Bob and Tony and Rosie and Malice

Rosie had Bob McIlvaine and Tony Szamboti on her radio show (MP3 file) a week or so ago. It's the usual bit of nuttery; the program leads in with a lie: "How many buildings collapsed on 9-11 Mom? Three."

Well, three if you don't count WTC-3. And St. Nick's.

Bob McIlvaine talks about the explosions before the planes hit. Never mind that mop-jockey Willie Rodriguez is the only person to claim there were explosions before the plane impacts. Bob's got people from Ladder 10 who told him there were explosions, and Willie who says there was one before the planes, so therefore Bob's got numerous reports of multiple explosions before.

Tony Szamboti chips in (breathlessly--the guy sounds like he's just finished the mile run) to tell us fire can't melt steel. Oh, except for in a few cases. Left unsaid, of course, by this engineer is that fire doesn't have to melt steel for the metal to lose its load-bearing capacity.

The 9-11 Commission didn't even mention Building 7's collapse! (They didn't even mention St. Nick's collapse either, but the dolts never bring that up.)

Sigh. These morons are like a broken record.

Rosie the Ribbiter

Rosie O'Donnell picks up where she left off (mp3 file, right click and choose save as to download), with 9-11 Truthiness.

Listening to it now. The bulk of the show is an interview with Willie Rodriguez, whom Mark (Gravy) Roberts took apart masterfully. It leads with a claim I had not heard before, about people in an elevator in Tower 2 being on fire prior to the second plane hitting. I'll see if I can find any reference to that one.

Rosie Live Flops

What collapsed at faster than freefall speed? 9-11 Troofer Rosie O'Donnell's primetime variety show, according to all reviews:

Critics were not kind. The NY Times described it as "hokey comedy with an enemies list." TV Guide called it a "ghastly ego trip." And the LA Times asked, "Rosie, what on earth were you thinking?"

I did not watch it, but I did check out a clip of the show featuring Conan O'Brien and Alec Baldwin, which was painfully unfunny:



Conan looks like he's enjoying that about as much as the average teenager likes detention. No mention of her bringing up her 9-11 Troof nonsense in any of the accounts I've read.

Rosie O'Donnell on the Howard Stern Show

Rosie channels Judy Wood. The least she could do is keep up with the latest version of woo.




Update by Pat: James beat me to the punch on this one. I do want to point out that Rosie, not surprisingly, insists that Willie Rodriguez was in Tower 2. She's wrong, he was in the North Tower, which is Tower 1.

Update II: Hat Tip: Walter Ego.

Rosie O'Donnell Returns!

In what very much smells like a planned video. Let me get this straight, the Troofers have Rosie O'Donnell in front of them and they ask her to give a statement about a first responder? That's not MIHOP, that's not LIHOP, that's not even LIHOI. That's Arabs did it and the government lied about the air quality. Daniel Sunjata (boy is his career going to tank) comes on afterwards to talk about how obviously Rosie is still endorsing the movement, even though in all honesty there's nothing to object to in this video from Rosie--apparently.

But like I said, this smells. Luke is not a nobody, he's well known in the NY Truther community, to which Rosie obviously belongs (although I doubt she spends any real time on it). This is not a happenstance meeting, it was choreographed. Rosie lends her support to the WAC jobs while still managing to claim plausible deniability; who among us does not support the first responders?

Dennis Miller Comments on Rosie

The troofers are looking at this optimistically, because Miller is demanding that Rosie show evidence. What they don't realize is that is the death sentence for the truthers, they can only survive through their vague "just asking questions" shtick. Miller sees through this, so he tells Rosie to put up or shut up.

Rosie: I Never Said 9-11 Was An Inside Job

Which is false on at least one level; in the famed clip with her and Christine Ebersole, she did say just that, although she was quoting Mark (John Connor) Dice:



Hat Tip: Allahpundit, who has some excellent thoughts on this.

Rosie Gets Invite to Hang With The Terrorists

After all, they're mothers and fathers, just like her.

"We welcome Rosie O'Donnell to stay among us and to get to know the truth from being here," says one Ala Senakreh, the West Bank Chief of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terrorist organization, to WorldNetDaily.com's Aaron Klein. Aqsa is a Palestinian wackjob outfit that claims to have killed hundreds of Israelis in multiple suicide bombings since 2000.

Ro, of course, made serious waves when she told Elisabeth Hasselbeck and the "View" audience that people shouldn't "fear the terrorists" because they're "mothers and fathers," and has pushed the conspiracy theory that the collapse of WTC 7 was engineered by the government. "When it comes from persons like Rosie, who you say is respected, it takes a more serious significance. I guess she knows what she is saying," says Senakreh.

