Thursday, December 31, 2009
Great 2009 for skeptics, and here's to 2010!
911truth.org fell about 80% short of its year-end goal; Killtown's only yearly wrap-up came in the form of a desperate reposting of its own content; Prisonplanet appears to have jumped the 9/11 denier ship completely; the promised second attempt (or third, depending on who you ask) at a New York ballot initiative never happened. Eleven people RSVP'ed online to this year's big 9/11 rally; Michael Keefer failed to uphold his acceptance of a written debate with us; our awesome Facebook group grew by about a hundred people; and best of all, the skeptical community kept supporting our blog and our Facebook group! See y'all next decade!
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
More on the unbearable lightness of being a denier
This blog is simply a gold mine for news about terrorism in Africa, reporting today about a man who was caught in Mogadishu trying to board a plane with a syringe and various powdered and liquid chemicals.
This is nothing major, but its always worth pointing out the degree to which 9/11 deniers have to shut themselves out to reality. There is daily proof that there is organic, home-grown terrorist sentiment out there, people all over the world who are willing to do the open society harm.
Either you believe that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and every twit like him on earth is secretly a Zionist agent, or you've come to grips with reality.
"We don't know whether he's linked with al-Qaida or other foreign organizations, but his actions were the acts of a terrorist. We caught him red-handed," said Barise.
A Nairobi-based diplomat said the incident in Somalia is similar to the attempted attack on the Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day in that the Somali man had a syringe, a bag of powdered chemicals and liquid — tools similar to those used in the Detroit attack. The diplomat spoke on condition he not be identified because he isn't authorized to release the information.
Barigye Bahoku, the spokesman for the African Union military force in Mogadishu, said the chemicals from the Somali suspect could have caused an explosion that would have caused air decompression inside the plane.
This is nothing major, but its always worth pointing out the degree to which 9/11 deniers have to shut themselves out to reality. There is daily proof that there is organic, home-grown terrorist sentiment out there, people all over the world who are willing to do the open society harm.
Either you believe that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and every twit like him on earth is secretly a Zionist agent, or you've come to grips with reality.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Bomb in Pakistan kills 43
Rescue teams have established a death count of forty-three from a bomb that went off last night in Pakistan, according to a blog operating out of Pakistan.
Not relevant to 9/11 denial, you say? Think again. One of the main points I try to push in every debate I have against a denier is that they are not actually fighting just against the laws of physics, a damning body of forensic evidence against the hijackers, and overwhelming evidence against the current leadership of Al Qaeda. They are literally pretending that decades of history never happened. In their world, Ronald Reagan built Osama bin Laden out of old T-1000 parts, he fought the Communists until we were done with him, and then he lay dormant in a warehouse in Area 51 until we needed him again. Their view is false.
They have to pretend that there are no deep ideological rifts in the Muslim world. They have to pretend that there is no cultural backdrop to the terrorism we see in the world today. Their worldview forces them to believe that there are not millions of people around the world, with their own livelihood, personal beliefs, plans and connections willing to do harm in the name of their faith. For them, Muslim cultural evolution literally must stop in the 1880s.
9/11 deniers are often accused of living in a fantasy land, a world of black and white where there is essentially one homogenous group of bad people (mostly composed of the kinds of people we were really, really annoyed by in high school, I think!) and everyone else - everyone else - is just a puppet.
A big part of why the denier movement has completely fallen apart is because they're forced to find a conspiracy theory in basically every violent action that happens in the world. Though there is a damning silence on their part over the obviously organic 12/25 incident aboard Flight 253, their attempts to conjure a fantasy world around every act of obvious terrorism, which their faith requires them to make, are probably a big part of the reason why none of them really appear to believe themselves anymore.
Monday's bombing struck at the start of a procession of Shiites marking Ashoura, the most important day of a monthlong mourning period for the seventh-century death of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson, Imam Hussein. Minority Shiites have suffered frequent attacks by Sunni extremist groups who regard them as heretical.
"I fell down when the bomb went off with a big bang," said Naseem Raza, a 26-year-old who was marching in the procession. "I saw walls stained with blood and splashed with human flesh."
Not relevant to 9/11 denial, you say? Think again. One of the main points I try to push in every debate I have against a denier is that they are not actually fighting just against the laws of physics, a damning body of forensic evidence against the hijackers, and overwhelming evidence against the current leadership of Al Qaeda. They are literally pretending that decades of history never happened. In their world, Ronald Reagan built Osama bin Laden out of old T-1000 parts, he fought the Communists until we were done with him, and then he lay dormant in a warehouse in Area 51 until we needed him again. Their view is false.
They have to pretend that there are no deep ideological rifts in the Muslim world. They have to pretend that there is no cultural backdrop to the terrorism we see in the world today. Their worldview forces them to believe that there are not millions of people around the world, with their own livelihood, personal beliefs, plans and connections willing to do harm in the name of their faith. For them, Muslim cultural evolution literally must stop in the 1880s.
9/11 deniers are often accused of living in a fantasy land, a world of black and white where there is essentially one homogenous group of bad people (mostly composed of the kinds of people we were really, really annoyed by in high school, I think!) and everyone else - everyone else - is just a puppet.
A big part of why the denier movement has completely fallen apart is because they're forced to find a conspiracy theory in basically every violent action that happens in the world. Though there is a damning silence on their part over the obviously organic 12/25 incident aboard Flight 253, their attempts to conjure a fantasy world around every act of obvious terrorism, which their faith requires them to make, are probably a big part of the reason why none of them really appear to believe themselves anymore.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
The government did 12/25?
Because 9/11 denial requires that there be no such thing as genuine terrorism, you can bet that places like PrisonPlanet is having a field day. 911truth.org is tellingly silent. No word yet from our Facebook friends!
For those living under a rock on Mars 3,000 years in the past, yesterday aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 over Detroit, MI Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab was disarmed by two passengers, neither of whom were apparently flight marshals. The nature of the explosive he brought and assembled on board is still being investigated.
So, 9/11 deniers? There's no such thing as terrorism, right? Obama orchestrated this because he's slightly more popular at the end of his first calendar year than Reagan was at the same time and that means he's in electoral danger, right? He needs to help justify sending more troops to Afghanistan which he already did a month ago, right?
Lets see what kind of malarkey has already surfaced out of this one. Taken straight from the comments at prisonplanet's articles, each more pathetically vaguely implicative than the next (the terrorist seemed strangely 'stunned,' mumbles one). Plenty of readers of Alex Jones' personal money shed are happy to chime in on his behalf:
yo Says:
December 26th, 2009 at 7:46 am
manchurian candidate 10000000000000%
Huggles Reply:
December 26th, 2009 at 9:54 am
Probably not a manchurian candidate but some guy quietly sitting on his chair and something been thrown on him that ignited.
Aidan Monaghan reply:
December 26th, 2009 at 2:50 am
The first in a series of stage-setting events before the next major false flag event? (like the interantional bombings that preceded 9/11)
Or just a carefully timed holiday “reminder” of a western-manufactured threat (Al Qaeda) with a guaranteed large audience of at-home holiday celebrants watching TV, tens of millions of whom will be “re-reminded” at more scrutinized airport security screening points upon their return flights.
