The day the university announced its decision to permit Kevin Barrett to teach the one course he was hired to teach, he appeared on "Hannity and Colmes," introduced by Alan Colmes as "University of Wisconsin professor Kevin Barrett." If those words had come out of Sean Hannity's mouth, it would have provided a good occasion to accuse Hannity of being slanted and out to paint UW as a bunch of radical crazies. But it came from Colmes, the show's liberal, so it's just a nice demonstration of how lots of folks don't notice the distinction between professors and lecturers, even part time lecturers like Barrett. He's teaching here. He's one of the professors as far as the general public is concerned.
Let's go to the videotape:
Colmes begins and tries to present Barrett in a fairly positive light by bringing out the facts that the course is not required, that the 9/11 conspiracy theory will take up "only about one week" of the course, that the students will not be required to "regurgitate" his theory, and that he means to inspire "critical thinking." (Smarter students, I note, may want to regurgitate.)
From the moment he begins speaking, Barrett twitches and jerks around quite oddly and speaks in a breathless, excited way. He tries to unload a torrent of words about the theory and won't stop to give Colmes a chance to get through his series of questions, which are quite clearly designed to put Barrett in a positive light. Barrett, however, is so keen on his theory, he'd rather spout conspiracy. He looks nutty even before Hannity starts the questions that are meant to trash him. That is, Barrett's a witness who mucks up the direct examination. It doesn't take cross-examination to bring out the problems.
When Hannity takes over, Barrett interrupts him in the middle of his first question. When Hannity insists on finishing the question, Barrett smugly goes "Yeah, yeah, finish up." On Hannity's show! As if he thinks the only people who are watching are folks who think Hannity's a jackass. Hannity asks him if he really believes 9/11 and other terrorists attacks were "an inside job." Barrett, inspiring no confidence that he will allow students to debate with him, says sharply, "I don't believe, I do know that 9/11 was an inside job." Barrett then tries to lay out the details of the theory. The word "thermate" comes out of his mouth. (It's supposed to be "thermite," but why be precise?) [ADDED: Apparently, there is something called "thermate," which, like thermite, has a role in the conspiracy theory.]
Hannity breaks in to say, "All right, so you believe that the buildings came down in a controlled demolition." Again, Barrett excludes the possibility of alternate theories: "Well, I don't believe it. I've looked at the evidence, and the evidence is overwhelming." Hannity's response is perfect: "All right, the evidence is overwhelming to you because you're a conspiracy nut." Hannity tries to set up his next question: "But putting that all aside..." That's perhaps the funniest line of the night, but it's stepped all over by Barrett, who motormouths conspiracy theory. Hannity goes ahead and asks his question with Barrett yammering over him. Hannity finally just lets the man babble. Then, he mutters, "Okay, I wish I had the 'Twilight Zone' music."
Hannity says, "Okay, here's my next question," and Barrett breaks in with a laugh and says "Okay, friend," and shrugs, looking quite pleased with himself, as if he believes he's getting the better of the exchange. As Hannity tries to ask the question, Barrett keeps interrupting, offering survey statistics that he seems to think show that people agree with him -- 60%! "You're in the minority," he tells Hannity. That is, we see Barrett garbling facts in real time, on camera.
Finally, Hannity gets Barrett to hear the question: Should extremists like you be allowed to teach? Barrett says: "No, you're the extremist. Fox News is the biggest bunch of extremists on the planet." He's got a huge laughing grin now. Hannity doesn't think Barrett should be teaching, and Barrett responds that he doesn't think Hannity should be on the air. "I think you guys should be taken off the airwaves, because you are the guys who are..." A desperate Colmes breaks in: "All right, we don't want to silence anybody...."
Colmes's attempt at the beginning to present Barrett in a good light by emphasizing that Barrett will bring debate and critical thinking to the classroom is all shot to hell. We've seen Barrett in action. Barrett retained his position here because we care about free speech values, but he slammed us in the face with his disrespect for free speech.
July 11, 2006
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«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 247 of 247Korla, you've got no shame. So Democrats are analogous to Muslims who don't decry TERRORISM!!!
Your examples on the right are pitiful, since the right could be called on daily to loudly excoriate the loudmouths on your side, all over the blogosphere, and oh, yes, that loudmouth moron Rush.
