Ann Althouse has the scoop about the University of Wisconsin – Madison teaching 9/11 denial as an Introduction to Islam class.
Here are some comments about the class from Kevin Barrett, founder of the Muslim Jewish Christian Alliance for 9/11 truth, who will be teaching it:
“The physics of those collapses clearly could not have resulted from plane crashes and jet fuel fires with office materials.” Barrett says jet fuel does not burn hot enough to melt steel, and says recent tests on melted steel from the building prove his theory that it was wired to collapse, by the Government.
Barrett says the Bush Administration is fooling the American public with the Adolf Hitler ‘Big Lie Technique’… ”Tell them a little lie and they’ll wonder about it – weapons of mass destruction in iraq was a relatively little lie – and people are getting called on it.” Barrett says. ”Tell em a big lie like 9/11 and they have a huge resistance to questioning it.”
Ann links to Jessica McBride’s blog (the radio show host who, I think, broke the story) with all the detail including the class syllabus.
There are a lot of 9/11 conspiracy theorists on the left, but to give their nutty views legitimacy by allowing Barrett to espouse them in a universtiy classroom setting beyond disgusting. The university is providing Barrett cover by claiming he has academic freedom, which is another sham since, as Ann points out, the university gave him that freedom by making him an academic in the first place.
(Jay Tea adds: the persistent commenter known as “.” has repeatedly posted copyrighted materials in their entirety in the comments, despite a warning not to do so. For that reason, I have taken the extremely rare (for me) step of deleting the offending comments and banning his IP from posting any further. Disagreeing with us is not only allowed, but welcomed; opening us up for legal liability on copyright-infringement matters will not be tolerated.
In other words: BLOOD FOR ODIN!)
What’s that???
You can’t show me any physical evidence???
Bet you feel stupid now… 🙂
One of these nutjob hippies was pulling a 9/11 conpiracy sign in the Webster Groves, Mo., 4th of July parade, and one of his comrades was handing out “dollars” with Chimpy McBushalliburtonGitmoKatrinAbuGrab’s photo on it.
I told him, “No thanks, we’re all tapped out on crazy here.”
He looked at me like “huh?”
Sorry, Nick, but that Popular Mechanics article has NOT been dubunked, because it IS the debunker.
My daughter dropped out of the University of Maine in Orono because she simply couldn’t handle the insane leftist tactics used by the professors. Her dream was to become the next Fox News correspondent.
Candy, im actually a republican, and i understand your point about many universities having too many left-wing professors, but you jsut said her dream was to become a Fox News correspondent? its ok for even republicans to admit that Fox News is shameless rightwing proaganda that slants even its suppossed “news” to the right.why would she want to work for such a shamelss outfit?
Sorry, Nick, but that Popular Mechanics article has NOT been dubunked, because it IS the debunker.
Posted by: Big Mo at July 5, 2006 01:15 PM
did you know that Ben Chertoff, cousin of homeland security chief Micheal Chertoff became editor of P.M. right before the “debunker” issue came out? funny how that works out and you fall for it.
“Sorry, Nick, but that Popular Mechanics article has NOT been dubunked, because it IS the debunker.”
How gullible are you?
The popular mechanics article is based upon ASSUMPTION…it contains no hard evidence, just guys waffling…
Where’s the evidence??????????????????
as opposed to a shamelessly left outfit like CBS, ABC, NBC, New York Times, LA Times, NPR, CNN, etc.
Mark – “gullible?” OK, nutball – so everyone listed on this page is, I guess, in your book lying:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1227842.html?page=9&c=y
Have fun in the fever swamp, dude.
Also, a plane impact will not detonate the explosives. C4 and semtex will simply burn in any fire like any other plastic explosive.
Very true, because a plane impact would not possibly jar and tear wires loose.
Mark, hate to break this to you, but you and your wbesite are delusional. The only one ignoring evidence is you, while constructing your fantasyland decorated with tinfoil.
