Thursday, July 31, 2008

NO MORE ANONYMOUS COMMENTS

I changed the settings so that anyone wishing to tell us we're going to Hell has to take responsibility for such assertions. I'm not deleting any previous such comments (nor my own tart responses) but from today forward the rules change.

A few more things that should be stated:

1. Just because we post a link, an essay, or a video doesn't mean we endorse it or endorse the philosophy/agenda/religion/psychosis of the originator. There are many things worth taking a look at, posted here on the assumption that you'll make up your own mind as to their validity.

2. Corollary to #1: Just because we like someone doesn't mean we share their views on every issue. In fact, we're always questioning our own assumptions and observations, because that's part of the whole "truth" deal.

3. What we actually believe about anything is none of anyone's Goddamned business. (Not that you asked.)

4. Not everything is a conspiracy, and not everyone is a plant. Take a few deep breaths. Try a walk around the block. There, isn't that better?

Sunday, July 27, 2008

JUST CHECKING IN; HEGELIAN HOO-HAH

I haven't even looked at this site since I last posted. Today I deleted all the interminable strings of carping and sniping emails involving planes vs. no planes, Rick vs. Sophia, jew stuff, etc. It felt good. If someone writes me personally, I can take it, but I don't want to be ringside at any more digital middle-school food-fights. I've blocked the worst offenders. Senders with whom I've established a personal correspondence are exempted from this interdict.

I sent the letter below to the O-D a couple of weeks ago--and re-sent it, but the brain-constipated editor refuses even to acknowledge it. To hell with the Observer-Dispatch. Why read newspapers, watch television, and listen to radio when you can achieve a much pleasanter state of unreality by drinking beer and listening to good music? You can live in your own denial and I'll live in mine.

I couldn't help but listen to the battle royal between Profs Fetzer and Barrett available for download from this page. There are no heroes here. Fetz was supposed to stifle the talk of TV Fakery and allied topics while Kevin Barrett was running for Congress, so as not to taint the latter's campaign. But Fetz, being Fetz, couldn't contain his enthusiasm for this new 9/11 tinkertoy. Harsh words ensued. Toward the end of this program, Morgan Reynolds quotes Ayn Rand: "There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil." But what about when one side is marked by intellectual bullying and posturing, and the other is compromised by a personal political agenda? Somewhere, Hegel is smiling.

The TV Fakery faction may have a point, in that everything on TV is certainly fake, but their no-planes-at-the-WTC fundamentalism wearies me. (All fundamentalism wearies me, actually.) Supposing you have a credible witness who actually saw an aircraft of some type strike the second tower (or what seemed to be an aircraft--in other words, a technologically advanced hologram), this somewhat damages the position that TV Fakery equals no planes. I know of such a witness, and I am for the moment willing to accept his testimony at face value. Going way out on a limb here, if a hologram were that good, wouldn't it appear on television? Even assuming all the major TV networks were on board with this pageant of destruction, if what appeared to be a plane hitting the second tower were visible to those on the scene, this obviates the need for TV fakery, if not the actual no-plane argument.

All we can be certain of is that the people who planned this event had the technology to get just the sort of effect they wanted, including the creation of a 9/11 Truth Movement that continually discredits itself with infighting, nefarious outside agendas, and brain-constipated fundamentalism. It winds up as a tangled mess of crap that would give anyone but Rain Man a headache.

Monday, July 14, 2008

HIATUS

I'm taking a break from this site for a while. I don't retract or repudiate anything I've said here, but I'm tired of all the political/personal/religious crap, and I'm absolutely out of patience. I need to recharge my batteries and replenish my electrolytes.

I've been getting a ton of emails, mostly on two subjects: (1) Jew bashing and (2) TV Fakery. The Jew stuff is the same crap that's been going around for decades, and it makes me yawn. I don't even look at it. I have more sympathy for the TV Fakery crowd, since
everything on TV is fake. The only things I really like to watch on TV are old Betty Boop cartoons and the occasional 1930s comedy. (I highly recommend "International House" and "Million Dollar Legs.") And now certain religious types are telling me I'm going to Hell. Whatever. I'm just weary as Hell.

Research into the events of Sept. 11, 2001 has always been Herb's passion more than mine, and he needs to write and post more. I feel I've written enough, for the time being.

Sunday, July 06, 2008

OUR NEXT LETTER TO THE O-D

The following is a true collaborative effort between Herb Smith and me. It will bear my signature for the Utica Observer-Dispatch, and be co-signed for other publications:

Ya gotta love semantics. Rush Limbaugh is being paid $50 million a year through 2016 mainly for services rendered in making "liberal" the dirtiest word in the English language. Democrats in Congress are so fearful of the epithet that they've taken on the protective coloration of Republicans. Only those specially trained can tell them apart.

Likewise, when one suggests that the buildings at the World Trade Center were brought down by controlled demolition, he is immediately labeled a "conspiracy theorist," a term meant to evoke tinfoil hats and lapses in medication. By the same token, you might as well call Isaac Newton a "gravity theorist."

The controlled demolition hypothesis is a scientific argument which states that the use of pre-positioned explosives is the only possible explanation for the manner in which the buildings fell and for the amount of energy released in their destruction. There's no "theory" here about the identities of any possible "conspirators."

In scientific terms, the argument for pre-positioned explosives is perfectly rational. The collapses exhibited features seen exclusively in controlled demolitions. No additional theories are required to explain the relevant evidence.

Actually, it is the official explanation of a fire-induced gravitational collapse which violates known laws of physics. Whether one adheres to it depends on how much stock one is willing to invest in the wild-eyed rantings of Mr. Newton and the hallucinations of that other nutjob, Galileo.

Friday, July 04, 2008

WE APOLOGIZE

After over a year of inactivity, I've lately received some requests for free DVDs of "Loose Change: Second Edition" offered back in April 2006. The DVD file is no longer on my computer from which to make duplicates, and therefore I am no longer able to honor this offer. I deeply apologize for any inconvenience.