Tuesday, September 18, 2012

What has the 9/11 Truth Movement really done?

It has been 11 years since terrorists attacked this country and murdered almost 3,000 people, and almost over night conspiracy theorists began accusing the government of committing this massive attack. These people eventually became known the "9/11 Truth Movement", or, as they are more commonly called, "Truthers".

So, what exactly has this 9/11 Truth Movement done?

Well, besides promoting a conspiracy theory that has been completely and totally dis-credited and debunked (even though they try make it appear that their theories are still creditable) all they have really done is nothing at all.

Well... nothing positive at least.

The 9/11 Truth Movement has done nothing but promote ideas that sometimes makes gullible people paranoid, and paranoid people more paranoid.

It has given liars and frauds a chance to exploit these gullible and paranoid people, and basically make money off of them through sales of their books and videos, and people paying to see them and hear them speak.

It has left some people so paranoid that they think that anyone who doesn't share their beliefs is either a sheep or a dis-information agent. This includes everyone from people over the internet whom they have never met, and conclude that they must be working for the government, or are just stupid, simply because they disagree with them, to close friends and family members whom are concerned about them because their belief in the conspiracy theory is affecting their life. This paranoia can even lead to a person in the Truth movement to isolate themselves from those close to them, or from society in general, because they just don't feel they can trust anyone that do not believe what they believe.

It has given rise to other conspiracy theories, new and old alike. Some of these conspiracy theories may have even been created as a form of payback for the 9/11 conspiracy theories (which has been mainly directed at President George W. Bush) and other conspiracy theories directed at President Bush.

It has led to people committing actions that could be considered disrespectful to those that died on that day, and those service men and women who have fought and even died in the War on Terror, to actions that are harmful to themselves and to others, and even actions that are illegal.

Finally, it has led to some people to cause their careers to end because they just can't separate their beliefs that the 9/11 attacks was caused by the government from their places of work.

This is the ultimate legacy of the 9/11 Truth Movement. Not one of truth, but one of lies, paranoia, manipulation, and ruination.

If one good thing has come as a result of the 9/11 Truth Movement it is ironically that it has led to numerous people to start debunking blogs in order to debunk these 9/11 conspiracy theories, and eventually start debunking other conspiracy theories and pseudosciences as well.

Friday, September 14, 2012

25 interesting facts about the Vice Presidents of the United States

25. John Tyler is the shortest serving Vice President of the United States, having been in the office for only 31 days before becoming President of the United States upon President William Henry Harrison's death.

24. William R. King is the shortest serving Vice President to have also died in office.

23. Daniel D. Tompkins, Thomas R. Marshall, Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush, Al Gore, and Dick Cheney are the longest serving Vice Presidents, having served two full terms in office.

22. Andrew Johnson is the last person to be elected Vice President of the United States that ran neither as a Democrat, nor a Republican, but, along with President Abraham Lincoln, ran as a candidate for the National Union Party

21. A person must be a natural-born citizen, be at least 35 years old, and must have been a permanent resident of the United States 14 years in order to be eligible to run for Vice President, same as President.

20. Unlike with the President of the United States, there are no term limits for the Vice President.

19. There has been more Vice Presidents of the United States then Presidents of the United States. 47 Vice Presidents to be exact, while there has been only 43 Presidents.

18. John C. Calhoun is the only Vice President to be Vice President under two different political parties: The Democratic-Republicans, and the Democrats.

17. John Tyler and John C. Breckinridge are the only two former Vice Presidents to side with the Confederate States during the Civil War. Breckinridge even fought for the Confederate States as a Major General.

16. Alben W. Barkley is the oldest Vice President. He was 71 when he assumed the office, and 75 when he left.

15. John C. Breckinridge, at the age of 36, became the youngest person to become Vice President.

14.  The longest living Vice President was John Nance Garner, who was almost 99 years old when he died.

13. The shortest lived Vice President was Daniel D. Tompkins, who was almost 51 years old when he died.

12. Presidents Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Grover Cleveland, William McKinley, and Richard Nixon all had two Vice Presidents.

11. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had three Vice Presidents, and thus more Vice Presidents then any other President.

10. Presidents John Tyler, Millard Filmore, Andrew Johnson, and Chester A. Arthur never had a Vice President.

9. No Vice President has ever been assassinated.

8. George Clinton and John C. Calhoun are the only two Vice Presidents to serve under two different Presidents.

7. The Presidential election of 1800 is the only election where the current Vice President ran against the current President.

6. The elections of 1789, 1792, and 1796 are the only ones which a Vice President was elected that was of a different party then the President.

5. Martin Van Buren and George H. W. Bush are the only Vice Presidents to be elected President of the United States and after the terms of the presidents they served under, Andrew Johnson and Ronald Reagan, ended. Ironically, both only served one term, while their predecessors served two terms.

4. Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry S. Truman, and Lyndon B. Johnson, are the only four Vice Presidents to become president after the previous president died, and then win a presidential election on their own.

