll had been done to scientific standards, the percentage of those believing the government story may have been larger.. but it might also have been smaller.... one never knows! A recent CNN poll yielded an extraordinary result, while other polls from Zogby and Scripps have also yielded quite a zing, albeit not quite so spectacular.

As Wayne Gretzky once said, "No". The unscientific polls aren't polls at all. That 83% of the respondents to that CNN vote thought Charlie Sheen was right reflects one thing and one thing alone: That the poll was linked at various Denier sites and a whole bunch of Deniers followed the link and voted. That's why the Scripps Howard poll, which found that about 16% of the people agreed with Controlled Demolition, probably gives us a better estimate of the number of people who are 9-11 Deniers.

Why Is Steven Jones on the Skids?

I was thinking about it this evening. When James and I first started this blog I was initially quite apprehensive about taking on the "Scholars" for 9-11 Denial. Unlike most of the Deniers, I do have some respect for true experts in a field and it worried me that there was a group apparently made up of respected scientists who were buying into this nonsense. Steven Jones, especially, worried me because I was a physics major when I started college and just couldn't handle the upper level material in that field; obviously this guy's got some smarts.

Hearing Uncle Fetzer on the Alan Colmes show made me feel a lot more comfortable. While he's got an impressive resume, when it comes to 9-11 he's about as gullible as Dylan Avery, if better at debating in an adversarial climate.

And indeed, when you poke into all the supposedly brilliant minds investigating 9-11, you find that they all repeat the same garbage. David Ray Griffin has a list of 115 supposed lies and omissions in the 9-11 Commission Report. And if you read it, it's almost all stuff we've debunked here easily--like that six hijackers are alive, or that the manifests didn't include any Arab names, or that Larry Silverstein said "Pull it". Just moronic stuff, stuff that a high schooler could debunk (and indeed, several have).

So why is Steven Jones headed out the door? Well, first because he's the only big credential in the Scholars who's pushing the thermite/thermate solution. You've got Fetzer, Reynolds and Wood talking about the beam weapon from space. Yeah, it sounds nutty as hell, but it's the kind of thing that actually gets people's attention. It can be marketed, with factoids that I'm sure Uncle Fetzer is boning up on right now, like that the Pentagon spent X billion back in the Reagan years on Star Wars. It "explains" the light flashes in Rick Siegel's 9-11 Eyewitness movie.

You also have concern, expressed by many Deniers, that the movement can't put all its eggs in the Controlled Demolition basket. Remember, Controlled Demolition was a fairly early conspiracy theory that was largely considered a dead letter among 9-11 Deniers until Jones brought it back to prominence.

I suspect that Steven Jones is pretty much washed up in this movement. He's not flashy enough for a group raised on Alex Jones and Uncle Fetzer. Most of my fellow debunkers probably feel the opposite, but that's because they're analyzing it rationally. See the problem?

A New Definition of Free

Here's a guy who's giving away 9-11 DVDs for free!

WE ARE GIVING OUT THE MOVIES FOR FREE WITH A SMALL DONATION!

$2.50 PER DVD MOVIE

Bermas & Rowe to Debate Mark Roberts

Kudos to Ron Wieck for setting this up. The debate will apparently take place over two shows of the Libertarian-oriented talk show, Hardfire, to be taped on December 14. Looking forward to the inevitable, "I'm not calling anybody a liar, I'm calling you a liar," from Bermas.

Yahoo Answers Gets It Right

This is pretty amusing. Apparently Yahoo has an "Ask Yahoo" function where you can ask a question, and a bunch of people submit their suggested answer. Then folks vote on the best answer, and that question becomes a "resolved question". For example, somebody asked:

Why won't NIST or Popular Science debate 9/11 Scholars for Truth?

I am not talking about Loose Change filmmakers, I am talking about ppl like Jones, Fetzer, Tarpley, and Griffin. And why do ppl tell me to read NIST report and 9/11 myths. I already have done this and they simply cannnot stand up to the facts. Literally hundreds of obvious ommisions and distortions. So why not debate. I will tell you why it is because they would get trounced and know it.

The best answer:

Because the NIST and Popular Mechanics are right and the case is closed. Scholars for Truth are a bunch of scary demented people. If you've ever heard any of them talk you have to see that they are psycho, their performances appear almost scripted and when asked questions they get uneasy and bluster their way and answer with their prepared statements.


http://www.popularmechanics.com/technolo...
http://911myths.com
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/911/pdf/fullrep...

If you read the above sites and still belive in this conspiracy theory see the links below.

http://www.stopabductions.com/
http://www.ericisgreat.com/tinfoilhats/...

They'll Be Smoking the Tea, I Presume?

Here's an announcement of a modern-day Boston Tea Party:

For these and many more reasons, we cast this book of DECEIT into the Boston Harbor. Join us in carrying out our patriotic duty to REJECT THE TYRANNY OF LIES AND OMISIONS (sic). We deem this work to be TREASON INK (sic)!: The 9/11 "Omission" Report is not worthy of respect, not worthy of the founding ideals of our nation and therefore it should be drowned in the mighty sea of Truth!

Like Boston Harbor isn't polluted enough?

Bond, James Bond

Uhh, guys, it is a movie!

Now I have always been a big fan of my namesake, except for the fact that I am not tall, good looking, British, or a spy, I think I have a lot in common with the character, but this is taking it too far. The truthers are going crazy because the newest Bond movie, Casino Royale, has a passing 9/11 conspiracy reference:

The movie contains a significant reference to 9/11 when M, the fictional head of MI6, tells Bond the following:

"When they analyzed the stock market after 9/11 the CIA discovered there had been massive shorting of airline stocks. When the stocks hit bottom on 9/12, somebody made a fortune."

