Alex Jones’ hysterical lunacy

Forget world-class liar. Alex Jones is just an idiot

I started watching a tragicomically predictable new Alex Jones video heralding bin Laden’s death as “Another Gov’t Lie” expecting some good meat for a post. Turns out I didn’t even make it that far. The video begins with what skeptics call a “Gish Gallop:” a debate tactic that involves making a series of statements so inane and obviously false that your opponent simply saps his/her allotted time in refuting them. I’m not accusing Jones of that level of cleverness; rather, I think he is both so stupid and so visibly intoxicated on the Kool-Aid that he just can’t help himself. As always Jones would rather float stupid statements rather than make evidence-based claims, and here they come:

-Initial media reports about Jessica were the doing of “the government.”

Except that it was The Pentagon that first spoke out against the initial, farcical Washington Post story that began the firestorm. And whose investigation was finally reported by WaPo in their self-praise-showered retraction. So this is just Jones being stupid about the who’s who: he’s confused “the government” with “the media,” one journalist from some sort of black ops media whiteout operation, and one shitty newspaper with a fictional government fraud campaign.

-…And those reports were scripted by Jerry Bruckheimer.

Okay, this one is clearly a lie on Jones’ part, so I guess there’s room for that, too. He outright says that Bruckheimer was “called in to script the story” about Lynch’s rescue. The admittedly hype-happy Guardian clarifies:

Back in 2001, the man behind Black Hawk Down, Jerry Bruckheimer, had visited the Pentagon to pitch an idea. Bruckheimer and fellow producer Bertram van Munster, who masterminded the reality show Cops, suggested Profiles from the Front Line, a primetime television series following US forces in Afghanistan. They were after human stories told through the eyes of the soldiers. Van Munster's aim was to get close and personal. He said: "You can only get accepted by these people through chemistry. You have to have a bond with somebody. Only then will they let you in. What these guys are doing out there, these men and women, is just extraordinary. If you're a cheerleader of our point of view - that we deserve peace and that we deal with human dignity - then these guys are really going out on a limb and risking their own lives."

It was perfect reality TV, made with the active cooperation of Donald Rumsfeld and aired just before the Iraqi war. The Pentagon liked what it saw. "What Profiles does is given another in depth look at what forces are doing from the ground," says Whitman. "It provides a very human look at challenges that are presented when you are dealing in these very difficult situations." That approached was taken on and developed on the field of battle in Iraq.

The Pentagon has none of the British misgivings about its media operation. It is convinced that what worked with Jessica Lynch and with other episodes of this war will work even better in the future.

So Jones’ timeline is backwards, his claim seems to be lifted from a metaphor being made in a Guardian piece and – oh, forget it. He wasn’t stupid here; he was dishonest.

-…And members of her unit who “blabbed” were killed by the government

Oh, did I mention that it was an active-duty deputy commander at CentCom who first called out the media on their story? Jones seems to be basing this point on the notion that members of Lynch’s unit began “dying in car crashes” and “getting shot in the head.” You know, classic government black ops. This seems to be Jones simply being stupid about statistics, as he fails to realize that returning veterans tend to have a higher young-life death rate than the general population. It may also be him being stupid about history, as many of those “outspoken” members of her unit were showered in awards and accolades by the military, even as they were speaking out about the media treatment of Lynch. This could also involve Jones being stupid about simple logic: Not only did members of her unit seem to pass away with no correlation to their speaking to the media, but they seemed to do so well after “the damage” was already done (again, “damage” direct at the media, not the military).

-…And “the government” told Lynch to lie about her story.

And it obviously didn’t work, due to, you know, that time she called out both the media for their horrific reporting and the military for later promoting the rescue operation, not the reports about Lynch herself. Oh, also that memoir she wrote.

-…Just like Pat Tillman, who “they” killed because he “was about to go home and speak out against the war.”

