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.

"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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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?

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:



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.

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?

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.

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.


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.