I'd like to see the right start by apologizing for its legions of self-righteous, hyperbolic fingerpointers. Get going, Korla. There's lots and lots of work to be done.
Gerry "little fish" Daly, have you given up anonymously moderating Free Republic and exerting your influence on its direction, or are you just enjoying a day off from riding roughshod over the herd?
It helps if you hold your arms straight out. It makes it harder to toss the net over you.
“How could 19 hijackers be responsible for the exorbitant increase in PUT OPTIONS placed on ONLY American and United Airlines in the days prior to 9/11?”
Read up further in the thread on posts debunking this one.
Besides that - Put options are placed on only one airline or another airline (like every other company) on a regular basis. The amount of options placed fluctuates and if a terrorist attack happens against one of those companies, some options are going to coincide.
More importantly, since they’re usually for a period of months or years, a person who bought a put option a few days before the attack will get the same benefit out of it as a person who bought that put two years before (assuming the person bought the earlier put option at the same price). Seeing as this was in the planning stages for years, the day that a put option was bought tells you little about its connection to the terrorists.
They could have just as easily bought the option in 1999 set it to expire to 2002 and made the same profit. Now if it's set to expire in a week, that might tell you something, but if it's not (and I haven't seen anywhere that it is) whoopee - you won't learn much from of it.
“How could ANYTHING (regardless if you believe it was a Global Hawk or a 757 that hit the Pentagon) be allowed to fly through the most defensible air space in the world?”
We can’t exactly erect a 2,000 ft brick wall in the time it takes to fly from Boston to New York. So our option is to shoot it down . . . which would be pretty stupid if you assumed, like everybody at the time would have, that they merely wanted to negotiate using a hijacked plane for leverage.
”How can 19 hijackers be responsible for the government NOT SHOWING us just one of the 85 confiscated tapes debunking the stories surrounding the Pentagon, other than a grainy parking lot shot that doesn't prove anything? (What about from one of the NINE cameras it has on the side that was hit? After all, those cameras did have "courtside seats" to the crash.)”
The government hasn’t shown you or anyone else some secret tapes they have . . .
. . . and yet
you know that they disprove the Pentagon story.
How?
“How could 19 hijackers be responsible for Larry Silverstein admitting to BBC that they "pulled" WTC 7, a task that takes anywhere (according to the contractors, Controlled Demolition) from two weeks to two months when setting detonation charges?”
Again, see above – other posters in the thread debunked that one.
“How could 19 hijackers be responsible for the nine-to-ten figure fee it would have cost the owner of the WTC for the mandatory asbestos removal?”
?
I don’t get it. The first 2/3rds of the stories of the WTC were laden with asbestos for fire prevention (though, not the top third – something conspiracy guys ought to keep in mind when discussing fires and the WTC) during its construction. This abruptly stopped by the EPA in the early 70s. This was widely known by anybody familiar with the WTC before 2001.
Hence there was asbestos all over the place when it fell and the owner had to get rid of it.
“How could 19 hijackers be responsible for NASA's thermal readings of temperatures as high as 1377 degrees found in the oxygen-starved basements under WTC 1, 2 and 7, five days after 9/11, scientifically proving a heat source other than jet fuel? How could they defy science? NASA?”
If a 2,000 foot building crashes into the ground, onto an underground subway station, I’d bet on it causing a fire underground. If you disagree, feel free to bet me and we can revisit this the next time it happens.
“How come Popular Mechanics' EXPERTS cited have projects funded by the DoD? Along with experts from NIST? How come they list experts who NEVER APPEAR in the article as a source?”
Do you realize how many projects are at least partly funded by the DoD? PM might as well cite their gas bill.
“When the Romans were investigating a crime, they would ask one simplequestion: Cui Bono? ("Who Benefits?") It's important now that we ask ourselves, who benefited from 9/11?”
The answer is obvious
Ken Lay
“And finally...
“How come when people like the UW professor is a guest on Hannity and Colmes, the hosts -- who have the golden opportunity to counter -- attack the person, but NEVER the evidence? Don't the hosts realize that when they refuse to address pertinent
points about 9/11 they're unknowingly condemning their own? And my original take?”
I seriously doubt you’ve read this thread. Do it.
I will concede, though, Sean Hannity is an abysmal debater. My apologies.