3. John Tyler, Millard Filmore, Andrew Johnson, Chester A. Arthur, and Gerald Ford are the only five Vice Presidents who later became President of the United States, but was never elected president, and only became president after the previous presidents died or resigned.

2. John C. Calhoun and Spiro Agnew are the only two Vice Presidents to resign from office. Calhoun resigned to take a seat in the United States Senate. Agnew resigned due to criminal charges, which he later pleaded no contest to.

1. George Clinton, Elbridge Gerry, William R. King, Henry Wilson, Thomas A. Hendricks, Garret Hobart, and James S. Sherman are the only Vice Presidents to die in office.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

How do you know a cult is dead? When even it's critics feel it's pointless to continue criticizing it.

Cults usually have two ways of dieing. Usually it's either in some way that most, if not all of it's members die, or, no one gives a damn about them anymore, including it's critics, because there is just not enough members left to give a damn about the group, and even the members that remain don't seem to give a damn about it anymore either.

The Zeitgeist Movement, a group that that many of it's critics consider to be a cult, and promotes conspiracy theories, an unrealistic and highly flawed economic system called the "resource based economy", an unrealistic belief that no one will ever have to work anymore, that machines will do all of our work for us, and reeducating people (hinting that reeducation could be forced) to change the way they think, has essentially gone out with a fizzle, instead of a boom.

It's Z-day events around the world has gotten smaller and smaller every year, and it's recent "Zeitgeist Media Festival" was a complete failure. Hardly anyone showed up at all. In addition to this, it's New (Age) World Fair was also a failure.

What's left of it's leadership appears to be losing it due to the lose of membership and plain interest in the group. One of the Zeitgeist Movement's leaders, VTV, is so desperate for attention that he has now resorted to trolling internet blogs and forums with sock puppets. The creator of TZM, Peter Joseph Merola, has been begging people to interview him, even trying to get conspiracy theory promoter Alex Jones to interview him.

No group that might share even miniscule amounts of similarity with them want's anything to do with them either.

The Venus Project, which the Zeitgeist Movement once considered itself to be the activist arm of, broke it's relationship with TZM in 2011, and now wants nothing to do with it. The Occupy Movement also wants nothing to with them. Anytime TZM shows up at a Occupy Movement camp site, they are shunned, ignored, and made very well known that they are not wanted, nor welcomed.

Most people in politics don't even talk about the Zeitgeist Movement. This can be either because they know that some of the people in that movement are a bunch of unreasonable, and sometimes unstable nutcases, or because they've never even heard of them in the first place.

With the exception of when one of it's members does something horrible, or incredibly stupid, the media doesn't give TZM any attention what so ever, and when the media does give TZM any attention when one of it's members does something that's really screwed up, the attention is "very" little.

Finally, there are the critics themselves. Whats left of them at least.

Fellow blogger and Zeitgeist Movement critic Jim Jesus has already stated that he is no longer going to criticize TZM, mostly because the group is basically dead, and that continuing to criticize them would be pointless and a waste of time. Even the blog site Zeitgeist Movement Exposed hardly criticizes them anymore.

In the end, what has caused the death of the Zeitgeist Movement was itself. No sane person can get behind such a movement for very long, and even conspiracy theorists have difficulty getting behind such a group due to it's authoritarian ways, it's hostility towards Christianity, and it's anti-capitalistic economic model.

The Zeitgeist Movement is dead. Whats left is rotting away.

Friday, September 7, 2012

ECT Follow up: 9/11 Controlled Demolition: WTC 7

On my previous blog debunking the belief that the World Trade Center towers were destroyed in a control demolition, I discussed how the Twin Towers were not brought down in a controlled demolition, but as the result of massive structural damage brought on by the collision of a couple of jumbo jets.

There is of course this one nagging argument that many Truthers make as "proof" that the World Trade Center towers were brought down by explosives:

The collapse of World Trade Center building 7.

The main reasons why so many Truthers (almost all in fact) believe that WTC 7 was brought down by explosives is because the building itself was not hit by any planes, and it doesn't look damaged in many of the photos and videos of that day, and in the videos of the collapse it does kind of look like a controlled demolition to the untrained eye. Also, it is believed that the order "pull it", which was given shortly before the building came down, is a common order that demolition experts use right when they bring down a building.

While the building itself was not hit by any planes, it was in fact hit by the falling debris from the World Trade Center towers, as was a lot of other building near the Twin Towers, and was heavily damaged, as was a lot of the buildings near the Twin Towers as well. Most people can't tell this from looking at photos and videos of it after the towers collapsed because of all the smoke and dust. All that most people have ever seen is what appears to be an undamaged building.

In fact, it was very heavily damaged. 25% of it's bottom floors were just gone. Added to the damage from the falling debris was the fact that the building was on fire, and that those fires were most likely fueled by the diesel generators located inside the building itself, so those fires just kept on going on and on.

