And so, and also as if in direct response to Smith’s derision of “Truthers” (perhaps he favours “Liars”?), today we have this:

29 Structural & Civil Engineers Cite Evidence for Controlled Explosive
Demolition in Collapses of All 3 WTC High-Rises on 9/11
http://www.ae911truth.org/downloads/29_Structural-Civil_Engineers_2009-06-17.pdf

Let’s hold Bush officials accountable for torture
The ACLU’s executive director joins with a military officer to ask for a special prosecutor for torture
By Anthony Romero and Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld

Torture is a crime and the United States engaged in it. Those are two indisputable facts. Given the mountains of evidence already in the public domain, any effort to deny or soften that harsh and devastating reality is either disingenuous, uninformed or a result of the human instinct to avoid painful truths. But one of the things that allows our democracy to endure is that time after time, no matter the misdeed, we have been willing to look ourselves in the mirror, acknowledge our wrongdoing and hold ourselves accountable.

Continued: http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/06/17/torture/

The NAF sounds like they are a bit Center/Right, though I am all for that over wwnj approaches to our problems (we’ve had way too much of the wwnj approach the last eight+ years).

The CPO looks like a non-partisan polling outfit (tho my research is pretty shallow on these two orgs)

Before making further false allegations about who has properly debunked whom, please do yourself a favour to become familiar with some basic facts:

Proof of high explosives in WTC buldings: http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCIEJ/2008/00000002/00000001/35TOCIEJ.SGM

And a few simple facts to ponder: http://www.csi911.info/CSI911.html

Congratulations Smith on becoming the new strawman champion! ;-)

I did not say that the Iranians (whose candidate appears to have lost, and who hear him and others say it was fraud), are not complaining on their own. But you get points for the funny value of your intepretation! My comment was about how the media has championed those Iranian complaints – perhaps with Iranian ex-pats in mind – and their relatives back home in Iran. Just being suspicious tis all. That’s healthy.

I’d agree the media is more focussed on other issues than Iran. Iran is but one medium / big story in a huge world.

I do not dismiss Iranian complaints about voter fraud. My instinct is that it is a domestic issue for the Iranian poeple to sort out, and they do not need the CIA’s “help” again – the Shah was a terrible enough last time. (Did you wish that the Iranians came to “assist” in your fight for fair democratic results when calls of election fraud were made in America???)

Strawman alert: there is not enough evidence to say that American complaints are not more “legitimate than those of the Iranians”.

But there seems to be clear differences. American complaints about voter fraud were quickly ridiculed and shut-out of mainstream news media. American complaints about voter fraud were accompanied by dramatic and historical reversals in post-poll survey results and irregularities in the detailed tallies. American voter fraud complaints were well documented in advance with respect to the vast security problems of the machines.

The Iranian complaints about voter fraud just seem vapid next to those about the American vote rigging, yet they may still have merit, but I’d doubt it was decisive fraud considering how strongly the Iranian election followed the pre-election polling (see my previous post).

So the allegations of voter fraud in Iran are not “clearly bunk being touted by conspiracy theorists looking to promote an agenda”, although I give you credit for constructing such an extraordinarily tall strawman.

At this point, without hearing the results of the Iranian domestic investigation into the allegations, and based on what sounds like decent pre-polling practices by an independent NGO, it would seem much of it is bunk, but time will tell.

As for your biggest strawman, yes many crackpots appear active within the 9/11 truth community who lead to a discrediting of efforts to get the issue serious attention. Yet the facts speak for themselves. I’d hazard to say that more qualified engineers and scientists who have taken the time to seriously examine the evidence do not support your government’s version. See http://www.ae911truth.org/ and http://www.stj911.com/welcome.html for a sampling of the larger community of such engineers and scientists.

Ken Ballen is president of Terror Free Tomorrow: The Center for Public Opinion, a nonprofit institute that researches attitudes toward extremism. Patrick Doherty is deputy director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. The groups’ May 11-20 polling consisted of 1,001 interviews across Iran and had a 3.1 percentage point margin of error.