Of course, there is one problem; they don't know Rosie's, um, personal life:

The terrorists interviewed stated they had never heard of O'Donnell, a former host of ABC's "The View," who made regular headlines with her heated political battles against conservative-leaning co-host Elizabeth Hasselbeck. Klein told the terrorists O'Donnell was a high profile television personality and read to them a series of her political statements, with which they mostly agreed.

Rosie Claims Fight with Hasselbeck was Scripted?

According to this posting at IMDB:

TV host Rosie O'Donnell has branded the on-air feud that caused her to quit talk show The View a "publicity stunt." The star's war of words with fellow presenter Elisabeth Hasselbeck over differing political views last month led to O'Donnell leaving the show - but she now insists the dramatic row was purposely incited, according to the New York Daily News. Speaking at the launch for her new book Celebrity Detox, she told the audience her publicist "orchestrated that whole publicity thing just to get more attention for the book ... brazenly calling up the other hosts, telling them to incite me." O'Donnell had already chosen to leave the series when her year-long contract expired this month, but left The View three weeks early, on May 25.

But over at her blog:

sam writes:

I only can hope, that what I read today in the papers, that the fight with u n EH was staged 4 ur new book, is not true.It would b a big blow 2 all ur fans that came 2 ur defense, if this was staged.

honey
that was truth
not acting

The NY Times on Rosie and WTC 7

The Times, which received 5 Pulitzers for its 9/11 coverage, even if Jim Fetzer insists Loose Change did a better job of investigating, ran an article today on the recent Rosie O'Donnell controversy. The article is hidden behind that idiotic Times Select thing, but I posted the interesting part:

She also recently took up -- without quite spelling out -- a theory that one of the buildings at the World Trade Center, No. 7, was brought down by bombs late in the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001. No. 7 was not one of the towers struck by the airplanes, she said, but a separate building ''that got hit by nothing -- 47 floors and dropped, 5:30, into itself.''

She also said: ''I do believe that it's the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel. I do believe that it defies physics that World Trade Center Tower 7 -- Building 7, which collapsed in on itself -- it is impossible for a building to fall the way it fell without explosives being involved.''

That conversation has been left dangling by her abrupt departure from the show, but her statements made their way to Queens and the home of Daniel Nigro, retired after a life in the Fire Department. He began the morning of Sept. 11 as second-in-command; by 10:30, he was in charge, when the chief of department, Peter J. Ganci Jr., was killed.

''I feel like I watch the show because it's replayed so often on the news: 'I never saw fire melt steel,' and the studio audience clapping, like this was some great revelation,'' Mr. Nigro said. ''It's true that there has never been a skyscraper collapse as a result of just a fire. It's a natural progression to a conspiracy theory.''

THE world has paid little attention to 7 World Trade Center, which fell seven hours after the north and south towers. It was 47 stories tall, but less than half their height. No one was inside. Since 2,750 people had been mortally injured or died in the attack, hardly anyone cared about the collapse of an empty skyscraper, no matter how novel. Early reports billed it as the first steel skyscraper in the country to collapse solely from uncontrolled fire.

As time went on, the collapse of No. 7 became a focal point for people who suspected that the federal government had a malevolent hand in the Sept. 11 attack, particularly since the building's tenants included the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense and the Secret Service, along with the city's Office of Emergency Management.

By Ms. O'Donnell's account, only explosives could have brought it down. About 90 minutes before it fell, however, Mr. Nigro said he and other chiefs decided to get out. ''We believed from observations inside and out that there was structural damage,'' he said. The building had been hit by debris from the collapse of the north tower, 300 feet away. Fires roared.

His account is backed up in two ways. First, in oral histories, firefighters and commanders described retreating from No. 7 because of the expected collapse. Second, photographs taken from a police helicopter show that a large chunk of the bottom of the building had been destroyed by debris from the north tower; a comprehensive study by Popular Mechanics magazine concluded that along the bottom 10 floors, a quarter of the south face was knocked away.

We Forgot About Rosie's Video Blog!

Kudos to News Buckit for sending this our way. Rosie and the makeup gal (Helene) exchange thoughts yesterday evening about the nuclear explosion that happened on The View this week, while tippling a bit of wine and Sam Adams. Janet, who usually makes up the third part of the "Jahero" blog is banished for this v-log for her mustache-drawing escapade. Apparently Rosie will appear one final time on the show, a pretaped bit Monday for Elisabeth's birthday, and Rosie seems to gloat a bit that this will show her being so nice to Lis, how could she have stabbed Ro in the back like that?

She doesn't talk much about the 9-11 quackery here. She falls back on the wheeze that "If only it was about Bin Laden; it seems he's Bin Forgotten".

She says late in the piece that she "Supports Lynndie England, because I was never one of those rich quite guys." Coming from a rich white broad....

Rosie seems to be auditioning for the role of Hamlet with all the sighing and glum commentary. Cheered me up to no end!

