If the whole subject of 9-11 weren’t so serious, you could get a big laugh at the idea of Rosie O’Donnell pontificating on such technical subjects as the melting point of steel. According to Wikipedia, Rosie didn’t make it through college and my best guess is she’d have a helluva time passing high school physics or maybe even geometry. But we live in a day and age when everybody has an opinion on scientific matters whether or not they’ve seen the inside of a petri dish or even know what one is.
Of course that Rosie is mostly clueless about science only works to her advantage. She doesn’t have to trouble herself with pesky facts. This also helps her as a conspiracy theorist because they can’t show doubt-the essence of the scientific method- at any time.
Speaking of conspiracy theorists, for the most part they bore me stiff. Rosie O’Donnell certainly does. But I’m beginning to be jealous of them – there’s gold in them thar hills. And the more bizarre the accusation …. such as Rosie’s contention that 7 World Trade Center may have been taken down by Enron to avoid investigation????…. the more money can be made from it. Maybe I should think of a really good conspiracy and write a book about it. How about…. Ahmadinejad is a CIA agent? [But everyone already knows that's true.-ed. They do?]
PJM Home
Pajamas Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
The clause regarding "hate speech" has been deleted because readers criticized it as being too loosely defined. We agreed.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that Pajamas Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pajamasmedia.com.
13 Comments
1. Luther McLeod:Honestly, I’m just astounded that Rosie is even a molecule of the national debate. I think it just shows how far we have sunk, that we even mention her name. Nothing personal Roger.
May 30, 2007 - 7:19 pm 2. Deagle:Unfortunately, you’re right Luther..(may I call you Superman’s enemy?). Yep, our society has focused on sex, conflict, and PC subjects. A shame, but an unfortunate fact…hey, politics don’t really make a difference anyway. (Actually, I’m beginning to believe that last statement is at least partially true!).
May 30, 2007 - 7:35 pm 3. Terrye:It is not just Rosie and 9/11. Conspiracy theorists are everywhere, right…left and middle. I don’t care if the subject is abortion, immigration, Iraq, 9/11 or Katrina they are out there spewing this stuff. It makes serious political debate all but impossible.
I think the internet is a good thing, but I also think it has lead to a rise in this kind of thing because it makes it easier to spread nonsense and lies. And because it makes all sorts of people believe they are one of a vast army of people.
May 31, 2007 - 3:42 am 4. ElMondo:Oh, no, Roger! Now that you’ve mentioned one of the popular 9/11 myths, you’re going to get all sorts of people posting disingenuous questions like “Did you know that jet fuel doesn’t get hot enough to melt steel?”, or “I was amazed to hear that the WTC fell into its own footprint? Did you know that was impossible outside of controlled demolition?”. Etc. And so on. Ad absurdum.
(*Sigh*). Those addicted to conspiracy fantasy just don’t go away. They merely move to other forums and peddle the same old debunked stuff disproven elsewhere.
Anyway, to get more on topic: Rosie’s merely repeating stuff she’s found on Google without properly thinking about it. Or even trying to think about it. That’s her problem: She’s acting as though she’s uncovered the biggest coverup of all time when all she’s doing is falling for mistakes, misinterpretations, or complete fabrications of paranoids in society. For example, the reports of molten steel were made weeks after the collapse (Starting point for research: http://911myths.com/html/wtc_molten_steel.html). Those reports can be explained by continuous exposure to weeks long fires burning in insulated environments (remember (or Google for) the news articles in October and November about fires still raging underneath tons of rubble). No “sighting” of molten steel were made on 9/11 itself, YouTube videos nonwithstanding. Yet, fantasy addicts continue to push molten steel as proof the towers were intentionally demolished.
That stuff Rosie pushes is just completely representative of non-critical thinking. I didn’t think much of her before she became a “truther”, but I think so much less of her now. You really, really have to 1. Be ignorant, and 2. Fully believe you’re the total and exact opposite to fall for such baloney, and that’s what makes me so disrespectful of what Rosie has become. Only intentional idiots gladly running down the path of foolishness fully buy into conspiracy fantasy.
May 31, 2007 - 6:01 am 5. ElMondo:“… it makes all sorts of people believe they are one of a vast army of people.”
That’s so true, Terrye. I continuously read people on JREF’s (James Randi Educational Foundation) forums (http://forums.randi.org/forumdisplay.php?f=64), Screw Loose Change, or other sites saying “I found tons of stuff on the internet about this!!” As if those thousands of sites actually added up to something.