And without even giving Jones time to further raise my blood pressure on this one, let’s just make sure to point out that Tillman was an active and vocal critic of Iraq before he died. Hell, Jones had to have known that one – he had to lift Tillman’s own anti-Iraq invasion quotes from somewhere. And hell, afterwards, “the government” was pretty terrible at taking out the members of Tillman’s unit, the friends of Tillman, and Tillman’s family members who actively spoke out about what really happened to him. To say nothing about how bad “the government” is at covering up cases for which it dutifully hands out self-damning evidence. Okay, there’s little room for Jones’s defense there. I guess he’s a liar, too.

Jones is not known for subtlety; neither are his fellow stupid people. I think if he were pressed to discuss the obvious fraud he spews on a daily basis he would admit that he has no interest in reality, for he has already spun his own. It is one in which everyone who doesn't follow him religiously is his enemy, everyone who disagrees with his politics is a Satanic monster and there is no room for facts in a war of volume. This is a small blog representing a small community of dedicated skeptics; Alex Jones is a loud, aggressive blowhard with a horde of gullible followers at his back. It's time to stop pretending that all nonsense is equally worth serious inquiry. Jones's viewers are stupid enough to believe him, and that's their own fault. Until they start making an actual case that goes somewhere, they have given the rest of us nothing to address.

"International Hearings on the Events of September 11, 2001"

For what may be the third or fourth consecutive year the denier movement won’t be able to get enough attention in America to host a full-scale event and so is hosting its big conference in Toronto. I cut my teeth in Toronto at a CFI event debating AE911truther Doug Plumb. Toronto is the hub of 9/11 denial, and it makes sense in a lot of ways. The movement is driven by a handful of obscure postmodern academics – the staple of Canadian academia’s history departments.

This one looks to be pretty dull. The usual round of faces will headline the event – David Chandler, Richard Gage, Steven Jones… No new “whistleblowers” or fresh faces, unless you count the shockingly lame 9/11 newcomer du jour Niels Harrit.

In case you couldn't tell, this event won't actually include "hearings," in the technical sense of the word (though technical accuracy was never the movement's strong suit). Judging by the lineup its going to be yet another PowerPoint parade that takes itself far too seriously and accomplishes far too little except in terms of repeating the same hashed-out arguments about shoddy thermite research and since-refuted attacks on NIST and "the American government" (whoever that is) in general.

I base my cynicism purely on the event’s thus-far announced objectives, which read like a how-to guide for creating an echo chamber:

(1) To present evidence that the U.S. government’s official investigation into the events of September 11, 2001, as pursued by various government and government-appointed agencies, is seriously flawed and has failed to describe and account for the 9/11 events.
(2) To single out the most weighty evidence of the inadequacy of the U.S. government’s investigation; to organize and classify that evidence; to preserve that evidence; to make that evidence widely known to the public and to governmental, non-governmental and inter-governmental organizations.
(3) To submit a record and a summary of the Hearings, together with signed Statutory Declarations by witnesses, to relevant governments, groups and international agencies with the request that a full and impartial investigation be launched into the events of September 11, 2001, which have been used to initiate military invasions and to restrict the rights of citizens.
(4) To engage the attention of the public and media through witness testimony as well as through public talks and media events during the four day event.

Guesses: The event is going to be well-attended but not sold out. We will hear at least one presentation about “molten steel.” The movement will continue not to recognize its complete failure to gain a foothold in the mainstream. No one will present a case for bin Laden’s innocence. It will go largely unnoticed.

Ahem...

One: We're not going to say anything about the death of bin Laden. You have news sources that say much more than we could. You can already draw the necessary inferences about how the mere circumstances of the chase for bin Laden itself prove his role in global terrorism. To go on about bin Laden's death would be to reach for the low-hanging fruit of skeptical inquiry.

Two: Speaking of low-hanging fruit...

The author of the blog Killtown has announced "a challenge" to 911myths.com concerning some of his claims about Shanksville. He doesn't specify which - his link to his "challenge" is simply a link to his "Shanksville"-tagged posts - and says he'll settle for "anyone" addressing "any" of this claims.

This is odd, because we not only demonstrated the fallacious thinking in the very first post that comes up in his "Shanksville" list, but we commented to that effect on the post itself - it has since been deleted.