“Attacking” the aviation industry is a fabulous means of conditioning tens of millions of the public to the presence of the “Big Brother” apparatus at your conveniently located local airport.
Charles Reply:
December 26th, 2009 at 6:08 am
Isn’t it funny that the man is claiming the device its from Yemen, only now as the offensive of the war on terror is moving to Yemen?
candleinthecave Reply:
December 26th, 2009 at 7:26 am
Or more likely he could be a Manchurian candidate type brainwashed patsy.
Mike Adkison Says:
December 25th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
NO ONE can come forward and claim to work for Al Queda, because Al Queda is a term invented by counter terrorism coordinator Richard Clark. It means “the base”, coming from a data base aquired that had names of perceived terrorists. There is no organization, per se, named Al Queda. This story is totally hokey, same goes for the arms bound for Iran story. Their lies are becoming totally transparent. They are fooling no one but the fools. Are they quite proud of themselves for that?
MIKE Says:
December 25th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
ABSOLUTE BULLs---….This is another false flag..to get the amerikan sheeple yet again..to be driven to the pavement like pigs as they now must endure demonic searches of their person at the airp[orts during this holiday season..THEY MAY EXPLODE…WHICH WILL CAUSE MARTIAL LAW…YOU HEARD IT HERE..mj ssg usa ret
BA911Truth Says:
December 26th, 2009 at 5:35 am
IT’S ALL STAGED BY THE CIA! WE ALL KNOW THAT! AL-QAEDA EXISTS ONLY IN THE MINDS OF BILDERBERGERS LIKE ZBIGNIEW BRZENSKI!
And, of course, the most trenchant insights thus far:
wolf56 Reply:
December 25th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
Charlie Sheen getting arrested sounds like a setup!
fromtheoutsidein Reply:
December 26th, 2009 at 4:45 am
SET-UP!!!
See? I'm not kidding when I say that 9/11 deniers are forced to argue that there's literally no such thing as terrorism to support their religion.
For those living under a rock on Mars 3,000 years in the past, yesterday aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 over Detroit, MI Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab was disarmed by two passengers, neither of whom were apparently flight marshals. The nature of the explosive he brought and assembled on board is still being investigated.
So, 9/11 deniers? There's no such thing as terrorism, right? Obama orchestrated this because he's slightly more popular at the end of his first calendar year than Reagan was at the same time and that means he's in electoral danger, right? He needs to help justify sending more troops to Afghanistan which he already did a month ago, right?
Lets see what kind of malarkey has already surfaced out of this one. Taken straight from the comments at prisonplanet's articles, each more pathetically vaguely implicative than the next (the terrorist seemed strangely 'stunned,' mumbles one). Plenty of readers of Alex Jones' personal money shed are happy to chime in on his behalf:
yo Says:
December 26th, 2009 at 7:46 am
manchurian candidate 10000000000000%
Huggles Reply:
December 26th, 2009 at 9:54 am
Probably not a manchurian candidate but some guy quietly sitting on his chair and something been thrown on him that ignited.
Aidan Monaghan reply:
December 26th, 2009 at 2:50 am
The first in a series of stage-setting events before the next major false flag event? (like the interantional bombings that preceded 9/11)
Or just a carefully timed holiday “reminder” of a western-manufactured threat (Al Qaeda) with a guaranteed large audience of at-home holiday celebrants watching TV, tens of millions of whom will be “re-reminded” at more scrutinized airport security screening points upon their return flights.
“Attacking” the aviation industry is a fabulous means of conditioning tens of millions of the public to the presence of the “Big Brother” apparatus at your conveniently located local airport.
Charles Reply:
December 26th, 2009 at 6:08 am
Isn’t it funny that the man is claiming the device its from Yemen, only now as the offensive of the war on terror is moving to Yemen?
candleinthecave Reply:
December 26th, 2009 at 7:26 am
Or more likely he could be a Manchurian candidate type brainwashed patsy.
Mike Adkison Says:
December 25th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
NO ONE can come forward and claim to work for Al Queda, because Al Queda is a term invented by counter terrorism coordinator Richard Clark. It means “the base”, coming from a data base aquired that had names of perceived terrorists. There is no organization, per se, named Al Queda. This story is totally hokey, same goes for the arms bound for Iran story. Their lies are becoming totally transparent. They are fooling no one but the fools. Are they quite proud of themselves for that?
MIKE Says:
December 25th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
ABSOLUTE BULLs---….This is another false flag..to get the amerikan sheeple yet again..to be driven to the pavement like pigs as they now must endure demonic searches of their person at the airp[orts during this holiday season..THEY MAY EXPLODE…WHICH WILL CAUSE MARTIAL LAW…YOU HEARD IT HERE..mj ssg usa ret
BA911Truth Says:
December 26th, 2009 at 5:35 am
IT’S ALL STAGED BY THE CIA! WE ALL KNOW THAT! AL-QAEDA EXISTS ONLY IN THE MINDS OF BILDERBERGERS LIKE ZBIGNIEW BRZENSKI!
And, of course, the most trenchant insights thus far:
wolf56 Reply:
December 25th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
Charlie Sheen getting arrested sounds like a setup!
fromtheoutsidein Reply:
December 26th, 2009 at 4:45 am
SET-UP!!!
See? I'm not kidding when I say that 9/11 deniers are forced to argue that there's literally no such thing as terrorism to support their religion.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Oh, those poor voices of reason
First of all, happy holidays to all our readers from CRNU! Too many holidays to go around, but, whichever one(s) you're celebrating... enjoy!
Second, check out what happens when someone curious member of "the movement" dares ask why most 9/11 deniers are obsessed with promoting blind bigotry than that whole, you know, capital-T Truth business. This is from one of the few remaining 9/11 denier Facebook groups.
"Hey guys... every stupid thing you have to say about Jewish people is embarrassing and has been debunked since 2003."
"Oh yeah, shill? What about all these nonsensical claims from 2002?"
"She's one of them!"
Present as always is one of our former regular trolls, who lists as his "home page" this unbelievable website, who hails as one of its heroes the openly racist, post-successful Henry Ford. Pleading its readers to "please hear what he had to say" in his screed The International Jew, iamthewitness demonstrates Ford buying everything from the fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion to the belief that Jews caused alcoholism.
Demonstrating that, between 1921 and 2009, nothing has changed about how rabid bigots see the world. All that has changed are their excuses.
Second, check out what happens when someone curious member of "the movement" dares ask why most 9/11 deniers are obsessed with promoting blind bigotry than that whole, you know, capital-T Truth business. This is from one of the few remaining 9/11 denier Facebook groups.
"Hey guys... every stupid thing you have to say about Jewish people is embarrassing and has been debunked since 2003."
"Oh yeah, shill? What about all these nonsensical claims from 2002?"
"She's one of them!"
Present as always is one of our former regular trolls, who lists as his "home page" this unbelievable website, who hails as one of its heroes the openly racist, post-successful Henry Ford. Pleading its readers to "please hear what he had to say" in his screed The International Jew, iamthewitness demonstrates Ford buying everything from the fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion to the belief that Jews caused alcoholism.