Page Six: More Details on Rosie, Sheen

The NY Post reports (perhaps optimistically) that Loose Change is losing steam:

A source tells us Charlie Sheen "is having second thoughts" about being involved in an updated version of the flick, which has a huge following on YouTube. As Page Six reported in March, Sheen had agreed to narrate the ridiculous flick, presumably to give it some needed Hollywood sizzle.

And here's an additional detail about Ro's exit from the view:

O'Donnell reportedly had booked the film's producers, Korey Rowe and Dylan Avery, on Thursday's show. But after getting into a fight with Elisabeth Hasselbeck Wednesday, and after her chief writer was caught defacing Hasselbeck's photos with mustaches, O'Donnell left the show.

One Last Shot of 9-11 Denial on the View

Ro leads with Willie Rodriguez and the poor man with his skin falling off, as usual assuming this means explosives. But of course the man was burned by the fireball that traveled down the elevator shaft--even Willie used to admit that. She goes on to raving about WTC 7 being omitted from the 9-11 Commission Report, like the 9-11 Commission was concerned about a building in which nobody died, which was not a direct target of the attacks. The 9-11 Commission report also did not mention St. Nick's Cathedral, which was also destroyed. Oooooh, mysterious.

And anyway, the notion that the 9-11 Commission Report (PDF file) does not mention WTC 7 is wrong.

Page 301:

The OEM's headquarters was located at 7 WTC. Some questioned locating it both so close to a previous terrorist target and on the 23rd floor of a building (difficult to access should elevators become inoperable).

Page 310:

By 8:48, officials in OEM headquarters on the 23rd floor of 7 WTC....

Page 319:

"At about 9:57 an EMS paramedic approached the FDNY Chief of Department and advised that an engineer in front of 7 WTC had just remarked that the Twin Towers in fact were in imminent danger of total collapse."

Page 322:

"After the South Tower was hit, OEM senior leadership decided to remain in its "bunker" and continue conducting operations even though all civilians had been evacuated from 7 WTC. At approximately 9:30 a senior OEM official ordered the evacuation of the facility after a Secret Service agent in 7 WTC advised him that additional commercial planes were not accounted for."

Update: Yet moron Ro! Ro and her makeup gal exchange video blog thoughts about the nuclear exchange between Ro and Lis last night; the makeup gal (Helene) seems to be half in the bag. Janet is banished from the v-blog for her mustache-drawing escapade. Apparently Ro will appear on Monday for one more episode of the View, a pretaped one for Elisabeth's birthday. If you can't see the vblog over at News Buckit (I couldn't) you can also check it at Ro's blog.

The Loose Change Curse Strikes Again!

Rosie no more!

In a statement today, Brian Frons, the president of Disney-ABC's Daytime Television Group, said, "We had hoped that Rosie would be with us until the end of her contract three weeks from now, but Rosie has informed us that she would like an early leave. Therefore, we part ways, thank her for her tremendous contribution to 'The View' and wish her well."

Translated: "My Zionist reptilian overlords at Disney couldn't handle the Trooooth!"

We'll miss Rosie, too!

Bits and Pieces

Say it ain't so, Ro! Rosie O'Donnell indicates in her latest blog entry that she's not sure when she's going back to The View.

Rosie! Will you be back on The View? When?

no idea

Will the Truthers get to present their case? 9-11 Blogger confirms that the Willie Rodriguez/Looser Segment originally planned for tomorrow (Thursday) is shelved.

I don't know what to say about this bizarre murder case where the alleged killer is a former FEMA videographer claiming that the US is out to get him because he knows the "Truth" about 9-11. That he's claiming this nonsense leads me to be a tad more suspicious he did kill his wife, because we know his proof will turn out to be nothing, and if he's lying about that.... But I'll cheerily admit, I couldn't come up with a take that seemed interesting.

Foreign-born Muslims are Truthers?

Yet Muslim attitudes about U.S. foreign policy are unique in some contexts. Only 40 percent of Muslims in America believe that the Sept. 11 attacks were carried out by Arabs.

You can argue that makes them a little bit better than the Democrats according to the recent poll that found only 39% of them thought Bush didn't know in advance about 9-11.

Rosie Gets Her Experts

Try not to laugh: Reading from left to right, Dylan Avery, Korey Rowe, and Willie Rodriguez will appear on May 24.

Maybe Rosie has the wrong idea of what it is that a building engineer (WR) does?

Rosie is Dumber Than We Thought

From Rosie O'Donnell's blog:

nathalie writes:
Hi Ro,Please see Dr. Judy Wood’s 9/11 page at http://janedoe0911.tripod.com/ Very informative, and should be on the upcoming show.Can’t believe you got them to do it!! WooHoo! So Love you!!