How come everybody keeps talking about the Romans and Cui Bono?
Bush profited? His 30% approval ratings and the GOP in a world of doo-doo? I think the news biz profited--the NYTimes did the deed!
Travelers bought hundreds of millions in more insurance--the Talking Gecko and the Aflac Duck did it!
DUDE
It's all a goddamn fake. Like Lenin said, look for the person who will benefit. And you will, uh, you know, you'll, uh, you know what I'm trying to say--
DONNY
I am the walrus.
WALTER
That f**king b**ch!
DUDE
Yeah
DONNY
I am the Walrus.
WALTER
Shut the f**k up, Donny! V.I. Lenin! Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov!
DONNY
What the f**k is he talking about?
WALTER
That's f**king exactly what happened, Dude! That makes me f**king SICK!
DUDE
Yeah, well, what do you care, Walter?
DONNY
Yeah Dude, why is Walter so pissed
off?
WALTER
Those rich f**ks! This whole f**king thing-- I did not watch my buddies die face down in the muck so that this f**king strumpet--
DUDE
I don't see any connection to Vietnam, Walter.
WALTER
Well, there isn't a literal
connection, Dude.
DUDE
Walter, face it, there isn't any
connection. It's your roll.
WALTER
Have it your way. The point is--
DUDE
It's your roll--
Later, Jesus, the child-molesting La Raza bowling-leaguer, walked by and told Walter "Come da tournament, you pull that piece on me, I gonna stick it up yo ass and pull the trigger 'til it go 'click-click'."
Cricket, this is insane, you people are quoting each other as 'sources', and saying that 'engineers are fighting over possibilities', when all that's happening is that the sane ones are saying 'go away'.
What g's? Do you even know what a 'g' is?
And what is an 'antiaircraft ballistic'? There's no such thing under the sun, even given you may be using an adjective as a noun.
Jeez, you could follow your mom around the kitchen and write a thousand theories on "why did she fry the eggs BEFORE making the toast?"
If even a smidgen of your 'facts' amounted to a hill of beans, don't you think that there'd be about 100,000 mainstream Bush-hating Pulitzer-slobbering journalists clogging the aitwaves breaking this stuff?
I hate to have to tell you this, but you are quite likely mad as a hatter. Many times, crazy people do not realize they are crazy, because they're crazy.
Cricket, 'put' options--do you know what they are?
The 'float' on a given issue's 'puts' is often so small that a few hundred contracts in a day can and does exceed the average daily volume by 10 or a hundred times.
Every BUYER of a 'put' is a registered securities dealer, usually brokering for a client, sometimes buying for the financial house.
Every single mudder-fricken put option, call option, other derivative, share of stock, corporate bond, anything, traded in the days around 911 on the two airlines as well as their suppliers, financiers, customers, competitors, has a registered buyer and a contracted, named, registered, INSURED by FICA, individual account for which those units were put in play.
Even if a fake account is set up with a bogus socSec#, SOMEONE has to claim or transfer the money SOMETIME SOMEWHERE and then you know who it is.
If there is 2.5 million still in an account the owner of which has disappeared, then you have a piece of some sort of story--probably a death, or an estate or crime freeze, or some such.
But, why speculate--why don't you furnish the details, the links, the name of the financial house that has offered the info that 2.5 million is 'unclaimed'?
And, 2.5 million? Who's gonna play this game, take these chances, for 2.5 million?
Please, how CAN anyone be so morally blind as to make these sorts of claims while not only not knowing what they're talking about, but without even googling up the info on the investigations of the financial movements around the world in the run-up to the event?
The whole stock market was in the dot-com swoon in Autumn of 2001 and LOTS and LOTs of people were going short on everything--airlines are among the most recession-sensitive of all sectors and were all getting shorted heavily--but according to publically-available historical charts on price/volume movements--within the standard historical deviations of that sort of
'distributing' (rather than accumulating) market. BTW a put is an option to go short. You throw out two issues 'puts', but without context--where on a scale would the two issues' action be relative to the rest of the market? That's the only metric that MATTERS, and you got zip on it--so you are just making up blind innuendoes against your government.
Really, you folks are not-very-nice children, with adult bodies.