Since you are immune to logic, reason, and constructive criticism, I merely point out once more that you’re insane.
Bye now.
Mark:
The popular mechanics article is based upon ASSUMPTION…it contains no hard evidence, just guys waffling…
Assumption?
To investigate 16 of the most prevalent claims made by conspiracy theorists, POPULAR MECHANICS assembled a team of nine researchers and reporters who, together with PM editors, consulted more than 70 professionals in fields that form the core content of this magazine, including aviation, engineering and the military.
If that’s assumption, than your “proof” is less than an uneducated guess.
Still waiting on that physical evidence that proves the WTC was brought down by fire after the impact…
What’s that, you can’t find any physical evidence?
Perhaps that’s because the criminals shipped it out of the country BEFORE the investigation…
…and had it melted down in China…
All under armed guard too…
Those who believe whole cloth the official story are being duped.
A terrorist plot was certainly in the works well before 9/11 took place. Of that there is little doubt. 12 different international intel agencies, from Egypt, Israel, the UK, Russia etc., ALL warned beforehand of either the type or time of the attack.
Not to mention the warnings coming from both FBI and CIA ops (just Google “Randy Glass WTC” or “Sibel Edmunds” to start the ball rolling). Read about the Phoenix memo and other domestic investigations which were quashed by FBIHQ’s Radical Fundamentalist Unit (and Dave Frasca in particular) in the months prior to 9/11.
Even the scheduling of conflicting war games on the morning of 9/11 points to collusion.
Simulating multiple instances of the very same type of hijack/attack scenario (up to 22+ planes), using both live fly and electronic inserts, while also having the majority of fighters from NEADS off on the other side of the continent (Alaska and Northern Canada) to practice a simulated attack by Russia, well that just smells as well.
And the presidential directive warning intel agents to stop following the money trail of Islamic radicals – I wonder why. Look into the intersect of the CIA – drug & arms dealers – international terrorism. To deny this link is to deny history.
Mohamed Atta was funded by the former head of Pakistan’s ISI, Mahmoud Ahmed. The FBI had confirmed this by Oct 2001. Yet he’s not even wanted for questioning. The same Ahmed was breaking fast with Porter Goss and Bob Graham in Washington on the morning of 9/11.
Dick Cheney was placed in charge of ALL domestic counterterrorism initiatives as of early May 2001. He would have been notified of all warnings coming in for 4 months leading up to 9/11. He would have known about (and probably overseen) the multiple, conflicting war games.
I wonder what he meant when the aide counted down the distance of the plane approaching the Pentagon.
The plane is 50 miles out
The plane is 40 miles out
The plane is 30 miles out
The plane is 20 miles out
The plane is 10 miles out. Does the order still stand?
Cheney yells. Of course it still stands, have you heard any different?
Luckily, Cheney never had to testify under oath, instead having a friendly ‘chat’ with the (c)Ommission.
Anyone who thinks this is a left-right or Dem-Repub issue is just plain wrong. Replace Cheney with Clinton, and tell me what your view would be.
I’d say peace, but the powers that be obviously are doing all they can to prevent that.
as opposed to a shamelessly left outfit like CBS, ABC, NBC, New York Times, LA Times, NPR, CNN, etc.
Posted by: Big Mo at July 5, 2006 01:22 PM
so you go by the old Rush Limbaugh myth that the MSM is “liberal”? maybe some of the journalists, in their home lives are, but corporate=republican. the MSM is as corporate as corporate gets. G.E. makes money off of war and they own NBC. give me a break you gullible bastard.are all righties this simplisitc? you jsut go with the “liberal media” myth because Rush tells ya to?
Nick, you are an idiot, shut up. I watched the whole thing on TV. The planes hitting the buildings. Then I watched the explaination on the History Channel. The steel does not have to melt, just lose its strength. If you do not think jet fuel burns that hot, go stand behind a jet engine on full afterburn. Looks like a torch to me. Like I said, Nick, you are an idiot.