Demonstrating that, between 1921 and 2009, nothing has changed about how rabid bigots see the world. All that has changed are their excuses.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Just a real quick one here
In case you guys aren't yet members of our awesome Facebook group, this is something you've been missing out on. One of our more particularly rude trolls wanders in and posts a wall of links that he himself had apparently never read a word of; said links get systematically refuted, and a tantrum ensues.
Come along, and bring the popcorn!
Come along, and bring the popcorn!
What? Sloppy research at Killtown? Never!
The most recent Killtown post has finally found the smoking gun in that one newspaper reported that the flight recorders had been found before other newspapers did.
CNN reported finding the Flight 93 black box on the 13th, and cockpit voice recorder was found "late Friday," the 14th.
Killtown in its desperation has compared this to the notorious 9/11 deniers' goof of thinking that "the government" (whoever that is) gave away their "master plan" because a reporter from the BBC announced that WTC 7 was probably going to collapse when WTC 7 was in fact probably going to collapse. Of course, that neither the dozens of people on the BBC staff who could've come forward to agree with how suspicious that would be nor the staff of my own current residence's newspaper - nor that this would mean indicting the freakin' BBC and the Post-Gazette in 9/11 - has apparently phased the increasingly desperate denialist movement.
I find that with troubling regularity 9/11 deniers refuse to engage in second-order cognition. This piece starts and ends with, "one newspaper said something before other newspapers did," but refuse to consider that, when they get their day in court (broken link unintentional... get it?), their evidence here will be, "one newspaper said something different than what another newspaper said, therefore... rest my case!"
No, Killtown. First of all, it is ambiguous which day your first link is even referring to, because it simply gives a time, not a day, and believing WaPo's "government source" as the paragon of journalistic virtue is almost as ridiculous as, well... believing WaPo when it writes pretty much anything. In any other world, these guys are your "Zionist-owned media shills," so please, don't pretend you accept them uncritically now.
CNN reported finding the Flight 93 black box on the 13th, and cockpit voice recorder was found "late Friday," the 14th.
Killtown in its desperation has compared this to the notorious 9/11 deniers' goof of thinking that "the government" (whoever that is) gave away their "master plan" because a reporter from the BBC announced that WTC 7 was probably going to collapse when WTC 7 was in fact probably going to collapse. Of course, that neither the dozens of people on the BBC staff who could've come forward to agree with how suspicious that would be nor the staff of my own current residence's newspaper - nor that this would mean indicting the freakin' BBC and the Post-Gazette in 9/11 - has apparently phased the increasingly desperate denialist movement.
I find that with troubling regularity 9/11 deniers refuse to engage in second-order cognition. This piece starts and ends with, "one newspaper said something before other newspapers did," but refuse to consider that, when they get their day in court (broken link unintentional... get it?), their evidence here will be, "one newspaper said something different than what another newspaper said, therefore... rest my case!"
No, Killtown. First of all, it is ambiguous which day your first link is even referring to, because it simply gives a time, not a day, and believing WaPo's "government source" as the paragon of journalistic virtue is almost as ridiculous as, well... believing WaPo when it writes pretty much anything. In any other world, these guys are your "Zionist-owned media shills," so please, don't pretend you accept them uncritically now.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Holy moley, we're celebrities!
Speculating ludicrously about our romantic lives, demanding to know about our daily routines... I think these guys are trying to let a few ad homs and death threats go to my head!
The sad:
They think our awesome Facebook group is shrinking when it is, slowly but surely, growing. We keep track of this sort of thing, guys!
"Ken C's" quote that "if I told you I had a red apple and I even took a picture showing it was red... they would still argue that apples can be green!!! LOL"
...apples... can, in fact, be green.
His further assertion is that us skeptics have nothing on our side but name-calling. Really, Ken? I know, we're such a "shill cult," that must be all us poor skeptics have...
One of our wackier trolls, the guy whose only personal interest appears to be about the romantic lives of other men, is also apparently trying to convince himself of his own intent in trolling our group. At least he admitted he had a bit of lying issue going on, and was apparently rather hopeful in finding other sexual perverts, but really man, "going to apologize" was clearly not the intent of your latest happy visit to our group.
This is what these guys really seem to be interested in these days. Hint: It ain't that old "truth about 9/11" thing...
And next, these guys are sitting around speculating if I've broken up with my (wicked awesome and basically perfect) girlfriend? If you're finally in the business of apologizing for being caught BSing, guys, you've got a lot of work to do!
I mean... y'all do know you're saying these things in public, right?
The sad:
They think our awesome Facebook group is shrinking when it is, slowly but surely, growing. We keep track of this sort of thing, guys!
"Ken C's" quote that "if I told you I had a red apple and I even took a picture showing it was red... they would still argue that apples can be green!!! LOL"
...apples... can, in fact, be green.
His further assertion is that us skeptics have nothing on our side but name-calling. Really, Ken? I know, we're such a "shill cult," that must be all us poor skeptics have...
One of our wackier trolls, the guy whose only personal interest appears to be about the romantic lives of other men, is also apparently trying to convince himself of his own intent in trolling our group. At least he admitted he had a bit of lying issue going on, and was apparently rather hopeful in finding other sexual perverts, but really man, "going to apologize" was clearly not the intent of your latest happy visit to our group.
This is what these guys really seem to be interested in these days. Hint: It ain't that old "truth about 9/11" thing...
And next, these guys are sitting around speculating if I've broken up with my (wicked awesome and basically perfect) girlfriend? If you're finally in the business of apologizing for being caught BSing, guys, you've got a lot of work to do!
I mean... y'all do know you're saying these things in public, right?
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Talk about a smoking gun
When wikileaks released a list of all the text messages sent on 9/11 in New York City as it could find, I figured many of the words of the victims and heroes of the attack (whom 9/11 deniers honor and respect, of course) could look forward to their words being skewered, taken out of context, or simply fabricated. Apparently, the movement is in such a state of disarray they couldn't even get behind any particular misinterpretation of quoted text to get behind, because it seems that about all they could get out of 450,000 communiques is:
I know its a little blurry, but note the childish, entirely fictional narrative this guy writes around a text message that he thinks was sent by one of the fictional perpetrators of what would've been the most elaborate conspiracy in history, that has a frowny-face emoticon at the end.
You can check the wikileaks page yourself because you might not believe what the "it" in that text actually is. Really guys, this is it. This is the smoking gun. Proof of what really happened on 9/11. From just one minute prior to this damning smoking gun:
The Government brought down the Risotto.
Indeed, 9/11 denier. Indeed.
2001-09-11 08:44:57 Arch [1276419] A ALPHA
CANT BRING IT DOWN EVERYONE WILL KNOW :( 096
I know its a little blurry, but note the childish, entirely fictional narrative this guy writes around a text message that he thinks was sent by one of the fictional perpetrators of what would've been the most elaborate conspiracy in history, that has a frowny-face emoticon at the end.
You can check the wikileaks page yourself because you might not believe what the "it" in that text actually is. Really guys, this is it. This is the smoking gun. Proof of what really happened on 9/11. From just one minute prior to this damning smoking gun:
2001-09-11 08:43:09 Arch [1276419] A ALPHA
RIZZOTTO IN LOCKER W/FORK :) 096
The Government brought down the Risotto.