In the film, Bond prevents the same thing happening again with the Boeing stock, by thwarting the bombing of an airbus prototype plane at Miami airport. With their prototype destroyed the company would have been near bankruptcy. Instead, someone (we later discover it's Le Chiffre) loses over a hundred million dollars betting the wrong way as Bond foils the plot.

Well first of all, the stocks didn't hit bottom on 9/12, the markets were closed for another week. And secondly, have you seen how Airbus is doing lately? You don't need to be a terrorist to short Airbus, and go long on Boeing. But then again, I am from Seattle....

Jones Responds to Fetzer, Fetzer Responds to Jones

The "Scholars" continue their soap opera drama, with Jones replying in an open letter on their website. I found this part particularly interesting:

Jim, A few things need to be straightened out first.
1. Is the directed-beams hypothesis a SCIENTIFIC hypothesis? Let the proponents delineate crucial experiments which will permit testing the hypothesis, and which have the potential of proving the hypothesis wrong. If an hypothesis is not falsifiable by experiments, it is not scientific.

I agree, which is why I have always objected to Jones' use of super nano-thermate cutting charges in the WTC. Since he is basing his hypothesis entirely on speculative technology, there is no way to prove it wrong. He should either demonstrate the use of this technology, or shut up about it.

Jones actually has a decent little debunking of Wood's theories. They both think each other are idiots, and they are both right. Fetzer replies here, although it is mostly a bunch of administrative suggestions. In my humble opinion, the fact that they don't have adequate by-laws is the least of their problems.

Fetzer made an interesting post in the comments on 9/11 blogger. Apparently he is embracing the Unified Demolition Theory:

Obviously unfamiliar with my lectures in Tucson, this is more moronic drivel. I tend toward a mixed causation theory of the destruction of the WTC, where somemassive explosives (possibly mini-nukes?) were used in the subbasements about the time the planes hit the buildings, that high-tech weapons (directed energy,possibly from WTC-7, possibly from space?) were used to deconstruct most of thetowers and then more conventional explosives (possibly thermite or thermate?) were used to bring down the last 20 floors or so. Given the available evidence,this is my best guess, but obviously all of this has to be confirmed. What is beyond question, in my view, is that even super-thermate in the towers cannotpossibly account for the enormous and total devastation of the complete WTC!I suggest reviewing Judy's studies and my lectures before drawing conclusions, if you have any respect for logic and evidence, which may be too much to ask.

Get some popcorn and watch the show.

Moron the Scholars' Hostile Takeover

Here's a proposal to reconcile the two sides.

On behalf of Morgan Reynolds & Judy Wood, we make this proposal for revitalization & reconstruction of & for Scholars for 9/11 Truth and the Journal of 9/11 Studies.

1) Scientific Integrity: Remove all references at the J911S & S911T sites to 9/11 evidence that does not have a proven & disclosed chain of custody and which may be fake. An alternative to removing such references would be to prominently & clearly describe the chain of custody and/or origins of this evidence. Two (2) examples of such questionable evidence are Steve Jones’ iron samples (allegedly from WTC Ground Zero, the origin of which is unclear) and Steve’s video evidence of molten iron or aluminum pouring from a WTC window (the spliced videos for which may not have shown such molten metal in their original internet postings).

Now, Reynolds and Woods do have a point here in that there is no good chain of custody on Jones' World Trade Center steel. But... I mean, Morgan Reynolds and Judy Woods calling for scientific integrity and "proven" evidence? These are the folks who brought us the invisible planes and the Star Wars beam weapon!

"Scholar" Infighting Continues

We have been discussing all the infighting and schisms in the 9/11 denial movement, particularly among the group called the "Scholars" for 9/11 "Truth". Judy Wood, Morgan Reynolds and others quit the group, accusing Steven Jones of fraudulent scholarship and violating academic standards. One member, David Hawkins even quit, accusing Jim Fetzer of being part of the plot, but apparently not even the conspiracy theorists care about him since I have heard nothing further.

Woods and Reynolds have now gone on to propose their elaborate Death Star theory, which has made things more interesting because Fetzer, who started the group with Steven Jones has gone on to endorse this theory, even calling Woods, "the single most qualified person to study what happened on 9/11" an apparent slap in the face to Jones. So as a result there has been some discussion here as to what will the fallout be between Fetzer and Jones in this little 9/11 denier soap opera love spat.

Well, the other shoe has fallen:

An Open Letter about Steven Jones
by James H. Fetzer
19 November 2006
Friends and Colleagues:

When I founded Scholars for 9/11 Truth, I invited Steve Jones to serve as co-chair. He has responsibility for co-editing our journal, which he originally founded with Judy Wood as co-editor and me as managing editor, and runs our members' forum, while I maintain our web site at st911.org. He is now planning to take control of the web site from me.

I have raised objections on moral, legal and intellectual grounds and I am categorically opposed to it. But he appears to be persisting in what might be described as a "hostile take over" to control Scholars. Because this is going on behind the scenes and you would otherwise be unaware of this scheme, I am publishing this open letter on st911.org.