Nick, you are an idiot, shut up. I watched the whole thing on TV. The planes hitting the buildings. Then I watched the explaination on the History Channel. The steel does not have to melt, just lose its strength. If you do not think jet fuel burns that hot, go stand behind a jet engine on full afterburn. Looks like a torch to me. Like I said, Nick, you are an idiot.
The WTC was a fairly uniquely designed building to address the problems in building structures that high.
The indecent Mark keeps chanting “fire” as if any one claims that a few lit cigarettes in wastepaper baskets brought down the WTC.
The steel didn’t melt in a fire fueled by hundreds of gallons of jet fuel, but it did soften. Indeed, I recall a program going back to the original architect plans (PBS? Discovery?) and that the fire retardent on the steel beams was sprayed on and that the unprecendented force of commericial liners of a size and speed unknown when the WTC was built, blew the insulation off leaving the steel even more at risk of losing strength.
As pointed out here
Once one storey collapsed all floors above would have begun to fall. The huge mass of falling structure would gain momentum, crushing the structurally intact floors below, resulting in catastrophic failure of the entire structure. While the columns at say level 50 were designed to carry the static load of 50 floors above, once one floor collapsed and the floors above started to fall, the dynamic load of 50 storeys above is very much greater, and the columns were almost instantly destroyed as each floor progressively “pancaked” to the ground.
[…]
The initial impact/further weakening by fire reasoning is based on uncontestable knowledge about the behaviour of structures in general, and the weakening of steel under fire conditions, plus video footage of the events and examination of the steel afterwards. The official FEMA report written by engineering experts came to this conclusion based on the evidence. I don’t/won’t argue with indecent moral cretins like Mark anymore than I argue with Holocaust deniers. I offer up actual analysis based on fact and forensics hoping juveniles with heads of mush, like Nick, might stop embarrassing themselves.
It has been brought to our attention that certain statements have been made on this thread regarding the dumb and stupid.
After a thorough review, we have concluded that two individuals “Mark and Nick” have indeed been termed “dumb” and “stupid” by some with credentials insufficient to support such a determination.
In point of fact, asylums will not accept patients merely on the affliction of being dumb or stupid. As the statements by the two above named individuals make clear, the widespread fear that computers have reached the most restricted areas in the most restricted asylums has now been realized.
We therefore protest the association of these two individuals with the terms “dumb” and “stupid”. Heretofore we strongly recommend use of the terms “lunatic” or “deranged” to describe such circumstances. We thank you in advance.
Yours truly,
The Society for the Protection of the Dumb and Stupid
JAYSUS on a pony, the sheer idiocy of the numbneurons continues.
Corporations are amoral and their first order of business is to make money.
but WTF, why should even a peer-reviewed research by UCLA put a dent in the Order of Lunar Chiroptera dogma?
“.” – I WAS a journalist and have the sheepskin and career to prove it. YES, the mainstream media is liberal, and it has nothing to do with anything Rush Limbaugh says about it.
It cracks me up that dopes like you claim that Fox is “right wing” but when someone points out that the networks and etc. are left wing, you get all bent out of shape, start claiming brainwashing by Rush Limbaugh, and other such stupidity.
Oh question for indecent Mark
I know a UA pilot that regularly flew Flight 93 on rotation, thus lost close friends and co-workers that day.
Is he part of the Vast Conspiracy? (seeing how all those people were never on the remote plane anyway?)
Darleen:
If someone doesn’t want to believe something then they’ll clutch at ANY little shred that backs up what they really want to believe. And it doesn’t matter whether that shred is accurate or not, it is sufficient to simply have it exist so they can point to it and go “See? SEE!? YOU’RE ALL DELUSIONAL AND ONLY I AND A SELECT FEW REALLY KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON!”
It’s like the folks who still persist in believing the earth is flat, or hollow with a flying saucer base inside. You wouldn’t BELIEVE the convoluted reasoning explaining how satellite orbits work…
J.