Indeed, 9/11 denier. Indeed.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
The whole "who benefitted" thing
Notoriously lousy arguer Kevin Ryan had a post at 911truth.org blaming another significant percentage of the United States for 9/11, this time ranging from most of Cornell University's honor roll, the employees of Bank of Credit and Commerce International, and one of our old favorites, Henry Kissinger. They were all responsible for 9/11 because they, of course, "benefited" from it.
Ryan has helped push thousands of dollars in books, DVDs, and promotional tours based on his beliefs about 9/11, by the way.
Equivocating knowing the friend of a friend from back in college who is the pseudo-affiliated board member of a security firm invested in by companies that work at the World Trade Center with being caught in the basement with a bag of dynamite, Ryan really offers nothing new, which eight years out should be absolutely unsurprising.
The errors of this line of thinking are obvious. Consider an advertising firm that makes millions of dollars designing the marketing campaign for a brand of grape jelly. Kevin Ryan would be forced to infer that the CEO of this advertising firm is secretly the person who invented that brand of jelly. Pretty much everyone in the world benefited from the death of Joseph Stalin. Kevin Ryan would be forced to infer that everyone on earth simultaneously assassinated him.
Also consider that he's just plain wrong: if a fundamentalist Muslim commits suicide with the belief that he's in for an eternal paradise of unending happiness, it is probable that he benefited the most from his actions. There is a deafening aura of stupidity emanating from 9/11 deniers caused by the fact that they have to force themselves to pretend that Muslim extremists don't believe what they believe.
Also, of course, you have to assume that there was no cost to any of the literally millions of people Frank Ryan believe were involved from the deaths of 3,000 of their countrymen. But for those of us in the reality-based community, that goes without saying.
Ryan has helped push thousands of dollars in books, DVDs, and promotional tours based on his beliefs about 9/11, by the way.
Equivocating knowing the friend of a friend from back in college who is the pseudo-affiliated board member of a security firm invested in by companies that work at the World Trade Center with being caught in the basement with a bag of dynamite, Ryan really offers nothing new, which eight years out should be absolutely unsurprising.
The errors of this line of thinking are obvious. Consider an advertising firm that makes millions of dollars designing the marketing campaign for a brand of grape jelly. Kevin Ryan would be forced to infer that the CEO of this advertising firm is secretly the person who invented that brand of jelly. Pretty much everyone in the world benefited from the death of Joseph Stalin. Kevin Ryan would be forced to infer that everyone on earth simultaneously assassinated him.
Also consider that he's just plain wrong: if a fundamentalist Muslim commits suicide with the belief that he's in for an eternal paradise of unending happiness, it is probable that he benefited the most from his actions. There is a deafening aura of stupidity emanating from 9/11 deniers caused by the fact that they have to force themselves to pretend that Muslim extremists don't believe what they believe.
Also, of course, you have to assume that there was no cost to any of the literally millions of people Frank Ryan believe were involved from the deaths of 3,000 of their countrymen. But for those of us in the reality-based community, that goes without saying.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Isn't it time to prove his innocence?
You know, for all its refusal to answer e-mails, its sporadic and inconsistent updates and alerts, its sloppily-written articles and its graveyard of links that comprise its "resources" section, 911truth.org's user bar at the top of its site is actually quite nicely designed. Its drop-down links make for easy navigation, and its no trouble to access any of its content. Hence my confusion when I tried to use its search function:
Why aren't there more articles about the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed trial? Isn't his innocence incredibly easy to prove? After all, we all keep hearing about how "obvious" it is that 9/11 didn't happen the way that it appears to have happened, so where's his defense team? Are any 9/11 deniers planning the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed defense fund?
Why aren't there more articles about the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed trial? Isn't his innocence incredibly easy to prove? After all, we all keep hearing about how "obvious" it is that 9/11 didn't happen the way that it appears to have happened, so where's his defense team? Are any 9/11 deniers planning the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed defense fund?
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Stay on message, people
A quick peek at probably the only remaining active 9/11 denier Facebook group:
Anyone even kind of familiar with the usual litany of anti-Semitic buzzwords out there should be shaking their heads - but not out of surprise, of course.
Anyone even kind of familiar with the usual litany of anti-Semitic buzzwords out there should be shaking their heads - but not out of surprise, of course.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
A few false statements in today's randomly selected PrisonPlanet article
Perhaps this is why even the 9/11 deniers are having a hard time posting their ideas there anymore. An opinion post from this week on PP below, with errors pointed out.
No credibility, indeed. Later on (citing others not within the denier movement) this article actually makes some good points about the battlefield uselessness of the war on terror. But co-opted and wrapped up in garbage like this, it can not be taken seriously. 9/11 deniers, please stop grafting your ludicrous beliefs over legitimate and justified political views.
The War Against Muslim Extremists is Wholly Unnecessary for Our National Security
Washington’s Blog
Tuesday, Dec 1st, 2009
In response to my essays documenting that war is harmful to the American economy (false) and produces a huge carbon footprint (infinitesimal; see the only attempt I could find to justify this statement here), some commentators have argued that the Afghanistan and Iraq wars are necessary to combat Muslim extremists.
Even putting aside the fact that Saddam was an atheist (false) who hated Muslims (ridiculously false), the argument holds no credibility.
No credibility, indeed. Later on (citing others not within the denier movement) this article actually makes some good points about the battlefield uselessness of the war on terror. But co-opted and wrapped up in garbage like this, it can not be taken seriously. 9/11 deniers, please stop grafting your ludicrous beliefs over legitimate and justified political views.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Today's absolutely pathetic claim
The desperation speaks for itself.
In the course of running the 9/11 Commission, Philip Zelikow wanted to make sure communication flowed smoothly and quickly between investigators and Commission members. The banality, she burns.
Fenton quotes Philip Shenon's book The Commission to paint this memo as a humiliating act of intended censorship foisted upon investigators by the evil Philip Zelikow. That Zelikow is now biting the hand that fed him for the Bush Administration's attempts to break the law on torture appears to be irrelevant, or at least inexpedient, for these guys.
Posted at the History Commons Groups
by Kevin Fenton
November 27, 2009
We have found the famous "What Do I Do Now?" memo drafted by 9/11 Commission Executive Director Philip Zelikow on March 2, 2003. The memo advised staffers newly hired by the commission what they should do after starting work...Philip Shenon's The Commission highlighted the memo and one controversial section in particular. The section says:
Interactions with commissioners can be helpful to you and them. If you are contacted by a commissioner with questions, please contact Chris [Kojm, Zelikow's deputy] or me. Consulting with the Chair and Vice-Chair, we will be sure that the appropriate members of the Commission staff are responsive.
In the course of running the 9/11 Commission, Philip Zelikow wanted to make sure communication flowed smoothly and quickly between investigators and Commission members. The banality, she burns.
Fenton quotes Philip Shenon's book The Commission to paint this memo as a humiliating act of intended censorship foisted upon investigators by the evil Philip Zelikow. That Zelikow is now biting the hand that fed him for the Bush Administration's attempts to break the law on torture appears to be irrelevant, or at least inexpedient, for these guys.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
A real boon year for 9/11 deniers
An amazing turnout in New Zealand, thousands of dollars made in Australia... closing the doors on their online business, falling short by 75% of their needed annual donations...