There's a ton of conspiro-nuttery atop Google, but we all, don't we, trust Answers.com to report accurately on the findings of the (many politically diverse commissioners) on the SEC?
"However, each trade was examined and no evidence of a connection was found according to the 9/11 Commission based upon investigation by the SEC and FBI. Commission Report page 51 of this PDF
130. Highly publicized allegations of insider trading in advance of 9/11 generally rest on reports of unusual pre-9/11 trading activity in companies whose stock plummeted after the attacks. Some unusual trading did in fact occur, but each such trade proved to have an innocuous explanation. For example, the volume of put options—investments that pay off only when a stock drops in price—surged in the parent companies of United Airlines on September 6 and American Airlines on September 10—highly suspicious trading on its face.
Yet, further investigation has revealed that the trading had no connection with 9/11. A single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda purchased 95 percent of the UAL puts on September 6 as part of a trading strategy that also included buying 115,000 shares of American on September 10. Similarly, much of the seemingly suspicious trading in American on September 10 was traced to a specific U.S.-based options trading newsletter, faxed to its subscribers on Sunday, September 9, which recommended these trades.
These examples typify the evidence examined by the investigation. The SEC and the FBI, aided by other agencies and the securities industry, devoted enormous resources to investigating this issue, including securing the cooperation of many foreign governments. These investigators have found that the apparently suspicious consistently proved innocuous. Joseph Cella interview (Sept. 16, 2003; May 7, 2004; May 10–11, 2004); FBI briefing (Aug. 15, 2003); SEC memo,Division of Enforcement to SEC Chair and Commissioners, "Pre-September 11, 2001 Trading Review," May 15, 2002; Ken Breen interview (Apr. 23, 2004); Ed G. interview (Feb. 3, 2004)."
link
http://www.answers.com/topic/9-11-conspiracy-theories
My friends- You really need to avoid making eye contact with the weirdos.
Let me run this down for my friends here. Weirdos, I'm not talking to you.
If you want to paw over the mechanics of this a little, here goes: (PS I'm not an expert, but why would you need to be?)
1. The buildings were designed to withstand a plane collision. The planes that struck them are bigger than the building design called for, as they did not exist at the time of construction.
2. Planes burn Jet A or Jet B fuel. Both are based on kerosene, with jet b having cold weather additives (naptha, a more volatile petro byproduct). In Sept. it's unclear what they were burning--doesn't matter--jet fuels burns at 1796 F That's hot. Nutjobs prey on people's idea that kerosene based jetfuel is less flammable than gasoline. It's just less volatile; once it burns it burns just fine.
3. The hijackers knew exactly what they were doing. They hijacked (big)long distance flights right after takeoff, to get big, full tanks.
4.People who poohpooh the likelihood of 12 men hijacking a plane with boxcutters are nuts. Pilots have one rule: no matter what, fly the plane. They're not even in any fight. All the hijackers need to do is get past the stewardesses, while they are armed with knives. How hard is that?
5.Buildings like these are designed for planes to strike them. Not so much for a jetliner to be sitting on the floor in there. Imagine the weight it added to the floor that eventually collapsed.
6.Buildings that burn made from wood can be saved if the fire doesn't char the support members too badly- only loss of fiber weakens wood. Steel exposed to high temperatures and then cooled looks fine but loses its strength and must be discarded.
7. Steel doesn't have to melt to collapse. If you heat it way up, it loses its strength, and when it cools, it gets brittle. Brittle and weak steel, with massive collision damage and whatever a loaded plane weighs laying on the floor is plenty to make a floor fall on the floor below. And pretty much the last thing a building is designed for is to have the floors falling atop one another. That's not what these buildings are designed to withstand.
8. One minute they talk of thermite or thermate because it suits their conspiracy theory, five minutes later it's-- there's pools of molten metal under ground with no oxygen how can that be? because that suits their paranoia.
thermite is aluminum and a ferrous metal with heat applied. Thermate is the same with some stuff added to make it catch fire easier. Thermate is used in welding, and in armor piercing bombs. It releases an enormous amount of heat, and burns holes in steel. It will burn underwater. Or underground. You can start your own thermite reaction with a strip of aluminum, a rusty strip of steel or iron, and a propane torch. It's finicky to do, but you cna do it. It's not that finicky with massive supplies of aluminum, steel, iron, all heated to 1796 F. ALuminum melts at 1221F And everything galvanized in there is covered with zinc. Zinc melts 400 degrees lower or so. You'd find puddles of molten zinc everywhere in a fire like that.
