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Keith Olbermann August 31, 2006

Posted by Joshua in Political Commentary/Statements.
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Could Keith Olbermann be the Edward R. Murrow of this generation? God knows this country could use one, at least one. He seems to be aspiring to have such a voice on his MSNBC show, for which I must applaud him. This clip of him taking Donald Rumsfield to task for his recent negative campaign against Iraq war/war on terror-dissenting Americans is a brilliant piece of writing and speech certainly in the strong spirit of Murrow. I will quote Murrow below just as Olbermann so aptly does to end this segment. We need to hear this now just as many needed to hear it then. For the “enemies” may have changed, but the spirit has stayed the same.

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of un-reason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men; Not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were – for the moment – unpopular.”

Views on 9/11 and “The War on Terror” – part 2 preview August 28, 2006

Posted by Joshua in Uncategorized.
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The weekend did not afford me the blogging time I thought it might. I am not certain when I will be able to fully finish part 2 of the post on 9/11, but I thought I could put up at least a little teaser preview of the second part for now. Enjoy.


It seems, for many, a difficult thing to delve into the mental labyrinth of alternative 9/11 theories. Many do not seem willing to do so at all. Perhaps for some, the memory of 9/11 is just too painful and all their anger has been too intensely focused on the accused “Islamic terrorists”. And for others, it is absolutely impossible to consider anything suggesting our government could have been involved in such attacks or even allowed them to happen. But, it is curious how such people have no trouble believing any part of the story that 19 men armed with box cutters and limited flying experience were able to pull off the attacks alone, unhindered, and even able to fly undetected into restricted D.C. airspace, performing an outrageous manuever into what one would think would be one of the most protected buildings in the world. They also have no trouble believing the reason the two world trade towers collapsed straight down at near freefall speed was supposedly because of the impact and the heat of the fires, even though there seem to be no other examples in the world, before or since, of a like occurrence. (It is little known that building 7 of the World Trade Center also collapsed the exact same way that day, though it was not hit by a plane and the fires did not seem to be raging. More on this later.)

I don’t think unyielding acceptance of or refusal to question the government story is due to any solid evidence or lack of worthy questions. Instead, I believe it is due in large part to the ugly taboo put over the word “conspiracy” in our society. “Conspiracy theory” seems to be the label of choice people use to discredit any idea as kooky or overly paranoid; as somehow automatically invalid. In effect, the actual meaning of the term conspiracy is often ignored. Any ideas that stray from or challenge the government story of 9/11 are harshly shot down simply as wild conspiracy theories. The definition of conspiracy, though, is simply; An agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime. Regardless of who was responsible, the attack was a crime and therefore involved conspiracy. Given that and the unanswered questions left by the 9/11 commission, the government story itself is a conspiracy theory. Once this is realized, all that’s left to explain 9/11 are conspiracy theories, and our purpose here is to try to find out which one works best.

To be continued…

School begins August 23, 2006

Posted by Joshua in Personal.
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I started classes at UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham) yesterday. I expect that my blogging here will be a little less frequent, particularly as the semester progresses. Still expect to see part 2 of Views on 9/11 and the War on Terror posted sometime later this week or weekend. I have a few topics already lined up in my head for the future so I would say expect maybe 2 posts per month here; one every 1 and 1/2 to 2 weeks on average for the next few months. Actually, up until a few months ago, I was much more infrequent in posting than even that, so the frequency may not even be that noticeable after all. We’ll see what happens anyway.

Thanks for reading. Cheers.