.JPG)
Our friends at JREF found that the international tour is a money sink, and this quick peek at the main hub of denier self-congratulatory falsehoods helps push the point. (Link courtesy of our friends at the always fantastic SLC)
For being generally comprised of the craziest subset of libertarians, these guys apparently don't make for very good capitalists.
.JPG)
Our friends at JREF found that the international tour is a money sink, and this quick peek at the main hub of denier self-congratulatory falsehoods helps push the point. (Link courtesy of our friends at the always fantastic SLC)
For being generally comprised of the craziest subset of libertarians, these guys apparently don't make for very good capitalists.
Friday, November 27, 2009
What happened to Prisonplanet?
Number of posts containing the word "climate" on PrisonPlanet's today: twenty-four.
Number of posts containing the word "9/11" on PrisonPlanet today: one.
Number of posts containing the word "climate" on PrisonPlanet two years ago: zero.
Number of posts containing the word "9/11" on PrisonPlanet two years ago: twenty-two.
Shill much, guys?
Number of posts containing the word "9/11" on PrisonPlanet today: one.
Number of posts containing the word "climate" on PrisonPlanet two years ago: zero.
Number of posts containing the word "9/11" on PrisonPlanet two years ago: twenty-two.
Shill much, guys?
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Refuting Another "Open-Source Journal" (read: Blog) post
So I found a couple of pretty thorough refutations of the Jones et al. Blog post (er, "open-source journal post") about "thermite" in the ruins of 9/11. This has been fairly trounced here. Here we'll touch on some of the basic statistical errors their post made, and the basic flaws with their analysis. The rest I leave to the chemical engineering majors.
It's already been well established that the sample data Jones et al. borrow don't contain thermite. They contain kaolinite. In fact, because the data they used in the paper is open-source, you can do the analysis yourself, as one gentleman over at JREF did.
I'll make this refutation quick. The first thing I noticed is that Jones et al. didn't actually collect any samples - "private citizens of New York" mailed them chunks of anonymous material that they simply trusted to be part of a representative scatter-sample of ruins of the buildings not collected from one concentrated area, which would introduce systematic error into their analysis. This is improbable - due to the cordoning off of sections of the site immediately after the attacks, it is probable that these samples are all from one small un-closed-off area and are hence useless for analytical purposes.
They offer a map purporting to demonstrate where the samples were found, but they have no way of ascertaining this. In fact, they actually lie about this in the content of the article - they say that, in "his videotaped testimony," one of the donors reports their precise location at the time the sample was collected. This is false - they say where they were when the tower fell. The second sample is even worse - they found "dust" "on a stack of folded laundry near a window." So they deliver a sample that is more than what may have been dust from the WTC site, and is possibly contaminated by cleaning agents, which linger in clothing after being washed. They can't even identify where the third sample came from - the best they have is the address of the envelope that the sample came on. Number four had been pieces of someone's apartment that she presumed were mostly-WTC building materials, and wouldn't enclose an affidavit testifying to the integrity of the sample. And what do they benchmark against? "Paint." Their control group isn't, say, a similar or target compound (that would require work, or academic rigor, or intellectual honesty, I suppose). It's paint.
So we don't actually have any evidence to work with. But let's give them the benefit of the doubt and excuse them this minor fraud - something you're good at when it's someone you've trained yourself to believe in already.
They then go on to contaminate their sample, as they themselves concede. After failing to get any interesting findings through a handful of methods, they go on to apply separating solvents to try to cull something useful to their religion from the material. As they say:
And then they decide that aluminum, iron and oxygen can only exist if they're dealing with thermite:
No word yet on if Jones knows what heat does to metal.
Particularly baffling language is used in explaining how they went about estimating how much of what kind of element they could see in each of their pictures:
Nothing else. Nothing else! How did they decide how suspicious they should be of their own data? Why, "A conventional quantitative analysis routine," of course. Nothing to be suspicious of there.
The key point of their analysis is simply, um, wrong:
This is simply not true. What the presence of such material necessitates is that this (small, non-representative) sample was previously subjected to temperatures that would produce that compound, not that the temperatures required to "set off" such a compound existed. No where in their study do they actually find that the elements they found were ever actually "compounded" into a thermitic configuration - they found the elements, then take some pictures of circular clumps in the debris, and use a nonexistent "quantitative method" to arrive at their pre-chosen conclusion.
Now that's science, folks.
And then we can just watch their conclusions devolve into further silliness from there:
See, they used a very, very tiny sample, therefore they're dealing with a "super-thermite" compound. After reading the high number of credulous cultists who willingly swallowed their article, I'm hoping that we'll get some responses from them just checking their understanding: Do you know that a <100nm sample does not mean you're dealing with a <100nm compound component? I.e., are you a better scientist than Steve Jones?
This thing is just a joke from front to back. Frankly, I don't understand what all the hullabaloo is about. How many 9/11 deniers have actually read this thing and can honestly say they find it convincing?
It's already been well established that the sample data Jones et al. borrow don't contain thermite. They contain kaolinite. In fact, because the data they used in the paper is open-source, you can do the analysis yourself, as one gentleman over at JREF did.
I'll make this refutation quick. The first thing I noticed is that Jones et al. didn't actually collect any samples - "private citizens of New York" mailed them chunks of anonymous material that they simply trusted to be part of a representative scatter-sample of ruins of the buildings not collected from one concentrated area, which would introduce systematic error into their analysis. This is improbable - due to the cordoning off of sections of the site immediately after the attacks, it is probable that these samples are all from one small un-closed-off area and are hence useless for analytical purposes.
They offer a map purporting to demonstrate where the samples were found, but they have no way of ascertaining this. In fact, they actually lie about this in the content of the article - they say that, in "his videotaped testimony," one of the donors reports their precise location at the time the sample was collected. This is false - they say where they were when the tower fell. The second sample is even worse - they found "dust" "on a stack of folded laundry near a window." So they deliver a sample that is more than what may have been dust from the WTC site, and is possibly contaminated by cleaning agents, which linger in clothing after being washed. They can't even identify where the third sample came from - the best they have is the address of the envelope that the sample came on. Number four had been pieces of someone's apartment that she presumed were mostly-WTC building materials, and wouldn't enclose an affidavit testifying to the integrity of the sample. And what do they benchmark against? "Paint." Their control group isn't, say, a similar or target compound (that would require work, or academic rigor, or intellectual honesty, I suppose). It's paint.
So we don't actually have any evidence to work with. But let's give them the benefit of the doubt and excuse them this minor fraud - something you're good at when it's someone you've trained yourself to believe in already.
They then go on to contaminate their sample, as they themselves concede. After failing to get any interesting findings through a handful of methods, they go on to apply separating solvents to try to cull something useful to their religion from the material. As they say:
"Prior to soaking the chip in MEK an XEDS spectrum was acquired from an area of the red-layer surface. The resulting spectrum, shown in Fig. (14), produced the expected peaks for Fe, Si, Al, O, and C. Other peaks included calcium, sulfur, zinc, chromium and potassium. The occurrence of these elements could be attributed to surface contamination due to the fact that the analysis was performed on the as-collected surface of the red layer. The large Ca and S peaks may be due to contamination with gypsum from the pulverized wallboard material in the buildings."