9. The plane, and the outside of the building is loaded with aluminum, and the entire superstructure of the building is made from a ferrous metal. Plenty of heat available.
10. the outside walls of a skyscraper don't do anything but keep the airconditioning and secretaries in, and the pigeons out. When the floors start to go, they are falling down, and pulling the curtain walls in with them. The floors falling are below the level of glass you see falling.
There's two more things. These people are starting at the end, and working backward. George Bush is an evil mass murdering yada yada. They go from there; ie, their mind is made up before they start, it's a waste of time to talk to them. Others are just their dupes, but if you're taken in by that, you're probably a bit paranoid.
Oh, one last thing: Each and every one of them is basically amusing themselves or trying to score political points by dancing on the graves of thousands of their fellow citizens. The dupes think this is some kind of fun puzzle to monkey around with.
Now I am talking to the weirdos: You're all fucking evil to say these things for your own amusement or personal and political gain.
and one other thing that sticks in my mind because it's so galumphing ignorant, Cricket et all keep finding huge significance in the Popular Mechanics article listing sources unquoted in the the text. This, cricket, is called "editing". Articles are pulled together from many sources, all of whom get a 'source' footnote, but not all of whom survive the cutting of say 50,000 words into say 5,000, or whatever.
So, they're 'sourced' for courtesy, or by agreement, or so that whatever they said to PM can be verified, whether it made the final article 'cut' or not. This is like, high school journalism class, cricket. Didn't you ever write a term paper? I cannot believe I'm wasting my time with this crap.
But, explain to me the mechanics of the 'gotcha' you people are using with this "find"? What does it prove to you? That a hundred year old magazine with no political history is making up sources to PAD THE FOOTNOTES? Don't you think that in this deeply hidden conspiracy, someone in the Company would say, "Hey, don't pad the footnotes--you're going out on the nation's magazine racks and somebody might pick up a phone and call one of the padded sources, and BLOW THE WHOLE CONSPIRACY--and for a tad of window dressing that NOBODY but a NUT would even notice!"
That's right--moral relativism? How about telling me what is morally relative to this morally-idiotic exhibition of slander, libel, sedition, and horribly pornographic fantasies being brayed out all over the nation's young people? Is there no line, no boundary, anywhere?
Just returned and saw this and the other the responses so instead of piling on further, here’s just the stuff I haven’t seen replies to yet
but shooting down something to minimalize the loss of life whether in the air or on the ground seems to make sense.
Say you have a plane flying over Washington, DC. I don’t think I’d count on shooting it down as being the minimum loss of life scenario. (I’m honestly not sure it was.) The bigger problem is how many of the other ones do you want to shoot down with it – While this was taking place there were more than those 4 that were unaccounted for (I think the number was 11 at one point, but it’s 2 in the morning, so I’ll leave that up in the air unless you insist) – you shoot down all of those?
Regarding the high-cost of removing the asbestos, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt you misinterpreted my question, but your response didn't answer my question.
So - what was the question? There was a bunch of asbestos and you can account for it by the WTC’s construction. Seems clear cut to me.
And you never address the 75 minute NORAD stand-down when there were 67 "scrambles" in the nine months prior. I first thought it was because of all the "war games". Question - what do you know about the privatized Stewart airport across the pond from the WTC? Why didn't we scramble fighters from there?
Toss aside for a sec the time it takes to getting extra air force pilots into a jet at 8-9 in the morning on a Tuesday with no notice and having the jet ready to meet the airplanes - say we do it. We aren’t at war with the airplanes.
There’s no reason to believe, at first, it’s anything other than a hijacking and once you conclude it isn’t then you’re left with you, being the President of the United States, being given the decision to shoot down an American Airlines jet, having to tell the country later you shot an American Airlines jet – only, you don’t know it’s the right jet. More than 4 are unaccounted for at this time, so do you shoot all the unaccounted for ones, or just shoot one of them and hope you got the right one?