I’ll take the first ten. The rest just get increasingly Looney Tunes.
1) I saw an obituary for a John Smith in the paper yesterday, but I saw a John Smith today. Thus, the paper must be a lie.
2) The John Smith I know goes to church each Sunday and promises to honor the Ten Commandments, but I know he breaks them sometimes.
3) The Pentagon is the world’s largest office building. The building itself is on 29 acres, it’s over 77 feet tall, and each wall is 921 feet long. If one aims at it, it is so wide that it’d be really tough to miss. As it was, the terrorist pilot bounced into it.
4) The last time John Smith took his mistress to a hotel, he signed in as Jone Jones.
5) To the best of my knowledge, before and after 9/11, no planes carrying something in excess of 10,000 gallons of fuel have crashed at high speed into skyscrapers using structural steel instead of reinforced concrete for most of their vertical structural strength. (The words “steel frame” are distractors. One needs skyscrapers with a great many floors above the strike to be a similar model.)
6) Same as #5.
7) The earlier collapse of the later struck tower is an obvious result of the height of the strike. That is, the second WTC tower to be struck was hit considerably lower than the first one. In fact, it essentially confirms the cause of collapse. Once the remaining intact structural steel columns providing vertical support lose some percentage of stiffness, they can no longer bear load. Thus, they shift load onto the remaining intact columns. The heavier the vertical load, to quicker the collapse. Buildings rigged for demolition would not care time-wise the height of the strike, However, if the collapse mechanism was vertical load exceeding load bearing capacity, the lower the strike the quicker the collapse, just as happened on 9/11.
8) This is just a distractor. WTC was in the strike zone for debris from the WTC. Enough debris damage, and the building collapses as remaining steel works beyond yield, cracks in concrete propagate, and the limits get exceeded.
9) I looked in the phone book of another city and found ten John Smiths there! Imagine, given enough people, there always seem to be 10 or more John Smiths!
10) I wonder what those steel columns were doing in that building design? You think they just might possibly have had floors jointed into them by things like connecting steel attachments? This assertion is just silly, as it seems to claim that there were free-standing metal poles lurking hidden inside the building!
My mom buys into this whole bit. It’s pointless to argue with her. If you make a counterpoint, like tell her about the Popular Mechanics article, she dodges and says that the author was somebody’s cousin. Arguing with these people is like punching water. Another common tactic is that when some major point of the conspiracy theorists is debunked they all disclaim it and say, “Oh, Alex Jones said that but I never said that. You can’t discredit us all by lumping us all into one theory!”
I know for a “fact” the WTC towers were designed to collapse just as they did when impacted by jets loaded with fuel. This terrorist attack has been planned since the late 50’s and the designer of WTC was heavily involved.
I read it at DU and if you can’t believe those folks, it was backed up on KOS. Jeez! Why don’t you folks believe me?
sarcasm off/
Let’s start with the basic assumption that ‘fire cannot melt steel”
Wrong.
How do you think steel is made? It is an amalgam of metals melted together.
Galvanized steel contains sulfur – by definition.
Explosives would be indicated by the presence of nitrogen – not sulfur.
The temperature of smelting fires are achieved with different fuels. Ever notice welders use acetylene torches?
Jet fuel burns at very high temperatures, and would turn steel beams into rubber bands.
The engineers who designed the attack on 9/11 for Al Qaeda knew what mass above was required to buckle the steel, that is why they hit where they did instead of higher floors. Using Newton’s third law of physics Force=Mass X Acceleration, the momentum of the higher floors forced the collapse of the building.
They tried to reduce the building to rubble in 1994 with trucks slamming into the bottom floors. The physics wasn’t right and they failed. The perpetrators of this attack are still in jail.
(Explain the first attempt, conspiracists??? under the Clinton Adm)
The chemistry and physics of this attack were clearly planned by the engineer who attended NC State. Just because some looney tunes Madison prof has a political agenda does not mean he can redefine science.