Killtown, that challenge was accepted weeks ago. Why are you destroying the evidence?

Niels Harrit - Copypasta Chef du Jour

The 9/11 denial community has been passing around an interview with Dr. Niels Harrit. At the outset of the interview he says that he was convinced to become a 9/11 denier by three Steven Jones DVDs. Sounds like a hell of a rational thought process. Here’s that interview.

It actually takes Harrit about two solid minutes of talking to commit his first error. Around the four thirty mark (he begins talking only at the end of his interviewer’s own charming little monologue) he says that three building collapsed “as a result” of the plane impacts. He makes the point that “two planes” caused “three skyscrapers” to collapse, a reference to the collapse of World Trade Center 7, which was not hit by a plane. This claim is actually false: In total, almost a dozen buildings were heavily damaged by falling debris in the same way that WTC 7 was, and most of them were eventually razed due to that damage.



But from there, he really picks up the momentum. He says that WTC 7 “fell straight down” (false), and even incredibly says that there is “no believable reason” WTC 7 collapsed. Obviously, 200,000,000 pounds of debris is insufficient for Dr. Harrit.


Dr. Harrit: 200,000,000 pounds of debris is INSUFFICIENT.

And then, of course, not only does he state that “the official report says that [all three] of these buildings collapsed due to office fires” (false) and then that such a thing “has never happened before” (false – irrelevant, but still false, dammit).

Here comes a doozie. Here comes one that’s going to get us some criticism from the deniers, always eager for an excuse to hold onto their faith. Here comes the part where I tell you that this is where I turned off the video, and stopped caring about what this guy has to say. I get it. I’m open-minded, I’m open to new claims and evidence, but that is not what Dr. Harrit was offering. Harrit was brainlessly parroting the same errors and falsehoods perpetrated by this dying cult for the past eight years, breathlessly committing the same simple factual errors. If Dylan Avery had taken out a copyright on his laundry list of idiotic statements about 9/11, he’d be a wealthy man by now – thanks in part to Dr. Harrit.

Guys, you’ve been caught telling too many lies. Too many of your key articles of faith have been exposed as obvious errors. You’ve fallen too far, and faced too many long-ignored refutations to think that the bullshit parade can continue to march apace. If your new mouthpiece is exactly as credulous and fact-ambivalent as the rest, he’s already forfeited his right to be taken seriously. Dr. Harrit: I yawn at you. You have nothing for me. You’re exactly as intellectually lazy as your dubious forebears. Don’t expect to be treated differently.

AE911T's push for a "major LA PR firm"

They don't mention which firm, the length of the contract they're seeking, how they're going to get it, or what that firm could plausibly do to improve the public image of "The Movement," but AE911T appears to have successfully raised enough money to accomplish its stated goal of "hiring a major LA PR firm."

Meanwhile, skeptics will continue to go unpaid for their magazine articles, blog in their spare time, meet up just for fun to express their share interest in lower case-t truth, not try to rule by media blitz, and not live in constant wealth-extraction mode for want of the sorts of semi-slick ad campaigns 9/11 deniers seem to salivate. At the same time, said deniers will continue to accuse all skeptics of being paid agents of the U.S. and/or Israeli governments, Satan and the Sirusian space-lizards, Walt Disney and the Ninja Turtles. And they will keep forking over meager sums for meager ad campaigns that have nothing to do with intellectual argumentation because they do not get the joke.

Numerology Makes a Comeback at Killtown

Killtown brings up an excellent point: Because there are thirty-three levels in the hierarchy of Freemasonry, the government did 9/11. No, really.

In the "I'm just sayin'" style that characterizes every statement of sheer lunacy announced cautiously to a readership that might-just-might be as crazy as the author, KT explains explains that we should all be suspicious that "thirty-three cars' worth of debris" lies below the crater of the plane that crashed in Shanksville. Give that one a second.

Out of habit, if nothing else, the logic the author uses to decide on the numer thirty-three bears a little refuting.