Nat

judy wood rocks

For pure cringe inducing entertainment value, we can only hope this is the "expert" that she books on her show.

PM Explains Hasselbeck, Chastises Rosie

Good post by the PM guys:

For more detail on one aspect of the talk show’s conversation, our expanded report in book form, Debunking 9/11: Why Conspiracy Theories Can’t Stand Up To The Facts, describes the volcanic forces that Ms. Hasselbeck referenced on Monday: “[A] seismology report prepared at Columbia University provides a glimpse into how that damage [to the southwest corner of WTC7] was caused. The report notes that the collapses of the Twin Towers caused little ground instability, but nevertheless discharged a massive amount of energy—as much as 107 joules in the kinetic energy of dust and debris. Except for temperature, the effect was similar to the energy contained in the pyroclastic ash given off in volcanic eruptions. ‘Only a very small portion of the [gravitational energy associated with the collapse of each tower] was converted into seismic waves,’ the report states. ‘Most of the energy went into deformation of buildings and the formation of rubble and dust.’”

The report continues: “Most of the effects of those collapses on adjacent structures and people were related to the kinetic energy of falling debris and the pressure on buildings exerted by dust- and particle-laden air mobilized by falling debris.” From 300 hundred yards away—the distance from the North Tower to WTC7—that debris cloud devastated the base of World Trade Center 7.

Update: Obviously PM must have written 300 feet originally and then decided to convert to one hundred yards and hence the confusion. As best as I can tell 300 feet or one hundred yards is a pretty good approximation of the closest distance between the North Tower and WTC-7.

Not to mention the direct impact that WTC 7 took when the North Tower fell.

Odds & Ends

9-11 Denier and British Member of Parliament Michael Meacher has dropped out of the race to succeed Tony Blair as Prime Minister of Great Britain.

A funny bit here:



Blogger reactions to Rosie's latest bit of 9-11 Denial:

IMAO:

It's nice to see that Hasselbeck did some research since the last time this was brought up. I hope she stays true to her threat to get the Popular Mechanics guys on the show for The Big National 9/11 Conspiracy Debate (featuring Rosie O'Donnell). After they figure out whether the U.S. government bombed itself and framed Saudis to get us into an illegal war with Iraq, they can explore whether the Holocaust actually happened or did the Jews kill themselves and framed the Germans to get us into an illegal war with Japan.

Hot Air:

On ABC’s “The View” this morning, host Rosie O’Donnell once again brought up her kooky 9/11 conspiracy theory about WTC #7, this time involving then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani. According to Big Ro, Giuliani ordered steel from WTC #7 be moved to China before any testing could be done. Pregnant co-host and conservative Elisabeth Hasselbeck couldn’t help but laugh.

Newsbusters has the complete transcript of the exchange.

As I commented earlier, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, despite undeniably excellent intentions, has not studied this enough to try to engage in full-on debunking.

Meanwhile, Dr. W. Gene Corley, who led the investigation into the collapse of the towers, is honored with the National Engineering Award:

Dr. W. Gene Corley, P.E., who led the federal investigation into the 2001 collapse of the World Trade Center, received the National Engineering Award from the American Association of Engineering Societies (AAES) on 7 May. He was one of six honorees during the organization's 28th annual awards ceremony in the Great Hall of the National Academy of Engineering.

Corley, a preeminent expert on building collapse investigations and building codes, is senior vice president of CTL Group. He serves as the company's managing agent for professional and structural engineering and is active in earthquake engineering projects. In 1995, the American Society of Civil Engineers selected him to lead a Building Performance Assessment Team investigating the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. In addition to heading up the building performance evaluation of the World Trade Center, Corley also served as a team member evaluating the structural performance of the Pentagon following the 11 September, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Of course, to the kooks, the fact that the same guy led the investigations of OKC, WTC and the Pentagon is very suspicious. What this award tells us is that his peers think he was chosen because he's the best in the business.

Yet Moron Rosie O'Donnell

She claims at 1:30 or so that WTC 7 was "hit by nothing". Of course, it was hit by the collapse of WTC 1, the north tower. Unfortunately, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, the "debunker" on the program is still feeling her way through the material as noted by her rather bizarre claims about how steel could be weakened at 290 degrees and the "volcanic pressure" bit. She's a pretty and smart woman, but a good example why substantive debunking should only be attempted by those who've studied this stuff for awhile. Don't try this at home!

We get the usual claims from Rosie about how the steel was shipped off too quickly to Canada (China, she corrects herself). Of course, some of the steel was kept, specifically those segments where the collapse initiated, but that amounts to only a small portion of all the steel in the building.

She also repeats the "molten steel" claim (here's a hint, Rosie, molten metal is not always steel, and aluminum melts at a much lower temperature than steel), and the claim that the towers fell in 9 seconds (not true, they took approximately 15 seconds each).