That’s the same problem Gore is having with global warming.
Candy -I’m sorry to hear what your daughter went through. My oldest got through Penn State by not discussing her views. But think about it – telling teenagers something is a surefire way to get them to question it – oppressive authority forces youth to go the other way.
“And then theres the hundreds of eyewitnesses saying they saw, heard, or felt explosions.”
Dude, and please pardon the language, there were two fucking jumbo jets that crashed into the buildings. You think that might explain some of the sounds of explosions?
I feel like I’m watching a bad episode of the Hannity & Colmes “news” show. Infantile ambush attacks. Spend the time and do your own research on 9/11 and then come back and see if you are still willing to call Nick & Mark wackos. Just spend 1 or 2 hours of your life (go ahead, turn off Fox News for just a couple hours…you can do it, I know you can)
Either that, or go stick your head back in the sand.
Oh and BTW – any tall building is vulnerable to the laws of physics.
Professor Barrett is an insult to the memory of those we lost as a nation.
He and Ward Churchill should start their own school.
Fools University – you know – F.U.
Sean – I am a chemist – I have formulated my own views.
And considering the depth of your own depravity following blindly in spite of the physical evidence – I suggest you take your own suggestion
only in your case, open a science book.
Sean – come on – you serious?
These are people so stupid they need to be spoon fed pre-digested pre-spun news from the ridiculous right. Asking them to think and do research is out of the question.
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Well Lee,
Which part of the science in my post do you dispute?
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Zeldorf said: “Nick, you are an idiot, shut up. I watched the whole thing on TV.”
LOL – No fair – I was drinking milk, now it is all over my keyboard.
3) The Pentagon is the world’s largest office building. The building itself is on 29 acres, it’s over 77 feet tall, and each wall is 921 feet long. If one aims at it, it is so wide that it’d be really tough to miss. As it was, the terrorist pilot bounced into it.
is that why the lawn is completely unscathed? wow. nice logic.
Whatever, “.”
I don’t watch Fox news. Don’t watch any TV news, in fact.
Wanna try again?
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I see, the science, which is your fundamental disclaimer (fire can’t melt steel??? stupidity) has been disputed, so you ignore it.
Oh – my – that does give you superior intelligence doesn’t it?
I would have thought the teet would have gotten in the way…
Sean –
I’m a registered professional engineer and have done my own review of the 9/11 events, as well as the available analyses and evidence, and am quite willing to call Nick and Mark “wackos”.
Kathy –
The cause of the WTC collapse did not have to be from melt of the steel and did not even have to be from much softening. The WTC design depended on the steel for vertical structural stiffness as well as load-bearing, which is quite different from steel-reinforced concrete designs. BTW, I have my own personal doubts that the Al Q terrorists had any real engineering design input into their tactics. I think they just aimed for the approximate middle of the buildings’ height from where they loomed above the nearby buildings in the way. As it was, the tape suggests that one had to bank to avoid missing, and ended up going in off horizontal.
I am a lifelong, right wing, combat vet who voted for Bush and I am quite convinced that our “government” (read; a small cabal of very twisted and evil people, not every single employee of the government) is responsible for the premeditated attacks of 911.
Believe me, I did not want to come to that conclusion, but after almost four years of studying this topic on an almost daily basis I don’t hold out even the slightest possibility of any other conclusion.
I still don’t agree with leftist nutjobs and their social engineering and I think one of the last places on Earth anyone will find a truly open and honest discussion about empirical facts is a US college campus, but if they have come to this conclusion as I have, then I hold out some degree of hope for our nation’s young people.
Which engineers are those, Kathy? This is the first I’ve heard that there were engineers involved in the planning of the 9/11 attack.
Hey “.” try just posting the links.
popol vuh – and how did you arrive at your conclusions?
It cracks me up that dopes like you claim that Fox is “right wing” but when someone points out that the networks and etc. are left wing, you get all bent out of shape, start claiming brainwashing by Rush Limbaugh, and other such stupidity.