And not showing us tapes? Yes. Until we see something, I'm not convinced. There's too much evidence about "high-speed stalls" and tip-vortex that keeps my mind open. I struggle with the fact a hijacker, let alone a regular pilot, could execute that type of maneuver at those g's...what was it - a 270 turn in two and half minutes at five-hundred miles an hour? Once again, we have aeronautical experts on both sides who fight on this one. This is why I say just show us the tapes.,
Look, what if I said I know that there are 50 tapes that prove my position **but** the group that has these tapes (the U.N. Office in NY, evil bastards) aren’t showing the tapes to anybody. Ya see the fallacy here? This is my problem, how do I know they have the tapes as well as what the tapes show on them?
-
DUDE
It's all a goddamn fake. Like Lenin said, look for the person who will benefit. And you will, uh, you know, you'll, uh, you know what I'm trying to say--
DONNY
I am the walrus.
WALTER
That . . .
JESUS QUINTANA: What's this day of WTC s***? What's this bulls***? I don't ****in' care! It don't matter to Jesus. But you're not foolin' me, man. You might fool the ****s in the league office, but you don't fool Jesus. This bush league psyche-out stuff. Laughable, man - ha ha! I would have ****ed you in the *** Saturday. I **** you in the *** next Wednesday instead. Wooo! You got a date Wednesday, baby!
"Eight years old, Dude...eight years old."
The last sentence of Sippican's 11:49 is important. I've been continually saying the theory is crazy or nutty, but I think that's a big pulled punch. I think the smart people involved in propagating it know they are lying.
To quote Barrett himself, "Oh, I don't think it's a conspiracy, I know it's a conspiracy."
Right you are, SC & Ann. And it tells us what these sorts of people would do to America if only they could.
Sippican and others make excellent points about the mendacity, to put it mildly, of people who push these theories well knowing they are false.
The people I'm starting to feel sorry for are the Area 51 folks, Eric von Daniken, the Bill-Clinton-is-selling-cocaine-out-of-the-Mena-airport crowd, Arysio Santos (he discovered Atlantis!) Rael and the whole alien-abduction bunch. How are they dealing with being jilted for the new hot secret in town?
I disagree, with Ann and SC, on the "they know they are lying" point. Being a left-of-center academic myself, I far too often find myself in the company of people who espouse such theories. I can assure you they are convinced they are correct. They see every freaking encounter as a struggle against some hopelessly entrenched power structure. They can turn a parking committee meeting into a struggle against corporate greed and global capitalism.
To these people Bush is worse than terrorists, just as the Nixon was worse than Pol Pot or the VC, Reagan was worse than communism, the victims of US imperial power are always right, white people (other than themselves) are always racists, men (other than themselves) are always sexist, the police are bad, the junkie that will kill his mother for a dollar is a victim, Christianity is a tool of capitalism while Islam is the religionof the people, yada yada yada. AND NOTHING ANYONE SAYS CAN CHANGE THEIR MINDS!!
Maybe on some level the "know" they are lying, but they are so divorced from reality and from their conscience that they cannot access that knowledge. Kind of like Andrea Yates "knew" that drowning her children was wrong. Yes, even when you are insane, some basic knowledge of good and bad, right and wrong, is present, but not accessible.
Mike, one could say, group1 is the product of a strain of popular culture that promises everything and asks for nothing but a little obedience.
...but, you have to be disobedient--step outta line, and you're you're you're EVIL.
:0
> Korla, you've got no shame. So Democrats are analogous to Muslims who don't decry TERRORISM!!!
Liz, you are either being painfully disingenuous or you missed the point entirely. I am not equating liberal Bush-bashers and America-haters with terrorism, even though I can safely say that so many of your liberal friends make excuses for terrorism, and make statements to the effect of America is a terrorist state, Bush is the world's worst terrorist/dictator, etc., to the extent that they are willing to obstruct the war against terrorism. Indeed they mock the very notion of this being a war.
But I am using the analogy of people who identify themselves as being part of a faction, ie the Democratic party, who fail to denounce egregious statements by members of the group, and who in fact DEFEND such statements with the usual weak-as-water boilerplate "they have a right to say it" argument.
Of course they have the right to say it. That doesn't mean they're right to say it. And again I'll say, if you don't want all Democrats to be tarred with the brush of anti-Americanism and lunacy, then your people will have to stop subjecting anybody in the party who dares to criticize the kooks.