The background to this move concerns new research about what happened at the World Trade Center involving hypotheses that differ from those Steve has been investigating and promoting for more than a year now. On 11 November 2006, Judy Wood was my guest on "Non-Random Thoughts" and we discussed new research she and Morgan Reynolds were doing on possible causes of the destruction of the World Trade Center, which involves the use of high-tech, directed energy-weaponry. I put up links to their research, which are available on our web site under "Events" for that date. Right or wrong, this is fascinating stuff, which I even discussed during lectures in Tucson the next two days:

Later on , Fetzer even attacks Jones' research. This I can actually agree with:

What is ironic about his attitude toward "unfinished research" is that he repeatedly characterizes his own studies of the use of thermite (in a sulfur-enhanced version known as "thermate") as both preliminary and incomplete. If that is the case, then by his own standard, there is a serious question whether his own research is ready for prime time! It is also worth mention that he has revised his basic paper on numerous occasions, which, to the best of my knowledge, have not been subject to additional peer review. If we only mention or discuss finished research on st911.org, there is a serious question whether Steve's work properly qualifies for inclusion in the journal he edits, much less the web site.

He then finishes, with what is basically an invitation to resign:

To the best of my knowledge, Steve has found support among perhaps ten or twelve members of Scholars who are active on the forum. Since our current membership approximates 400, this does not appear to be the majority view. Splinter groups often form when dealing with complex and controversial issues, especially when they have ramifications of a political kind. Everyone who has joined Scholars has joined with the current web site and management of st911.org. If he thinks that he can do better, then I encourage him to resign from Scholars and create his own site. But he should not attempt to take control of a site that I created and maintain, which would display the virtues of theft over honest toil.

All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.

The Grand Unified Theory

The Holy Grail of modern physics has been the pursuit of the Grand Unified Theory, which ties quantum mechanics in with Einstein's Theory of Relativity and other physics' theories, but now we find that the 9/11 deniers are in hilarious pursuit of the same thing, their very own Unified Demolition Theory:

Dr. Wood also hangs her hat on the notion that such weaponry was necessary because had the full weight of the towers crashed into the concrete "bathtub" foundation of the complex, it would have irreparably ruptured. She may be mistaken however in assuming that would have flooded all lower Manhattan -- however, that certainly would have flooded underground gold vaults which were being burgled at the time.

Taking into account the latest paper by Dr. Wood and Dr. Reynolds (linked here) long with research by others, including Dr. Ed Ward and Rick Siegel, we can construct a unified theory of how the controlled demolition was pulled off:

The towers were built to come down, with a truss system that could set off a "pancake collapse" given the right stresses to the system. A Bush-connected security firm left the building virtually wide open to everyone from Swedish art students to agents planting further explosives in the months preceding the event. On 9/11 itself, small fifth-generation micro-mininukes in the towers' subbasements (a notion discounted by Wood & Reynolds) went off coincident with the alleged "plane crashes," acting as high-tech cutting charges, significantly weakening the core columns for the destruction to come. Radio signals went out to set off the planted conventional explosives, and then during the 10-second demolition and collapses -- and in the clouds thereafter -- directed energy weapons were used to pulverize as much of the buildings as possible.

The most hilarious part is pointing out the fact that flooding would have interfered with stealing the gold. Yeah, like a 110 story building falling on your head wouldn't have got in the way! Conventional explosives, not just mini-nukes, but micro mini-nukes, and directed energy weapons. You can't get much more unified than that!

By the way, if you watch the Fetzer video (from the previously mentioned Tucson speech) he suggests that WTC7 was destroyed because it held Enron records (yeah, those guys got off easy) and because that it where the energy weapons were hid.

More Brilliance from the Deniers

I usually don't bother making fun of grammatical and spelling errors by the Deniers; for one thing they make so many that one despairs of ever doing anything else. But this is just too rich a target:

In my mind, I therefor must view the "incompetence" as a large and necessary component of the 9/11 operation's extensive success. Am I talking a foreign language here? I have not yet said MYHOP (we'll talk about that later), for now, I am just establishing the simple fact, that the Commission FAILED in properly explaining that which they were created explicitly to do. Not just in the one example of Sibel, but also the role, or lack of, military defense and preparedness (our military has NOT been dependent on Morris Code and vacuum tubes for a long time, even though their response that day appeared equally and anachronically retarded).

MYHOP? Morris Code? Anachronically?

Make Up Your Freaking Mind Already

In Loose Change Dylan, referring to the reports of passengers on the hijacked airliners calling from the planes, states:

But to be honest, none of that matters. Why? Because none of these calls could have taken place.

He then goes on to argue how they were technically impossible.

Well now, after years of intensive research, Jason Bermas announces that the phone calls not only could have taken place, but most of them were legitimate.

Caller: I want to know how it is possible that somebody could fake a telephone call with one of their relatives.

Bermas: Well we go through it, I mean the voice morphing technology has been there since '99, and we don't think that all of the phone calls were totally faked, we believe that there were airfone calls, we think that those were legitimate. But we just point out the impossibility of cellphone calls from cruising altitude.

Well aside from the fact that there were only a couple of cell phone calls made, and neither of them were from cruising altitude, it is nice to hear him admit the airfone calls were legitimate. That should cut the next version of Loose Change by about 5 minutes.

He says some other rather odd things too, including coming to the conclusion that he should interview one of the hijackers who are still alive, but he hasn't made any phone calls yet. Yeah, it only took 4 1/2 years of "research" to come up with that conclusion. Particularly bizarrely he speculates that Chick Burlingame, the pilot of of AA77, was killed to keep him from talking about the MASCAL exercises that took place at the Pentagon. Geez guy, it was in the newspaper, how do you think you found out about it?