After being on fire for seven hours, and having been heavily damaged, one of the steel trusses finally gave way, which resulted in the other trusses, being unable to take the load of the building on their own, giving way as well, and causing the building to finally collapse in such a way that some people who don't see it at the right angle might think they were watching a controlled demolition.

Of course now there is the phrase "pull it" which was used shortly before the building collapsed, and many conspiracy theorists believe this was the order given to bring down the building. Actually "pull it" is a common evacuation order, which was given after the building began to visible sag. In fact, "shoot it" or "blow it" are the more common term demolition experts use when bringing down a building.

The fact remains is that WTC 7 was not brought down by explosives, but as a result of fire and heavy damage by falling debris.

Also, for further study about how the 3 WTC buildings collapsed, please click on the following link and watch the video in the link:

http://illuminutti.com/2012/04/18/911-were-explosives-used/

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Twelve Failed Doomsday Prophecies for the 21st Century

Many people believe that the world is going to end on December 21, 2012. The reason for this is because the Mayan Long Court Calendar is suppose to end on this date (even though the actual date itself is often debated, and has been said to have already occurred in the first place) and that the end of the world would end on that date (despite the fact that Mayan scholars have never found any predictions of doomsday in classic Mayan accounts).

This isn't the only prediction of the end of the world for the 21st century. In fact, there have been multiple end of the world predictions for the 21st century. All of these predictions so far have failed, and should make a person reconsider whether the 12/21/2012 doomsday prediction, or any other doomsday prediction, is legit.

So here now are twelve of the more famous failed doomsday predictions for the 21st century:

2000

Various people, from Sir Issac Newton, to Ed Dobson, predicted that the world would end, or begin to end, sometime in the year 2000, usually by the second coming of Jesus Christ.

1/1/2000

There were multiple doomsday predictions for this day. Everything from a computer glitch causing a world wide shutdown of major computer systems, to the Rapture, were predicted to occur on this day,

4/6/2000

James Harmston, the leader of the Mormon Fundamentalist group, The True and Living Church of Jesus Christ of Saints of the Last Days, predicted that the second coming of Jesus would occur on this day.

5/5/2000

A group called the Nuwaubian Nation (which is considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center) claimed that on this date that a planetary lineup would cause the planets to be pulled into the sun.

10/9/2000

Grant Jeffrey, a Canadian Bible teacher, suggested that this date would be the probable termination point for the 'last days'.

2001

Tynetta Muhammad, a columnist for the Nation of Islam, predicted that the world would end sometime in this year.

5/2003

Nancy Lieder, a woman who claims to receive messages from aliens via a implant in her brain, claimed that the planet Nibiru would enter our solar system sometime in the month of May 2003, and would cause a pole shift that would end most of human life.

11/29/2003

The Japanese cult and terrorist group Aum Shinrikyo had issued a prediction that the world would end on this date as the result of a nuclear war that was suppose to begin on October 30, 2003.

4/29/2007

Televangelist Pat Robertson had predicted in his 1990 book "The New Millennium" that the world would end on this date.

2010

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a magical order group that existed in Great Britain during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, had predicted that the world would end sometime in the year 2010.

10/21/2011

Christian radio broadcaster Harold Camping (who had made several end of the world predictions before) claimed that the world would end on this date after the Rapture and a massive, worldwide earthquake starting on May 21, 2011.

5/27/2012

Church of God, Preparing for the Kingdom of God founder Ronald Weinland predicted that Jesus Christ would return on this date. This is a "revised" prediction form an earlier failed prediction made by Mr. Weinland that Jesus would return on May 27, 2011. He had also "predicted" that nuclear bombs would destroy US ports in 2008.

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Why I don't write long blog posts

I'm sure some of you here who enjoy reading my blog have noticed that most of my posts are not extremely long. In fact, most are no more then a page long.

Well, there are several reasons for why I don't write long blog articles.

One of the reason why I don't write extremely long blog articles is because some people simply don't have the time, or the concentration, to read long blog articles, and I hold the belief that if you can't catch their interest in five minutes, then they're not going to continue to read what you have to say, so it's better to give them something they can read in five minutes, and get your point across in that frame of time.

Another reason why I don't write long blog articles is because of my dealings with conspiracy theorists, and that I have noticed that most of them don't really pay attention to details to often, and that's it better to begin there journey into what is real and what is made up delusion, and give them the boost they need to start investigating on their own. Not just for conspiracy theorists either, but for people who are not sure if a conspiracy is real or not. This could help start their journey into finding out for themselves that a conspiracy theory is made up.

Now of course I'm not bad mouthing long debunking blog articles. In fact I think they are great. They help debunk the nonsense of conspiracy theories and pseudoscience, and provide a lot more information then I sometimes do.

In a way, I feel that they further along what I'm trying to doing with my own blog, and that is to rid the world of nonsense, and help people realize that the world isn't as scary of a place as they may think, and that there is no big government boogie man lurking around the corner.