… and another report about this poll I read gave the main funding source for non-profits who conducted the poll(s?) it was a Rockerfeller or Rothchild foundation or something like that. WaPo just lent them the soapbox.

true it wasn’t “Hi! This is the Washington Post calling and I’d like to ask you some questions about your political process! And do you need your carpet cleaned? Are you aware your factory warrantee on your car may be about to run out? etc”

I went and looked at the post, but I don’t have approval power here.

I want to point this out, WordPress does not like a lot of links in a post. I ran my own personal blog for a while and if you enable the security in WordPress, it will automatically throw posts with more than two links into moderation. It’s either that or turning it off and watching ‘Great article, check out my site posts pile up.

JBC – I have a response to Smith (1:32 am) which is “awaiting moderation” does that mean it is not visible to others?

I don’t want to dismiss the subject, but we just aren’t getting enough direct information from Iran and all its people. Mousavi’s support (at least from the article you linked to) was mainly in the better educated and wealthier echelons of Iranian society. Having 40% of the populace support one guy and 60% the other guy means 40% are going to be disappointed. Heck look at our own recent election, it was much closer than 60/40, but also far more fair, monitored and ‘transparent’. The entire right wing of America has put the crazy pedal to the metal.

I find the GOP reaction to be typically hilarious. bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran and his cohorts spend most of their time saying how badly Obama is handling this that and the other thing, but have nothing constructive to say. The party of No continues its slide into irrelevance. Lets just give em a bit of a push shall we?

9/11 Truther theories seem increasingly baroque, however, I wouldn’t put it past Cheney and his patriot assassins to slaughter thousands for the greater good of the GOP.

smith, I have been asking shcb to stop listening to hate radio and try other news sources for years. Specifically the BBC as a decent place to start. Then just try other sources rather than extremist right wing web sites and ‘info’ like foxnews. I visit a variety of web sites to get any number of viewpoints. We don’t take the local paper (haven’t for over a decade), but every once in a while will buy the sunday paper (nowadays we’ll buy the local sunday rather than the NYT as the kids like the comics)

I did not say that the Iranians (whose candidate appears to have lost, and who hear him and others say it was fraud), are not complaining on their own. But you get points for the funny value of your intepretation! My comment was about how the media has championed those Iranian complaints – perhaps with Iranian ex-pats in mind – and their relatives back home in Iran. Just being suspicious tis all. That’s healthy.

I’d agree the media is more focussed on other issues than Iran. Iran is but one medium / big story in a huge world.

I do not dismiss Iranian complaints about voter fraud. My instinct is that it is a domestic issue for the Iranian poeple to sort out, and they do not need the CIA’s “help” again – the Shah was a terrible enough last time. (Did you wish that the Iranians came to “assist” in your fight for fair democratic results when calls of election fraud were made in America???)

Strawman alert: there is not enough evidence to say that American complaints are not more “legitimate than those of the Iranians”.

But there seems to be clear differences. American complaints about voter fraud were quickly ridiculed and shut-out of mainstream news media. American complaints about voter fraud were accompanied by dramatic and historical reversals in post-poll survey results and irregularities in the detailed tallies. American voter fraud complaints were well documented in advance with respect to the vast security problems of the machines.

The Iranian complaints about voter fraud just seem vapid next to those about the American vote rigging, yet they may still have merit, but I’d doubt it was decisive fraud considering how strongly the Iranian election followed the pre-election polling (see my previous post).

So the allegations of voter fraud in Iran are not “clearly bunk being touted by conspiracy theorists looking to promote an agenda”, although I give you credit for constructing such an extraordinarily tall strawman.

At this point, without hearing the results of the Iranian domestic investigation into the allegations, and based on what sounds like decent pre-polling practices by an independent NGO, it would seem much of it is bunk, but time will tell.

As for your biggest strawman, yes many crackpots appear active within the 9/11 truth community who lead to a discrediting of efforts to get the issue serious attention. Yet the facts speak for themselves. I’d hazard to say that more qualified engineers and scientists who have taken the time to seriously examine the evidence do not support your government’s version. See http://www.ae911truth.org/ and http://www.stj911.com/welcome.html for a sampling of the larger community of such engineers and scientists.