But maybe you should be tarred with that brush. It's up to you.
Thanks for helping shepppard me, Faithful Servant.
...laughing loon, from the shores of Gitche Gumee, by the shining Big-Sea-Water.
What is it about sleeping on steam grates outside public buildings that affects spelling so profoundly?
There seem to be some sort of reciprocal relationship between spelling and smoking guns, too. I guess by the time everything in the universe has become a smoking gun, spelling will have fallen all the way off the bottom of the priority list.
Somebody should tell Bill Keller that Fiathful Servint has uncovered that Silverstein feller, who is at the haert of the consperacy, so that Keller can send over a taem of hodshod repotars to entarveiw he an gett 2 teh botomm of all tihs.
Suddenly occurred to me that my previous comment (since deleted), though obviously satirical to me, might not seem so to (*cough*) others.
Korla, your rhetoric is in the gutter. You chose the most inflammatory example possible for your analogy--apologists for Islamist terror--then lamely wail that OF COURSE you're not comparing me to them. Then you wax on about some defense of free speech and "they" have a right to say whatever and so on and so on in incoherant, universal anger against the left. Babble on, but remember to wipe the froth from your lips once in awhile.
Liz, your attitude is just proving my point. You're so defensive about being lumped in with loony leftists and anti-American, pro-fascist Sheehanists, and yet you still cling to the notion that you should never condemn their hate speech. Why not? Because in your mind, that equates to agreeing with (gulp!) neocons, Republicans and Bush-voters.
So you can't get on board with the idea that you can disagree with one group without embracing another.
But that's okay. Please, all you liberals out there, please continue making excuses for the Ward Churchills and Cindy Sheehans and "professor" Barretts out there, and lecture us about their right to spout nonsense, and talk about how "dissent is patriotic," etc., etc., while at the same time, condemn conservatives for daring to criticize said speech. That's the best thing you can do towards establishing a GOP supermajority.
If the Dems had distanced themselves from the kooks early on, they might have won some seats in the first midterm election, and possibly the Presidency of 2004. But don't let me distract you.
and yet you still cling to the notion that you should never condemn their hate speech
When you can make your argument without distorting what I have said, I'll bother responding. Until then, keep beating up your strawmen. It doesn't build muscles, so don't forget to take your vitamins.
Gee, I had no idea Ed Asner was such a noted structural engineer and financial transaction expert! I knew he was a total prick and an avid Communist, and I knew he hated America and all it stood for, and even Karl Marx was too moderate for him. But I didn't know that!
I blame the Internet.
Never before in history have so many psychotics, paranoid schizophrenics, bipolars, obsessive-compulsives, narcissists, borderlines and brain damaged nutcases been able to congregate so effectively to redeem and reinforce eachothers magical thinking and paranoia than now.
Before, you would stand in the street and rant, or you would write angry letters about UFOs to Dan Rather's shredder, or you would be committed to an asylum, or you would just spout Asneresque crap all day while uncomfortable family members would ignore your dementia until you finally microwaved the cat.
But now, we are witnessing mass hysteria and the madness of crowds on a level beyond measure. These people need to be rounded up, forcibly committed and injected with the meds they so badly need. ACLU be damned. It's cruel NOT to do it.
Oh, and the ones that spout it _knowing_ it's garbage, well they should just be sent to the Phantom Zone.
Which is real.
Wil: I didn't "laud" Hannity. You're not reading well, presumably because you're overcome with emotion. Try to get your head together and give it another go. Oh, sorry, I know you won't.
Bad Hire
n
1: A law professor who believes state institutions should subject employees to political litmus tests.
james stephenson said...
Also, was there Thermate or Thermite on the floors the plane hit? If there were enough explosives to bring the building down would not the explosions caused by this thermite made the tower come down the second the plane hit?
...
Because lets be honest, no explosive in the world would let 10000 degree temperatures not cause them to explode.
Please explain just the thermite withstanding high temps.
Um...because thermite needs to be yellow-white hot before it ignites? And kerosene + office crap doesn't burn nearly that hot?
I'd give you the numbers, but it seems that anything besides "10000" or "a bazillion" would go over your head.
oligincella said...