I wanted to show people how much 80% of a Boeing 757 roughly is so people can understand just how much plane debris would have come out of the Shanksville ground as officials claim. I chose to compare it with average weight of an average sized automobile, a compact sedan, of a year closest to when 9/11 happened that I could find and wouldn't you know it, the total came out to the infamous number 33.

In the post the author uses to come up with 33, he doesn't actually use the measurement he says he does. He claims that he based this on "the weight of an average sized automobile, a compact sedan, of a year closest to when 9/11 happened." That's actually the opposite of what he meant. He has decided to measure "the average compact sedan built in a year close to 9/11," not "the average car." What is the average mass of cars? What are we counting as a car - anything with tires and a combusion engine? Just in the U.S., or elsewhere? The "average vehicle's" weight is probably skewed by things like military jeeps. And why "the year closest to 9/11?" The laws of conjunction practically demand that the number of cars sold in either 2000 or 2001 would be, in September of 2001, drastically lower than the number of all cars sold in all years prior. So, as should go without saying, KT's measurement is bogus and he doesn't actually have a claim here.

But, really, who gives a shit? Even if KT knew anything about data measurement, his point is still hey look, the number thirty-three. That's his argument - oh, and a little "nuh uh!" at the end.

But let's not overlook my original intent of this comparison. The government is trying to tell us that 33 cars-worth of debris was supposedly underneath this shallow crater and they dug it all out.



Yeah, right.

You know it can't be true, because the numerologists don't want it to be true.

Two new pieces at 9/11 Studies blog!

Just in time to beat the "no articles in over a year" record for which it was headed, the blog called the Journal of 9/11 Studies released two new posts, one at the tail-end of January and another just recently in February. 911blogger brags, "Two new papers have been published..." I'm sure the review process was rigorous.

Especially considering the highly-relevant subject matter, at least of the first one: "Why Australia's Presence in Afghanistan is Untenable." In that paper, the notion that "the government" (whatever that means) is just an aside - its already taken as a given. Its an advocacy piece that flows forth from the conclusion that the world is against the author, and that the invasion of Afghanistan was based on the fraudulent notion that 9/11 was done by the same people who "get to" invade countries.

Fine. This blog is not designed to combat the idiotic notion that the United States has no legitimate interest in defending itself from its enemies. If you don't think something needs to be done about the horrific crimes the Taliban inflicts on its subjects, or that its clear and enduring terrorist presence doesn't pose a threat to the stability of the Western world, this blog is only tangentially here to counter that notion. You want out of Afghanistan? Okay, cool - maybe Australia doesn't face the same sorts of imminent threats other countries do, in your world. I suppose the most famous slaughter of Australians by religious terrorists was an accident of their presence in a "Muslim state" at the time. You're okay with that, fine. The ballot box has already ruled against you.

The second paper is a more clear-cut story. The January post is titled "Review of Analysis of Observed and Measured In-Flight Turns Suggests Superior Control of 9/11 Aircraft." So we know what its about - the planes being "hard to fly."

"Although human control of UA 175 cannot be ruled out, small margins for error are evident in the number of available degrees of bank that could generate impact with WTC 2 via a constant radius turn from approximately 1.5 miles distant. An error of 5 degrees of bank left or right seems largely indiscernible to an observer, but would generate substantial distances from a given target. To achieve impact via a mile-long plus constant radius banked turn, within an acceptable margin of error would seem to be a substantial challenge to a reportedly inexperienced pilot without aid. The CWS function would apparently provide an in-flight automated stability that would permit a pilot to apply greater attention to the course of an aircraft and consider whether additional maneuvers would be required."

Of course, this is base on a statistical falsehood. In nerdspeak, the false Bayesian prior of prior-determined plane pathway subject to natural error. In English, the false assumption that if the hijackers, say, swerved this way or that, they'd have totally missed the Towers. Please. We all see the glaring holes in this argument: One, planeside computers make it difficult to get off course at all, and easy to get back on course if you do; and if they did get "off course," course correction is possible. Commenters - is there more to this, or that really all there is to this paper? This is what passes for "academic" in Denier circles these days?