And then they decide that aluminum, iron and oxygen can only exist if they're dealing with thermite:
"To check the quantification method, tests were performed with the known chemical, iron (III) oxide, and the elemental quantification was found to yield consistent and repeatable results for iron and oxygen. In particular we made eight 50-second measurements on Fe2O3 samples and found consistency for iron (± 6.2%, 1 sigma) and for oxygen (± 3.4%, 1 sigma) with the O/Fe ratio consistently near 1.5 as expected. The existence of elemental aluminum and iron oxide leads to the obvious hypothesis that the material may contain thermite."
No word yet on if Jones knows what heat does to metal.
Particularly baffling language is used in explaining how they went about estimating how much of what kind of element they could see in each of their pictures:
"A conventional quantitative analysis routine was used to estimate the elemental contents."
Nothing else. Nothing else! How did they decide how suspicious they should be of their own data? Why, "A conventional quantitative analysis routine," of course. Nothing to be suspicious of there.
The key point of their analysis is simply, um, wrong:
"That thermitic reactions from the red/gray chips have indeed occurred in the DSC (rising temperature method of ignition) is confirmed by the combined observation of 1) highly energetic reactions occurring at approximately 430 °C, 2) iron-rich sphere formation so that the product
must have been sufficiently hot to be molten (over 1400 °C for iron and iron oxide), 3) spheres, spheroids and nonspheroidal residues in which the iron content exceeds the oxygen content. Significant elemental iron is now present as expected from the thermitic reduction-oxidation reaction of aluminum and iron oxide."
This is simply not true. What the presence of such material necessitates is that this (small, non-representative) sample was previously subjected to temperatures that would produce that compound, not that the temperatures required to "set off" such a compound existed. No where in their study do they actually find that the elements they found were ever actually "compounded" into a thermitic configuration - they found the elements, then take some pictures of circular clumps in the debris, and use a nonexistent "quantitative method" to arrive at their pre-chosen conclusion.
Now that's science, folks.
And then we can just watch their conclusions devolve into further silliness from there:
"Could the Red Material Be Unreacted “Super-
Thermite”?
We have noted that ordinary thermite acts as an incendiary when ignited. However, when the ingredients are ultrafine-grain and are intimately mixed, the mixture reacts very rapidly, even explosively. Thus, there is a highly energetic form of thermite known as an energetic nanocomposite or “super-thermite,” composed of aluminum and iron oxide with at least one component being approximately 100 nm or less, often along with silicon and carbon."
See, they used a very, very tiny sample, therefore they're dealing with a "super-thermite" compound. After reading the high number of credulous cultists who willingly swallowed their article, I'm hoping that we'll get some responses from them just checking their understanding: Do you know that a <100nm sample does not mean you're dealing with a <100nm compound component? I.e., are you a better scientist than Steve Jones?
This thing is just a joke from front to back. Frankly, I don't understand what all the hullabaloo is about. How many 9/11 deniers have actually read this thing and can honestly say they find it convincing?
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Required reading for all of us with strong opinions
...about anything, really.
http://www.psych.umn.edu/courses/spring07/borgidae/psy5202/readings/lord,%20ross%20&%20lepper%20(1979).pdf
Biased Assimilation and Attitude Polarization: The Effects of Prior Theories on Subsequently Considered Evidence
Charles G. Lord, Lee Ross, a n d Mark R. Lepper
Stanford University
http://www.psych.umn.edu/courses/spring07/borgidae/psy5202/readings/lord,%20ross%20&%20lepper%20(1979).pdf
Biased Assimilation and Attitude Polarization: The Effects of Prior Theories on Subsequently Considered Evidence
Charles G. Lord, Lee Ross, a n d Mark R. Lepper
Stanford University
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Israel is right, and Hamas (and, by extension, 9/11 deniers) is wrong
(This brief history of Israel terminates about 1/2 of the way down - to skip straight to the current conflict, find "(Now)" on this page)
In the Great War, the Ottoman Empire sided with Germany and lost. As a consequence, the Ottoman Empire was broken up in a series of "excessively punitive" treaties by the Allies, one of which prompted a revolution that resulted in the formation of Turkey and another few chunks of the British Empire being returned to indigenous rule. One of these chunks that had to be dealt with is an area that has been called Philistine, the Kingdon of Judah, Syria, Ieudea, lower Tiberias, Palestine Prima/Secunda/Tertia, Filastin, Damascus-Syria, Acre-Beirut-Nablus, the Jerusalem sanjak, and/or Palestine.
The League of Nations eventually managed to mandate some loosely organized area of another loosely organized area, Transjordan. This did not guarantee any sort of territorial stability, and the history of the ownership region remains in dispute. But one important part of this Mandate is relevant:
However, through the history of this mandate the French, the British, and neighboring Arab states all forced the Jews living there to relocate many times to appease the French and British's pet schemes for balancing the region between their respective empires. To repeat: The forced relocation of Jews was rampant in the region of Palestine throughout the first half of the 20th century.
And the Jews in Palestine were many and numerous. Cities with Hebrew names like Netanya, Tel Aviv, Bat Yam, Rehovot, Ashdod, Nir Yizhyq, Elat, En Yahav, En-gedi, Shermesh, etc., and the vast swaths of irrigated farmland in the region did not arise in a vacuum. Hundreds of thousands of Jews lived in the area - indeed, the efforts of many of these Jews are almost solely responsible for making the region livable in the 20th century.
When the United Nations was formed, most of the "relevant players" in the Middle East eagerly signed on. Britain, France, the United Arab Republic (today Syria and Egypt), Lebanon, Iran, and Saudi Arabia joined, agreed to abide by its rules, work together on its laws and mandates, and build a global community together. At the time, Britain "officially" owned Palestine in the eyes of the world, but Britain agreed to cede the region to the United Nations so that the world could agree on a solution to what was then known as "the Jewish question."
That should immediately end any question of Israel's "legitimacy as a state." Each of these nations contractually obligated their governments to work with and agree to the laws of the United Nations.
On May 14th, 1948, David Ben-Gurion accepted the independence of the state of Israel as the result of a majority vote in the United Nations and announced this to his people. On May 15th, 1948, Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League, declared war.
---Azzam Pasha, <24 hours after the establishment of Israel
And since that day - since a democratic decision over a patch of land handed over to the United Nations by its legal owners with the intent of benefiting those who lived there, cultivated it, and did the work necessary to make the land livable was violated in an act of pure, genocidal ethnocentrism and greed by the Arab League in the explicit interest of wiping millions of people and the nation of Israel off the face of the earth - Israel has been the bad guy.
Just before this decision was made, Palestine had attempted to help Hitler implement the Final Solution in the Middle East. Just after Israel's formation (less than a day, in fact) several Arab governments announced the goal of genocide of the Israeli people - one of those early declarations was made by the man who would later found the "freedom-fighting" organization known as the PLO. On that same day, those same nations expelled 750,000 Jews from their borders and urged Arab Israelis (who were not expelled from their land by the formation of Israel) to flee so as to "not get in the way of the seven invading armies." In 1967, much of the Middle East launched another failed genocidal war against Israel, and another in 1973; in 2001, Osama bin Laden declared an "international struggle" against Israel. In each case, Israel ceded land, restored original borders, and refused to push campaigns further in the name of peace.