Publisher Admits Griffin's Book Is "Spurious"

Well, this is refreshing honesty from a book publisher:

In an unusual criticism of its own product, the board of the Louisville-based Presbyterian Publishing Corp. says a book fell short of its editing standards with its "spurious" claim that the Bush administration orchestrated the 9/11 terror attacks.

Griffin is "a distinguished theologian" who has published a number of books with the corporation, said a statement by Kenneth Godshall, chairman of its board of directors. "This particular volume is not up to (Westminster John Knox) editorial standards and not representative of the publishing program."

The statement said "the conspiracy theory is spurious and based on questionable research."

On Native Soil

I got On Native Soil via Netflix the other day and finally got around to watching it. First of all, it is extremely critical of the 9/11 commission, both the Bush and Clinton Administration, and even the military. It is starts out as a movie about the 9/11 commission, but also adds to this in reviewing the problems that the government had responding to the attacks, as well as the problems it needs to fix in the future.

It is rather interesting overall though, as it involves several interviews with survivors of the attack, including one of the dog handlers for the bomb sniffing dogs at the WTC (who supposedly were pulled the week before), and a couple who talked on the phone to their son on one of the ill-fated planes, up until the moment he died. In my opinion, a legitimate argument can be made, as this movie does, that the government screwed up and things need to be changed, but this has nothing to do with the government pulling it off.

Maybe Kevin Costner is in on the coverup?

Dylan on Loose Change FC

This MP3 file is mostly a debate between Chicago talk-show host Mancow and Alex Jones, but Dylan Avery comes on near the end. At about 67:00, Dylan talks about Loose Change FC:

"I can't go into too much detail now, but we're going to be in theatres in 2007 no matter what. If I had to put an estimate on it, it's probably going to be Spring... we're sticking to hard evidence, we're bringing up the ISI connection, Norman Mineta's testimony, we've already got an interview with Ray McGovern... that's why when I get all these attack pages or people criticizing us for what we say in the second edition, it doesn't even bother me, because things that I suggest in the second edition are merely that, they're just suggestions, and when the final cut drops in theatres, these people are going to have nothing to say to us, because we're sticking to all the things that we can prove."

I'm just baffled as to how he's going to bring in the ISI connection; it involves a (dubious) claim that the head of the ISI wired $100,000 to Mohammed Atta, shortly before the attacks. But of course the problem with this story is that Dylan Avery doesn't believe that Mohammed Atta was the ringleader of the 9-11 attacks, so what does the supposed $100,000 wire transfer mean? It's like saying that I have proof that OJ Simpson gave Al Cowlings a knife dripping with blood the night of Nicole's murder, but I don't think OJ was the killer. Say what?

One of the Dumber Arguments the Deniers Use

We see this one all the time: The US government hasn't indicted Osama Bin Laden for 9-11. Ergo, it must not have enough evidence to convict him. PDoherty uses the argument over at the Looser Forums:

What evidence? You havent even got enough to indict osama. You have zero

So come on, give me 3 things that would prove the official story in a court.

In fact one would do

This is a variation on the "sacred lists" that I talked about awhile ago. The notion is that the government pulled off this horrific crime against its own people, using brilliant planning and a masterful coverup, but somehow neglected something obvious that a bunch of people with room temperature IQs were able to discover online. For example, the claim that none of the hijackers appeared on any of the four flight manifests. It's like the government was happy to kill 3,000 of its own people, but when it came to something like tampering with a flight manifest, they balked.

Of course, the flight manifest claim is a bunch of hooey as we have discussed in the past. What the Deniers have seized upon is a list of victims aboard the four planes. Since, by definition, the hijackers are not victims, they don't appear on the list. But the prosecution at the Moussaoui trial showed flight manifests that included the hijackers. Despite this, the Deniers still use this ridiculous claim.

Did I say Moussaoui trial? This is another thing the Deniers conveniently forget when talking about the lack of an indictment of Osama. They pretend as PDoh does above, that the "official" story cannot be proven in a court of law, even though it has already done so and resulted in the conviction of one of the co-conspirators.

As for why Osama's not been indicted, the answer's pretty simple. He's already wanted on charges related to the embassy bombings in Africa in 1998. There's no sense in going through the drill of indicting him for 9-11 until we get him in custody, which isn't likely to happen. I'm sure he intends on committing suicide if we ever get close to nabbing him.

FBI Gives Up Its Pursuit of Bermas....

Or something. I got a tip in my email this morning that the Department of Justice employee whose IP address showed on Bermas' fraternity forum, turned out to be one of Jason's former frat brothers, not an FBI agent hot on the trail of the Loosers. The forum's administrator was quite upset that Dylan had posted screenshots of the forum, which is intended for fraternity members only.

What would you do if you'd made that mistake? I'd take down the pictures and post an apology. Not Do-Over Dylan, however. Instead, he just took down the entire post with no explanation, no apology. The thread that he started on this topic over at the Looser's forum has vanished as well.

This demonstrates one major difference between this blog and Dylan's. We're not starting a cult of personality over here, so when we make mistakes (and we've made a few), we correct the mistake and note it within the body of the same post. We also put up a new post announcing the correction. See here for a good example.

How Retarded Are These People?

Politically, apparently profoundly retarded. Check out this absurd post over at 9-11 Blogger:

Who do 9/11 truthers want to be President in 08

My nomination is Ray McGovern and Paul Craig Roberts VP. It appears that our votes will decide the next president since there are more 9/11 truthers than those that chose the last two presidents combined. Whomever we nominate will win. Isn't that exciting?