Before you make further false allegations about who has properly debunked whom, you would do yourself a favour to become familiar with some basic facts:

Proof of high explosives in WTC buldings: http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCIEJ/2008/00000002/00000001/35TOCIEJ.SGM

And a few simple facts to ponder: http://www.csi911.info/CSI911.html

I am curious as to why you would dismiss the Iranians’ complaints about voter fraud, while at the same time much of the blog (I’m guessing you would be part of this group) spent so much time complaining about Diebold, and the 2000 election. Why are American complaints about rigged elections more legitimate than those of the Iranians?

I also find your attitude quite strange in light of your propensity for posting “9/11 Truth” links. You have repeatedly dismissed “reasoned reporting” about 9/11 from any and all publications. Why are the beliefs of the “Truthers”, all or most of which have been consistently debunked by engineers and scientists, valid and worthy of serious discussion, but the allegations of voter fraud in Iran, which have yet to be seriously investigated, are clearly bunk being touted by conspiracy theorists looking to promote an agenda?

Lies is where one would expect some discussion about the Western press latching on to the challenger’s relatively unsubstantiated claims of election fraud and running with it ad nauseum to foment maximum outrage. A cynic would say some people have an agenda to create disharmony in Iran – deep politics and all that evil.

However, perhaps a more reasoned reporting is starting to surface:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/14/AR2009061401757.html

Oh yes, absolutely nothing ironic about an unwed mother (knocked up by a dumb hick) preaching abstinence… and her mother shrills for conservative Family Values while touring the country stumping for her 2012 campaign. Can I mention that neither of these two new parents have a high school education? This heres whachyer home-schoolin does fer ya (wink!)

Buncha right wing glass jawed babies… whaa whaa!

Watch Bill Maher take Obama to task and you can see pretty clearly that Obama isn’t being given a pass by any of the late night crowd (Jon Stewart has ripped Obama a few new ones when they were warranted, Colbert’s irony is lost on wwnjs0).

knarls – if we aren’t hit by a 9/11 level attack by 9/12/09 Obama is officially a success! Actually he has to have TWO 9/11s since bush’s didn’t count (he kept us safe, blah blah blah). Cheney and his band of assassins better git bizay!

The girl gets pregnant, does that make her fair game? Now if the girl were out there giving speeches about morality it would be a no brainer, but to the best of my knowledge she isn’t, I think he should have passed on that joke but I certainly don’t think he should be fired as some on my side are saying, not even close.

You probably aren’t old enough to remember this but maybe you have seen it on reruns, when Henry Fonda died Saturday Night Live did a skit where they showed a coffin lid raising and lowering repeatedly and the tagline “The New Henry Fonda Workout” in reference to Jane Fonda’s workout video that was all the rage at the time. People went ballistic, “they couldn’t even wait a week!” they cried, I thought it was clever but it probably did cross a line they shouldn’t have crossed.

But back to the subject. I think this idea of why can’t we elevate the discourse and not do this or that is kind of like complaining about the weather, it makes for an interesting discussion on a slow news day but there isn’t much we are ever going to do about it.

The difference is the people are presented as demons here based on facts: these are the same people who authorized and encouraged (“This is your baby. Go do it.”) sadistic tortures:

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175080/alfred_mccoy_back_to_the_future_in_torture_policy

There is proof that high explosives were used on 911, and ample examples of the Lies to cover-up, use of authority to delay and hamper a full investigation, and destruction the evidence.

And obviously you don’t watch late night tv very much, cause you’d know that them guys rip on everyone – Clinton’s, Bush’s, Palin’s – all of them.

Megan is fat, Chelsea is ugly and Bristol is slutty.

Do I think Megan is fat? No. Chelsea ugly? No. Bristol slutty? No. Actaully they’re all pretty hot and the first two are also very bright.

But do I like comedy and I laugh at all the jokes.

Just like I think Dennis Miller is funny, even though he bashes “my ideology”. He’s no Jon Stewart, but still, pretty darn funny.

If Palin wants to be president someday, she better get thicker skin up there in Alaska, also, you betcha.