Over those same years, roughly 1,000 terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians occurred within Israel. In 2000, peace was almost achieved in Geneva - until the sick joke of an organization Fatah (now called, in another sick joke, "moderate" by the media today) simply walked out of the peace negotiations. The deal in question would have given Palestine 97% of the land it wanted, $30 billion in aid, and a security guarantee. Fatah didn't even offer a counter-deal - it just declared an Intifadah and went home, where it was in turn ousted by the Palestinian electorate for not doing enough in the name of the genocide of the people of Israel. Enter Hamas.
Well, not really "enter" - Hamas has been around in many forms and in many nations for awhile - but when the organization came to power, its first goal was to make it clear to its constituents that genocide was a number one priority. Thus, it should be unsurprising that the Hamas Constitution contains a legally binding mandate to drive for the extermination of Israel. As soon as possible, Hamas began firing homemade rockets towards Israeli civilian centers.
(Now)
It is a lie that only three Israeli civilians have been killed by the Qassam rockets. 59 civilians and counting have been killed since 2006 - women, children, the elderly, soldiers, Israelis, Italians, Americans, a French teenager, an Ecuadorian, and others have been literally ripped to shreds by Qassam and Russian-made/Iranian-provided Katyusha rockets. Thousands of rockets have been fired, with the deliberate intent to massacre the innocent.
There are only so many windows of ones' childrens' rooms blown out by rocket impacts one can handle. There are only so many innocent people reduced to piles of flesh by suicide bombs full of nails and bolts that won't provoke a massive response. The lives of everyone entrusted to you can be deliberately endangered by genocidal, theocratic maniacs for only so long before your patience runs out.
Any claims of Israeli "overreaction" are pure fraud. You have probably heard the brainless dupes of Muslim terrorism argue that Israel should engage in a "proportional" response to Hamas; that is, they should only be allowed to engage their mortal enemy with the same flimsy hand-me-downs that Hamas has been attempting to exterminate Israel with for the better part of this millennium. Their sense of scale is completely off. The last thing on earth these credulous, gullible supporters of genocide would want would be for Israel to engage in the kinds of "proportional response" they think they want to see. Israel's neighbors have called for nothing less than the systematic extermination of its entire population (including, in some cases, the Arabs in Israel who comprised about one-fourth of its population). If Israel were to engage in an "appropriately proportional response" to the acts and intents of the Arab world, there would be a swath of scorched earth from Cairo to Tehran, from Beirut to Medina.
If you are so stupid as to cheer on the innocent mass murderers-in-waiting in Palestine as they valiantly defend their right to slaughter Israeli children, at least be thankful that Israel has routinely chosen not to be proportionally responsive to the scale of murder that you zealously pine for. Thank whomever you so choose that the Israeli military is morally superior to you in at least this respect.
If you support the majority-elected government of Hamas, you are a fool. If you think Israel shouldn't "overreact" to a half-century of provocation and attempted genocide, you have never had the life of a friend or loved one endangered - or are at least too sociopathic in nature to be taken seriously for being unable to empathize with such a situation. If you think it is somehow "Israel's fault" that every Palestinian government has either walked out on or outright violated any and every terms of peace in their history; that the rest of the Middle East won't pick up the tab for their fellow Arabs in Palestine but rather leave that to Israel and the U.N.; that the government of Palestine has proudly announced its use of human shields in every conflict thus far; you are a willing foot soldier in an army on the wrong side of morality, and clearly so to everyone who does not have a cult-like faith in everything opposed to civilization to defend.
Every Western supporter of Hamas must explain what is so ethical about using human beings as body armor and using civilian areas as firing points. You must explain why democratically-made decisions are inferior to authoritarian ones, why genocidal intent should be rewarded in the court of world opinion, and what exactly is so great about this particular version of fascistic theocracy (except the fact that you shall never have to live under it or experience the world it wants to bring to you). You must explain why the slaughter of civilians should be rewarded, why the violation of peace treaties and the deliberate refusal to engage in peace talks should be rewarded, and why murder should carry the great incentives you want to give to Hamas and every future Palestinian government - for you are not just wishing death upon millions now, but are wishing death upon countless more in the future by supporting the precedent of government-mandated genocide by Palestinians, for Palestinians (and, in the case of the human shields, of them).
Once you realize why you can't explain any of these things to those around you who are smarter than you, sit down and try to think about why you can not successfully convince yourself of these (as you must in order support the side you have been convinced to choose).
9/11 truthers take support for Hamas as a matter of faith: they must, they must, or they are "Zionists," as everyone who is smarter than them and knows more about the situation than they is a "Zionist." This, again, is pure fraud. None of us here at CRNU are "Zionists" in the true sense of that word. None of us think Israel is perfect - Israel is not perfect. None of us think that imminent action on behalf of saving Palestinian lives is unnecessary (especially considering those lives are currently in the hands of a government that would place them squarely into the laser sights). Everyone agrees that there is a better way. Neither Hamas, Fatah, nor Palestinian rejectionism as a political strategy represent that way.
In the Great War, the Ottoman Empire sided with Germany and lost. As a consequence, the Ottoman Empire was broken up in a series of "excessively punitive" treaties by the Allies, one of which prompted a revolution that resulted in the formation of Turkey and another few chunks of the British Empire being returned to indigenous rule. One of these chunks that had to be dealt with is an area that has been called Philistine, the Kingdon of Judah, Syria, Ieudea, lower Tiberias, Palestine Prima/Secunda/Tertia, Filastin, Damascus-Syria, Acre-Beirut-Nablus, the Jerusalem sanjak, and/or Palestine.
The League of Nations eventually managed to mandate some loosely organized area of another loosely organized area, Transjordan. This did not guarantee any sort of territorial stability, and the history of the ownership region remains in dispute. But one important part of this Mandate is relevant:
ART. 2.
The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble, and the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion.
However, through the history of this mandate the French, the British, and neighboring Arab states all forced the Jews living there to relocate many times to appease the French and British's pet schemes for balancing the region between their respective empires. To repeat: The forced relocation of Jews was rampant in the region of Palestine throughout the first half of the 20th century.
And the Jews in Palestine were many and numerous. Cities with Hebrew names like Netanya, Tel Aviv, Bat Yam, Rehovot, Ashdod, Nir Yizhyq, Elat, En Yahav, En-gedi, Shermesh, etc., and the vast swaths of irrigated farmland in the region did not arise in a vacuum. Hundreds of thousands of Jews lived in the area - indeed, the efforts of many of these Jews are almost solely responsible for making the region livable in the 20th century.
When the United Nations was formed, most of the "relevant players" in the Middle East eagerly signed on. Britain, France, the United Arab Republic (today Syria and Egypt), Lebanon, Iran, and Saudi Arabia joined, agreed to abide by its rules, work together on its laws and mandates, and build a global community together. At the time, Britain "officially" owned Palestine in the eyes of the world, but Britain agreed to cede the region to the United Nations so that the world could agree on a solution to what was then known as "the Jewish question."