Of course, somehow despite all that popularity, not one 9-11 Denier managed to get elected last Tuesday. If anything the comments are even more loopy, with somebody suggesting a Cynthia McKinney/Ron Paul ticket.

Research and Conspiracy Theories

As I have said before (borrowed from one of my professors) the difference between a conspiracy theory and a scientific theory is that a scientific theory allows you to make consistent predictions. So I was interested to read this article on the use of research in the Internet age (hat tip elmondohummus in the comments):

Overreliance on Google is only one of many technology problems facing college students. A new report released Tuesday by the Educational Testing Service finds that students lack many basic skills in information literacy, which ETS defines as the ability to use technology to solve information problems.

The original impetus for the study came from librarians and professors who have found that students can use technology for socializing or entertainment but still have problems finding information, evaluating it and then putting it to use, said Irvin Katz, a research scientist with ETS. “It’s not only in academics,” he said, “but also in the workplace that people don’t have the necessary critical skills to access information.”

For the study, information was gathered from over 6,300 students found at 63 universities, colleges, community colleges, and high schools (seniors). Each institution selected participants to take an information and communication technology literacy assessment. Because the institutions did not make random selections, caution should be taken when evaluating the results. The challenge was to see if students could identify trustworthy information, manage that information, and communicate it effectively. The results do not inspire confidence.

Few test takers demonstrated effective information literacy skills, and students earned only about half the points that could have been awarded. Females fared just as poorly as males. For instance, when asked to select a research statement for a class assignment, only 44 percent identified a statement that captured the assignment’s demands. And when asked to evaluate several Web sites, 52 percent correctly assessed the objectivity of the sites, 65 percent correctly judged for authority, and 72 percent for timeliness. Overall, 49 percent correctly identified the site that satisfied all three criteria.

One of the reasons I found this interesting was because I wrote the following earlier in response to a post on Hot Air asking why recent growth in conspiracy theories.

But this is getting worse. Before it was just a few self involved activists, now it is becoming an entire generation. Perhaps it is technology? The Internet has done some wonderful things, without it I couldn’t be posting my thoughts for people to read, but in making information so readily available, it has also made it cheap. Before, if you wanted to learn something, you actually had to go out and find a book and read it, or seek out someone who was an expert in the area, and ask them about it. Now you just do a quick google search and the information appears right before you. No need to think about it, or analyze it, the truth is instantly in front of you, it is in a video, it must be true!

What happens then though is you get information without wisdom, it becomes nothing more than a number of unrelated points superficially connected. The movie Loose Change is the perfect example of that. A trio of uneducated 20-somethings make a movie based off of screencaptures of conspiracy websites, and suddenly they are seen as speaking from authority. They never had to do the hard work to turn this information into wisdom, and thus it has no value. If they would have been required to have had more years of experience in order to accomplish this, if they had to exert more effort into compiling what went into their movie, then perhaps they would have paid more attention to the validity of their claims. Instead, they just wallow in their own arrogance, and declare themselves the bearers of the truth.

Hey, I am allowed to blow my own horn every once in a while.

Yet Another Denier Website

Which, as usual, lies to you even when their own diagrams show the facts. For example, get what they say about this figure:

Comparing WFC3 (Fig. 9) and the Bankers Trust building (Fig. 10), both positioned offset from the sides of the towers yet even closer than WTC7, we can see that they were struck by some perimeter columns, yet the damage, while initially visually impacting, was negligible in terms of a threat to the stability of the structures.

WFC3 is closer to the towers than WTC7? I don't think so. Look at the outer circle around WTC 1. You can see that it comes very close to, but does not quite touch WFC3. However, that same circle not only touches WTC7, it cuts the building virtually in half. Ergo, it is not hard to see that WTC7 was quite a bit closer to the WTC1 than WFC3 was.

FBI Stalking Jason Bermas!

Over at the Loose Change blog Dylan is claiming that the FBI is stalking Jason Bermas because (wait for it) a forum that discussed Bermas, got a grand total of 4 hits from the DOJ. I wonder if it was the guy in the black hat?

In somewhat of a response to outlandish websites such as these, it has come to our attention that the Department of Justice is possibly stalking Jason Bermas.

Bermas belonged to the fraternity, Iota Tau Kappa, and still hangs out with all his old buddies. In fact, Bermas is a constant topic of discussion over at the ITK Forums.

The ITK forums have recently been visited by the FBI. But don't take my word for it.

I am mostly just surprised that Bermas actually went to college long enough to join a fraternity.

Update: A poster in the comments from the fraternity responds that this was a result of a fraternity brother who worked for the DoJ. One of the rules of conspiracy theories is you have to ignore the obvious explanation. He also denies any association with Loose Change:

I have no affiliation with loose change and never intended for these speculations to be published on public sites.

And points out that Bermas was not a "constant topic of discussion":

I'd also like to clear up the statement that Bermas is a "constant topic of discussion", as it is stated on the loose change blog. This is not accurate. He is a brother of our fraternity and as expected, his name comes up sometimes. 4/320 topics have been started about him and 18 posts contain his name when I ran a search on the forum.

I have removed the link to the forum at his request, however, since we have made clear that this action was done by Dylan, and not the fraternity, I am leaving the name of the fraternity up, since whether they like it or not, they are part of a legitimate news event (within the world of covering nutty conspiracy theorists admittedly). The post has disappeared entirely from the Loose Change blog, with no correction or indication that it was ever there.

More Amusement at the Loose Change Forums

A relatively new member at the forums asks what people say about Screw Loose Change (the movie). Well, as everybody knows that SLC points out quite a few errors in Loose Change, the veterans over have more or less arrived at a formula response.