Posted by: Big Mo at July 5, 2006 02:22 PM
they all DONT report on the same things. just because you fall for the phony left/right paradigm isnt my fault. gullible bastard.
Wierd thing is, for some reason I believe that Popular Mechanics wouldn’t bugger their own credibility on anything science-related, no matter who owned it or supposedly ran it.
I also have a real hard time believing in a conspiracy that would require literally hundreds of people to implement without leaving any trace. If you’ve seen any video on the Discovery channel regarding building implosions, you’ll come away realizing that a hell of a lot of work has to be done in preparation, and there’s no way it could have been done in secret. I find it much easier to use Occam’s razor on this, and find that the simplest explanation (IE Al Quaeda hijacking the jet liners) and slamming them into the buildings, which (when the structural steel softened from the fires) then collapsed.
As far as the jets not being shot down – first, consider the protocol for dealing with hijackers on 9/10. Give them what they want, and they’ll leave the passengers alone – right? Why would we shoot down a hijacked jet? And why would we have fighters on alert to intercept hijacked planes INSIDE the US?
Finally, one last thing that doesn’t pass the sniff test re conspiracies… if you’re depending on the Presidential brief that said Al Q may try something – you’ll note it’s remarkable sparse on details. Try what? When? How? From where? All you’re getting is a nebulous warning that Al Quaeda might be looking to try something in the US. Boy – that really narrows it down, doesn’t it?
“.” wrote:
“The magazine ran a full page ad in support of the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan in May 2003.”
Are you too dense to understand the difference between paid advertisements and editorial content?
” A letter to the editor in the current issue says, I think you guys are just another tool in the governments propaganda machine.”
Was that written by you or another one of your nutball friends?
Good grief.
Jim
Thank you for your comment, but I was addressing the fact that these cranial infarctions say steel couldn’t melt. Do they think we just unearth the stuff – you know – naturally formed steel beams…. LOL?
In my career I’ve used various fuels in atomic absporption spectroscopy. Some metals do require high temperatures, so we burn nitrous oxide instead of the acetylene and hydrogen mix. But all metals burn.
Temperature would have an effect on the strength of the steel – as a PE you know this.
I do think there was engineering involved. They new they needed large, fully fueled jets. And they had to hit low enough to creat momentum. Had they struck the top floors, the entire structure may not have collapsed.
After seeing the limited intelligence of the conspiracists, I am left with one haunting question. Do they wear that tin foil for intercepting signals from the home planet, or does it help keep the voices quiet.
Ideas?
And the idea the a rightwinger could be crazy enough to believe this scam too – all I can say is that there’s one in every family, but rarely do they make us proud.
Hey, “.” – it really improves your credibility to call someone who disagrees with you or calls you out on something a “gullible bastard.”
But since I know who my parents are and can prove beyond a doubt that they are my parents, I can only conclude that 1) you not only don’t know how to use insults and 2) you’re just a jerk hopelessly lost in the twisted world of tinfoil hats and conspiracy theories and 3) I’ve activated my secret Karl Rove communicator ring and he’s sending the black helicopters over to your place right now.
Don’t struggle. It only makes them angry.
Yes Lee, there’s lots of things you haven’t heard, that Al Qaeda has western educated members… including engineers… such as OBL himself.
The magazine ran a full page ad in support of the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan in May 2003.”
Are you too dense to understand the difference between paid advertisements and editorial content?
” A letter to the editor in the current issue says, I think you guys are just another tool in the governments propaganda machine.”
Was that written by you or another one of your nutball friends?
Good grief.
Posted by: Big Mo at July 5, 2006 03:38 PM
nice to see you ignored most of the article.
Cheney gave the order to shoot down the planes, but mysteriously — the orders weren’t carried out.
When Flight 96 crashed Cheney thought it had been shot down under his orders, and he was devastated.