That should immediately end any question of Israel's "legitimacy as a state." Each of these nations contractually obligated their governments to work with and agree to the laws of the United Nations.
On May 14th, 1948, David Ben-Gurion accepted the independence of the state of Israel as the result of a majority vote in the United Nations and announced this to his people. On May 15th, 1948, Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League, declared war.
This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.
---Azzam Pasha, <24 hours after the establishment of Israel
And since that day - since a democratic decision over a patch of land handed over to the United Nations by its legal owners with the intent of benefiting those who lived there, cultivated it, and did the work necessary to make the land livable was violated in an act of pure, genocidal ethnocentrism and greed by the Arab League in the explicit interest of wiping millions of people and the nation of Israel off the face of the earth - Israel has been the bad guy.
Just before this decision was made, Palestine had attempted to help Hitler implement the Final Solution in the Middle East. Just after Israel's formation (less than a day, in fact) several Arab governments announced the goal of genocide of the Israeli people - one of those early declarations was made by the man who would later found the "freedom-fighting" organization known as the PLO. On that same day, those same nations expelled 750,000 Jews from their borders and urged Arab Israelis (who were not expelled from their land by the formation of Israel) to flee so as to "not get in the way of the seven invading armies." In 1967, much of the Middle East launched another failed genocidal war against Israel, and another in 1973; in 2001, Osama bin Laden declared an "international struggle" against Israel. In each case, Israel ceded land, restored original borders, and refused to push campaigns further in the name of peace.
Over those same years, roughly 1,000 terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians occurred within Israel. In 2000, peace was almost achieved in Geneva - until the sick joke of an organization Fatah (now called, in another sick joke, "moderate" by the media today) simply walked out of the peace negotiations. The deal in question would have given Palestine 97% of the land it wanted, $30 billion in aid, and a security guarantee. Fatah didn't even offer a counter-deal - it just declared an Intifadah and went home, where it was in turn ousted by the Palestinian electorate for not doing enough in the name of the genocide of the people of Israel. Enter Hamas.
Well, not really "enter" - Hamas has been around in many forms and in many nations for awhile - but when the organization came to power, its first goal was to make it clear to its constituents that genocide was a number one priority. Thus, it should be unsurprising that the Hamas Constitution contains a legally binding mandate to drive for the extermination of Israel. As soon as possible, Hamas began firing homemade rockets towards Israeli civilian centers.
(Now)
It is a lie that only three Israeli civilians have been killed by the Qassam rockets. 59 civilians and counting have been killed since 2006 - women, children, the elderly, soldiers, Israelis, Italians, Americans, a French teenager, an Ecuadorian, and others have been literally ripped to shreds by Qassam and Russian-made/Iranian-provided Katyusha rockets. Thousands of rockets have been fired, with the deliberate intent to massacre the innocent.
There are only so many windows of ones' childrens' rooms blown out by rocket impacts one can handle. There are only so many innocent people reduced to piles of flesh by suicide bombs full of nails and bolts that won't provoke a massive response. The lives of everyone entrusted to you can be deliberately endangered by genocidal, theocratic maniacs for only so long before your patience runs out.
Any claims of Israeli "overreaction" are pure fraud. You have probably heard the brainless dupes of Muslim terrorism argue that Israel should engage in a "proportional" response to Hamas; that is, they should only be allowed to engage their mortal enemy with the same flimsy hand-me-downs that Hamas has been attempting to exterminate Israel with for the better part of this millennium. Their sense of scale is completely off. The last thing on earth these credulous, gullible supporters of genocide would want would be for Israel to engage in the kinds of "proportional response" they think they want to see. Israel's neighbors have called for nothing less than the systematic extermination of its entire population (including, in some cases, the Arabs in Israel who comprised about one-fourth of its population). If Israel were to engage in an "appropriately proportional response" to the acts and intents of the Arab world, there would be a swath of scorched earth from Cairo to Tehran, from Beirut to Medina.
If you are so stupid as to cheer on the innocent mass murderers-in-waiting in Palestine as they valiantly defend their right to slaughter Israeli children, at least be thankful that Israel has routinely chosen not to be proportionally responsive to the scale of murder that you zealously pine for. Thank whomever you so choose that the Israeli military is morally superior to you in at least this respect.
If you support the majority-elected government of Hamas, you are a fool. If you think Israel shouldn't "overreact" to a half-century of provocation and attempted genocide, you have never had the life of a friend or loved one endangered - or are at least too sociopathic in nature to be taken seriously for being unable to empathize with such a situation. If you think it is somehow "Israel's fault" that every Palestinian government has either walked out on or outright violated any and every terms of peace in their history; that the rest of the Middle East won't pick up the tab for their fellow Arabs in Palestine but rather leave that to Israel and the U.N.; that the government of Palestine has proudly announced its use of human shields in every conflict thus far; you are a willing foot soldier in an army on the wrong side of morality, and clearly so to everyone who does not have a cult-like faith in everything opposed to civilization to defend.
Every Western supporter of Hamas must explain what is so ethical about using human beings as body armor and using civilian areas as firing points. You must explain why democratically-made decisions are inferior to authoritarian ones, why genocidal intent should be rewarded in the court of world opinion, and what exactly is so great about this particular version of fascistic theocracy (except the fact that you shall never have to live under it or experience the world it wants to bring to you). You must explain why the slaughter of civilians should be rewarded, why the violation of peace treaties and the deliberate refusal to engage in peace talks should be rewarded, and why murder should carry the great incentives you want to give to Hamas and every future Palestinian government - for you are not just wishing death upon millions now, but are wishing death upon countless more in the future by supporting the precedent of government-mandated genocide by Palestinians, for Palestinians (and, in the case of the human shields, of them).
Once you realize why you can't explain any of these things to those around you who are smarter than you, sit down and try to think about why you can not successfully convince yourself of these (as you must in order support the side you have been convinced to choose).
9/11 truthers take support for Hamas as a matter of faith: they must, they must, or they are "Zionists," as everyone who is smarter than them and knows more about the situation than they is a "Zionist." This, again, is pure fraud. None of us here at CRNU are "Zionists" in the true sense of that word. None of us think Israel is perfect - Israel is not perfect. None of us think that imminent action on behalf of saving Palestinian lives is unnecessary (especially considering those lives are currently in the hands of a government that would place them squarely into the laser sights). Everyone agrees that there is a better way. Neither Hamas, Fatah, nor Palestinian rejectionism as a political strategy represent that way.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
The race for failure is on
Their goal? "$15K" for "this quarter."
Even though 911truth.org didn't even make $50K in all of last year, and the cult of denial has shrunken immensely over just the past few months, they're now trying to extract $10,000 dollars more from their gullible fans than their previous, unreached goal.
Here's to not noticing the revealed value your readers place on what you do, 911truth.org.
Even though 911truth.org didn't even make $50K in all of last year, and the cult of denial has shrunken immensely over just the past few months, they're now trying to extract $10,000 dollars more from their gullible fans than their previous, unreached goal.
Here's to not noticing the revealed value your readers place on what you do, 911truth.org.
Monday, January 5, 2009
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