Terrorcell: They debunked what can be debunked. They won't dare attempt to do that to films like 9/11 The Road To Tyranny and Martial Law : 9/11 and the Police State along with the ones that you mentioned.

But of course, that causes some confusion among the newbies. Sarah2006 asks:

Hello i am new here. I saw loose change and because i don´t know much about the facts could you explain which facts are wrong? Somebody in here said there are some errors but which ones?

Well, you know they're not going to want to answer that one.

PDoh: There are some errors but I wouldnt just focus on loose change. Go to google video and watch "911 mysteries" and "911: press for truth".

But Sarah comes back with:

I have heard about these movies and i will watch them but i nevertheless want to know about the errors in loose change. You brought them up so what are they?

Roxdog: Ever heard of a search engine?

PDoh: Do some research yourself. Any errors in loose change are irrelevant.

Do you agree withthe film?

Not satisfactory at all to Sarah:

How should i agree with a film if you in here say there are errors????
You´re kidding, don´t you????

So the film is not true at all or what errors are we talking about? Shall i spend a week for finding what errors they are if you guys know them???? Hello?????

Well, of course you can guess the next part, right?

PDoh: Go back to jref. Ive seen windows less transparent than you.

Victoria chirps up:

Screw SLC ...the fact is that we want to know THE TRUTH.I don't blame Dylan for making errors because the fact is 911 is suspicious!

You want to know the truth, but you don't blame people for not telling it to you?

Uncle Fetzer on PBS

Uncle Fetzer, right before giving his impassioned "Star Wars death beams blew up the World Trade Center" speech, appeared on a PBS station in Tucson. He is getting better at this, he is smart enough not to lay the really stupid stuff on the average television viewer, and instead goes on at length about all of the learned scholars in his group. I especially found it amusing when he said that his "society" was to unify the scholastic efforts in researching 9/11. Yeah, you guys are really unified.

In Praise of Purchase College's Film School

They did, after all, turn down Dylan Avery not once, but twice. Why do I bring it up again? Because once again, Dylan Avery has shown what pitiful editing skills he has. James posted about this September 11, 2006 footage before. I made the mistake of watching the first 15 minutes this afternoon. It's incredibly bad, even worse than the rest of the vanity videos. No kidding, it's 90 minutes long and the first 8 minutes is them leaving the hotel or wherever they're staying and then walking along the streets of New York, them going down into the subway, them buying tokens, them coming out of the subway, them walking along the streets of New York... unbelievable. They had two or more cameras, so we get occasional side-shots instead of following Korey and crew.

Apparently sensing that this is boring the heck out of everybody, Dylan dubs in some music, but it's wildly incongruous with the video, which shows some poor buddy of Dylan and company schlepping a huge box full of DVDs to a guitar solo. Korey, no surprise, is carrying his sunglasses and nothing else. These guys never heard of characterization?

There's a brief bit of filming by Dylan himself prior to the Democracy Now taping. To his credit, Dylan points out that Jim Meigs of Popular Mechanics was a good guy, then notes that David Dunbar, also of PM, was not so nice. One problem: both of the graphics point to the same guy--Meigs as it happens.

They get near Ground Zero, and we have a moment of excitement. Some firemen are apparently asking for the "Investigate 9-11 Shirts". One fireman knows all about Loose Change, but he can't say anything on camera. Let's hope he just wanted a free tee shirt.

Then we get a really, really stupid bit where two 9-11 Truthers interview each other while filming it. First, the other guy interviews Dylan's cameraguy. But of course, Dylan's camera catches mostly the other guy's questions, not so much Dylan's cameraman's responses.

As if this wasn't bad enough, the guy they're filming says he decided to write a fictional screenplay about how these two friends find out about 9-11 being an inside job. As you may recall that was Dylan's original screenplay as well. Brilliant characterization!

Moron Government Agents

Here's an amusing bit over at 9-11 Blogger. One of the bloggers wrote about a video he uploaded:

"1 minute and 38 seconds into this video for 15 seconds you will see a young government agent wearing a black hat and black hooded sweatshirt disguised as an organizer work with uniformed police to silence my free speech and stop other activists from helping me."

Of course, that "young government agent" is actually Luke Rudkowski, just another 9-11 nutter; he's apparently a big buddy of Dylan's. Unlike the Deniers, we don't think that Deniers with different opinions must be government agents.

Paul Craig Roberts, Nutbar

Back with another paranoid article, this time about how the Democrats might become part of the problem, because they aren't going to be tough enough on Bush.

Indeed, the prime cause of Muslim terrorism is the US interference in the internal affairs of Muslim countries and America's one-sided stance in favor of Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. When Jimmy Carter was president, his even-handed approach made the US respected throughout the Muslim world. 9/11, if it was actually an act of Muslim terrorism, was the direct consequence of US one-sided meddling in Middle Eastern affairs.

When, and only when, the Democrats have erased the Bush administration's police state legislation from the books, thus restoring the Constitution, they should clear the air on two other issues of major importance. The Democrats must convene a commission of independent experts to investigate 9/11. The 9/11 Commission Report has too many problems and shortcomings to be believable.

Recent polls show that 36 percent of the American people do not believe the report. Such a deficient report is unacceptable. 9/11 became the excuse for the neoconservative Bush regime to launch illegal wars of aggression in the Middle East. The 9/11 Commission Report is nothing but a public relations justification for the "war on terror," which in truth is a war on American liberty. As long as politicians with a police state mentality can cling to the cover of the 9/11 Commission Report, the Bill of Rights will remain endangered.