I always want to tell him ‘No, buddy. You didn’t find tons of information. You found an echo chamber. You discovered that the internet can bounce a single ounce of topic endlessly across thousands of sites. You didn’t uncover reams of original data, like some Dan Ellsberg getting handed the Pentagon Papers, you found the web equivalent of ten thousand xeroxes of the same thing. The number of fantasy sites out there doesn’t mean there are thousands of points of individual truth adding up to a narrative. It merely means there are a lot of people willing to duplicate reportage. That’s it.’
Rosie is nothing more than a verbal Xerox. Which is an insult on so many levels, not the least of which is the one that implies she doesn’t think about what she’s outputting, she merely copies, like a dumb machine.
May 31, 2007 - 6:12 am 6. LarryD:The 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists, at least, are driven by denial. Unable to cope with the reality of the Islamists threat, they deny it. But they can’t just ignore the inconvenient fact of 9/11, so they have to explain it away. Hence the conspiracy theories.
May 31, 2007 - 6:18 am 7. Steven:Jeez, how naive can you be? Don’t you realize that Rosie is part of the conspiracy? By acting like a clown, she makes the whole Enron connection seem ridiculous. But I’ve seen tons of stuff on the internet about how she was actually on Enron’s payroll back in 2001…
May 31, 2007 - 6:52 am 8. Lem:The infinitesimal period of time we have had to take note of such things as the weather aside. The current abundance of conspiracy theories and the ease with witch people nourish themselves with them makes it all the more difficult to scientifically argue man made global warming, let alone wait for test results and the like.
In the absence of faith, facts just seem unreliable to some people.
May 31, 2007 - 8:51 am 9. MarkD:It all started with the confluence of news and entertainment. The newspapers gave entertainers credibility in the minds of the unwashed, by reporting on their lives. “They must be important, they are in the newspaper.”
That caused two problems: entertainers began to believe their opinions were worthy of merit, and the public began to give credit to the opinions of the entertainers.
If I had cancer, I promise you I wouldn’t be seeking medical advice from an actor. So why would I pay any more attention to their uninformed opinions on global warming or any other serious topic?
May 31, 2007 - 11:21 am 10. Lem:Conspiracy theories usually depend on our limited capacity to go back in time and look for ourselves. Nothing is more valuable to global warming alarmists than this metaphysical shortcoming.
Take the NASA administrators comments for example.
“I have no doubt that a trend of global warming exists,” Griffin told Inskeep. “I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with.”
“To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth’s climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn’t change,” Griffin said. “I guess I would ask which human beings – where and when – are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that’s a rather arrogant position for people to take.”
That perfectly cogent statement was immediately twisted and spinned to mean something different.
May 31, 2007 - 12:11 pm 11. Lem:Griffin (NASA honcho & now GW denier) received a bachelor’s degree in Physics from Johns Hopkins University; a master’s degree in Aerospace Science from Catholic University of America; a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Maryland; a master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California; a master’s degree in Applied Physics from Johns Hopkins University; a master’s degree in Business Administration from Loyola College; and a master’s degree in Civil Engineering from George Washington University
Earlier in his career, Griffin served as chief engineer and associate administrator for exploration at NASA Headquarters and also worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He also served as Deputy for Technology at the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization.
And there it is… he is a star wars engineer. This is the guy responsible for getting Putin all steamed up testing missiles before you know it. This is all Bush World War Tree. Its all over the net
Conspiracy anyone?
May 31, 2007 - 12:45 pm 12. LordDilly:Here’s a thought for the “Truthers:”
If Bush wanted to trick us into war with Iraq, wouldn’t he have made all of the 9/11 hijackers Iraqi? Blamed Saddam’s intelligence services for the plot?
Also, why go through all of the hullabaloo with ramming planes into the WTC, thus risking eagle-eyed “Truth Seekers” seeing through the deception, when it would have been easier, cheaper, and more iron-clad evidence wise to just detonate a small “terrorist-sized” nuke in a US city?
May 31, 2007 - 3:39 pm 13. Charlie (Colorado):And there it is… he is a star wars engineer. This is the guy responsible for getting Putin all steamed up testing missiles before you know it. This is all Bush World War Tree. Its all over the net
Lem, did you mean that as a joke? Because, if not, you may be interested to know that when Wegman’s NSF panel showed that Mann et al’s statistics were flaed (which is a polite way of saying “sucked”), one of the first things that was brought up about him was that he’d been funded by SDIO so must be a Cheney plant.
(I suppose I should note that I too was funded by SDIO in grad school.)
May 31, 2007 - 9:28 pm