"Hydrocarbon fires like the fires in the towers don't melt steel like that. "
Horseshit. I can and have melted high-carbon steel in a coke furnace. It only takes a confined area to reflect the heat inward. Much like a building.
Thanks for the life update. Too bad a coke furnace is a pure carbon fire, not a hydrocarbon fire. (Guess which is hotter)
Seriously, guys, thanks for playing. Please come back when you finish high-school science.
Gnocchi: I will refrain from deleting that comment, but you are on notice that your rudeness is not acceptable here. You're free to have your own blog to talk to people that way, but I will not allow you to spoil the discussion.
You're right annie, I apologize for my rudeness.
Please go back to calling the 9/11 truth movement "batshit crazy" and comparing us to white supremacists. That was so much more civilized.
Gnocchi: We have held back. Search you own heart to discover what we would say about you if we were not being civilized. "Crazy" -- as I have noted before -- is a pulled punch. If you do not know what that stands in for, you underestimate me. For the record, I don't think you're crazy. Nor do I think you believe that 9/11 is an inside job.
Y'know, we really need an emoticon for "shaking one's head in amazement".
Apparently to you, "politeness" is defined as being rude, but not actually being as rude as you would truly like to be. Please explain to me how references to white supremacy and creationism don't "spoil the discussion".
As for underestimating you: you're a Professor. Of. Law. who believes one of her colleagues should be prevented from teaching based on his political beliefs. Perhaps that crushing cognitive dissonance is getting in the way of a truer assessment of you.
And yes, annie, I do believe that 9/11 was an inside job. When you finally, truly look at the evidence and come to the same conclusion, you'll understand how wrenching actual rational analysis can sometimes be.
Gnocchi: "prevented from teaching based on his political beliefs"
That's a complete misreading if not a deliberate lie. I've supported Farrell's decision. Have you noticed? Maybe you should read a little more of the blog before you spew or maybe you have but you choose to lie. You don't bother to even get the facts straight about me, so I have no motivation to trust anything else you have to say. You're taking advantage of my forum, and you are calling me by an unaccepable nickname.
Shape up or be assured I will delete your comments.
"I would only ask that you have some sympathy for the position the Provost was in trying to decide whether to fire Barrett, making him into a First Amendment martyr, once he'd been hired. As I've said in other posts, that doesn't excuse the fact that conditions here are such that he was hired in the first place, and the real test of the university is whether it finds a way to avoid hiring mistakes like this in the future."
Ah yes, I see now. You support not firing him (since that would make him a martyr). You just think he should never have been hired in the first place. That's totally different, I apologize.
As far as the "unacceptable nickname" goes, would you be OK with it if I told you that it was a "pulled punch" and that I would call you something different were I not truly civilized?
Wow-there are still people here
Since I'm bored and on the off chance you're still reading this--gnocchi, do you have a piece of evidence that wasn't already covered in this thread?
Don't feel the need to read all of it, but if you post something that's already in it, I'll merely cut and paste from what's already here in reply. Fair's fair.
As far as political appointments:
There's teaching something that's against your politics and then there's teaching your students that the 2+2=5. If a professor teaches that Pearl Harbor was a set-up and actually bombed by the British, if he teaches that the people of Russia are actually aliens in disguise, if he teaches that the Oklahoma City bombing was orchestrated by Bill Clinton, if he teaches that water freezes at 50 degrees not 32, that you can turn lead into gold, and that the moon's made of cheese, there's no way a halfway decent university should hire that guy to teach in class. This is what Barrett is doing.
For that matter, this applies to someone spending his time focusing on Asian history when he was hired to teach as a chemistry professor. Barrett is an Islamic studies professor, not an engineering prof, not a political science prof, and not a government prof. Someone might want to inform him of that.
It is nice of you to summarize this interview, however I saw it live when it aired, and now again on your page, and wonder why you see a guy who is a nut, and not just nervous because he is on TV? As well, it should be OK to present ideas about events that are not the norm or differ from the accepted version, if only to analyze and consider the possibilities to return to what you originally believed.
Why is everyone so scared to ask questions, get answers and think about 9 11?
He's absolutely right. Duh. Everyone knows by now that 9II was a false flag inside job.
As far as the interview, it was a case study in FAUX News using shady NLP tactics in an attempt to slander and discredit Barrett.
And Al-Queda? Just like WMDs...
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