Yep, that's right, a former Reagan Administration staffer praising Jimmy Carter's foreign policy. And apparently that respect we were getting from the Muslim world wasn't enough to prevent them from taking over our embassy in Tehran.

New Debunking Blog With Some Wit

Kudos to the Zeitgeist, who's "Fighting Truther Freaks So You Don't Have To".

I like his sense of humor--"a whole cornhole copia of intelligence" indeed!

Allahu Akhbar

The soon-to-be-unemployed Kevin Barrett will now be taking over Jim Fetzer's time slot on paranoia radio, titled bizarrely "Truth Jihad".

Truth Jihad Radio (Starts 11/18/06)
Host: Kevin Barrett Ph.D. Time: Saturday 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm

According to his last radio show Fetzer will now host a daily show on GCN, another fringe network which mostly broadcasts Alex Jones and Jeff Rense. And sorry, I may not have a life, but I am not going to listen to this every day. If anyone happens to catch anything interesting, let us know.

Bathtub Nonsense

James has already pointed to this speech by Uncle Fetzer, where he essentially endorses Judy Wood's Deathstar theory, that some sort of satellite-mounted raygun brought down the World Trade Center. Now that's pretty kooky, but at least you can fantasize that it's true.

But how do these nutbars continue to make their nutty claim about the Bathtub? Fetzer says (at 3:54)

"The Bathtub was not seriously damaged. That's stunning. Think about what would have happened if the Bathtub had been seriously damaged. You would have had this massive flooding of lower Manhattan."

As most of us know from playing in the sand at the seashore, if you are close to a body of water and you start digging, you will pretty quickly hit water. Since the World Trade Center was built close to water, the basement levels had to be surrounded by what Judy Wood calls the bathtub; an impervious concrete wall that keeps out the water. This is what she claims was undamaged. Now, first of all it is obvious that it was damaged to some extent. But more important, even if it had been destroyed, there would not have been "this massive flooding of lower Manhattan." The water would have risen in the hole until it reached sea level, which is quite obviously several feet lower than ground level. Manhattan is not like the Zuyder Zee in Holland where the land is actually below sea level, and held back with dykes and seawalls.

And this guy claims to be a scientist?

Shrinking the Big Tent

Here's an interesting post over at one of the 9-11 Denial websites, that I actually agree with:

Rather than growing the 9/11 Truth Movement, the Big Tent strategy promises to limit it by facilitating straw man attacks such as Popular Mechanics', and by discouraging the peer-review that the work of 9/11 skeptics desperately needs. Any investigation, to be taken seriously, must have a means of distinguishing between baseless and substantial claims. The progress of science is a result of the application of the scientific method, which subjects theories to a repeated process of observation, hypothesis, experiment, and revision, enforced by peer review. Theories not supported by or invalidated by observation are discarded. The 9/11 Truth Movement's Big Tent has functioned in a way that is antithetical to the process of science, as it does not admit any process for invalidating theories.

Of course, the writer wants his theories to be the ones that are accepted and pushed forward as "the Truth", but wants all that kookie stuff like no-planes to be sent into exile. Well, you can see the difficulty there, right? Everybody thinks their pet theory is the sensible one, even the no-planers.

Fetzer in Tucson

Jim Fetzer spoke in Tucson on Sunday night. Apparently he is grabbing on to Judy Wood's Death Star theory with full force. At least he got rid of those stupid sideburns.

Another 9/11 Denier Joins the Ranks of the Unemployed

The national unemployment rate fell to a relatively low 4.4% last month, but this trend has been countered by the recent wave of unemployed truthers. Now Kevin Barrett, who was only a part-time lecturer at the University of Wisconsin to begin with, is joining their ranks.

Controversial instructor Kevin Barrett told 27 News he is not returning to teach at UW-Madison in the spring semester.

Barrett had been paid $8,000 to teach a one semester, introduction to Islam course, which is not being offered next January.

"The semester by semester lecturing jobs are fairly hard to come by," Barrett said. There was no appropriate course to apply for."

Barrett's decision to forego applying for a 2007 UW-Madison lecturing position was first reported by the campus newspaper The Badger Herald.

Hey, here is an idea, show some competence and research in a relevent field, and maybe a university will actually want to hire you for a real position.

Just a suggestion...

Yet Another Member of the Conspiracy Revealed

Congressman Jack Murtha, according to the commenters over at 9-11 Blogger on the Goyette post:

This is off topic, but... I don't see much coverage here ( or anywhere) of the Jack Murtha role in the Johnstown leg of the Flight 93 scam on 9/11. For those uninitiated - Murtha and his "crew" were running a hijacked plane drill the morning of 9/11, when suddenly, just 7 miles away, supposedly Flight 93 crashed.

Yes, because you know those Congressman run hijacking drills all the time.

I wondered why Murtha was the posterboy for the "official antiwar" motions...

this is all becoming more than obvious...

Silly Screw Loose Change Poll O' the Day

Who would you rather have design your skyscraper?















Elle Woods from "Legally Blonde"?

Or













Judy Wood, formerly of Clemson University and the "Scholars" for 9/11 "Truth"?

Discuss among yourselves.

Novice Pilot Hits Pentagon in Flight Simulator

This is apparently a Dutch film:



As you can see, he does not seem to have any particular difficulty in hitting the building.

Goyette Tapped for 9-11 Media Panel?

Charles Goyette, a Phoenix talk-radio host and 9-11 nutbar, has been named one of the media panelists for a South Carolina 9-11 Debate in March.

The National 9/11 Debate is pleased to announce that Charles Goyette has agreed to participate in the National 9/11 Debate on March 10, 2007 in Charleston, South Carolina. Mr. Goyette will be part of the media panel that will pose questions to the debate team members.

Looks like Uncle Fetzer has forgotten his promise to debate Mark Roberts, aka Gravy, at Franklin Pierce College.

Uncle Fetzer and the Keebler Elf Lady

Now we are on to two people who can actually make Kevin Barrett look sane by comparison, Jim Fetzer, who is interviewing Judy Wood for his radio show. I swear, if Charles Darwin were alive he would be rethinking this whole evolution thing after listening to this show. Judy Wood expounds on her "Star Wars weapons destroyed the World Trade Center" theory, while Fetzer repeatedly screams excitedly, "Wow!". At one point early on, after claiming that the elections would have gone even more for the Democrats had the Diebold voting machines not been rigged, he proclaims that Wood is, "The single most qualified person to study what happened on 9/11".

Yeah, she is so qualfied that she describes the collapse of the WTC as "going poof". Unfortunately, I was not able to follow her argument due to the use of such overly technical language.

Amazingly the whole point of this elaborate death beam plot was to destroy the World Trade Center (she incorrectly claims that no buildings not titled "World Trade Center" were damaged in the attacks) without damaging any other buildings, or damaging the "bathtub". If the bathtub had been damaged, Wood claims that would have flooded lower Manhattan and destroyed half of New York. She even claims that the energy weapon plot extends to other buildings, such as WTC 3 and 6, so that they would be easier to destroy later on.

Yeah, OK.

My favorite line has to be when Wood proclaims, speaking about her mysterious Death Star weapon, "Just because you don’t know of the gizmo, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist."

Well, I don't know how to argue with that logic.

My new hero, though, has to be, Troy from West Virginia. He calls in at the 15 minute point of the second hour, with his West Virginia twang, and this incredulous sound in his voice. I had images in my head of Kyle from South Park cocking his head and saying "Really?".

Troy: I’m just also wondering, what makes you think that 200 technical experts from NIST would be wrong and your guest would be accurate?

Uncle Fetzer: Troy, Troy, Troy. Go to our website, ST911.org. We got a half a dozen dismissals. We’re talking about cutting edge research here Troy! I am not going back to NIST, they’ve been covering it all up. OK, thanks for calling Troy.

He then hangs up on him.

Yeah, real cutting edge research there Jim.

More Barrett Nuttiness

Sheesh, this guy put the K in Kook:

"Your tax dollars are paying for the killing of American soldiers in Iraq. The CIA is paying for resistance in Iraq."

Que?

Alex Jones Is Right

9-11 Denial is dying.

9/11 is the issue that will never die but Democrats have already openly announced their intentions to capitulate to Bush and join forces with Bush and the Neo-Cons - out of the gates both Pelosi and Dean have made it clear that no impeachment proceedings will take place. No new 9/11 investigation and no inquiry into Iraq. The majority of Americans want to see impeachment proceedings begin but the Democrat shills have pledged to scupper any efforts to even investigate the high crimes and misdemeanours of the Bush crime syndicate. An MSNBC poll today shows that 86% want impeachment.

This is, of course, one of those retarded online polls, probably linked at a couple major left-wing blogs and 9-11 Denial sites. These are the only kinds of polls that morons like Alex Jones link.

But Jones is right about one thing; 9-11 Denial is withering on the vine. Why? Well, it's pretty simple. Although as we have pointed out, 9-11 Denial is not exclusively a right or left thing, it is a paranoid thing. The paranoid Left and the paranoid Right have embraced it.

Now the interesting thing is that prior to 2000, there was virtually no paranoid Left active in this country. They had their heyday in the late 1960s and early 1970s with groups like the Manson Family, Weatherman and the SLA. Oh, sure, you still had the Kennedy assassination kooks like Oliver Stone, but they were pretty much marginalized.

Then came Florida 2000, and the kooks bloomed once again. They were fed by the 2002 election, in which several Republican Senators were apparently defeated according to exit polling, and of course when Bush was reelected in 2004 despite supposedly losing according to the exit polls, the surge was on.

But the 2006 election must have knocked the paranoid Left for a loop, with all their claims of "Black Box Voting" and the Diebold conspiracy. Not only did the Democrats win in a rout, but they won almost every close race as well. The nutbars didn't believe this would happen; they were sure that the Republicans would never allow the election to go forward, and if they did, they would make sure to win it. Now both those predictions have proven wrong, and about all the paranoids can argue is that somehow Pelosi and the Democrats are in on it as well. I don't expect that to be a compelling argument to much of the Left.

The Movie So Good They Can't Give It Away

I hope John Connor checked the garbage bins after he handed out these copies; I suspect 50% of them ended up there.

Protestors Picket Barrett

Missed this story from last week, but it's still worth highlighting:

And according to the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh College Republicans, the decision by UWO's Campus Greens to invite controversial University of Wisconsin-Madison lecturer Kevin Barrett to speak Thursday night was just that, a waste.

"We do support free speech, that's why we're here," Nelson said to protestors and curious students outside Reeve Memorial Union on Thursday. "What we don't agree with is our taxpayer dollars and tuition dollars being wasted to support this idiot."

In August, Nelson, chairman of UWO's College Republicans, began organizing a rally for Thursday in conjunction with and in protest of Barrett's presentation about academic freedom and his theories about the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.