On the following imagery alone:
Which one looks like he’s abiding by the above? Sowell’s fanatical followers are so bothered by how much I have to say: That nowhere in their minds does it dawn on them to wonder why he said so little.
As a distinguished scholar once said: “The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie.”
— Thomas Sowell
The man’s a magician:
As I’m practically spit on by people promoting principles I followed to find he didn’t. Simply by virtue of writing those words, he couldn’t possibly do the same in service of his own ideals? And lo and behold — sleight of hand is how they pulled it off.
When you have absolutely no idea what’s going on here, on what basis are you so doubt-free?
Never mind this . . .
But who cares about that:
When you’ve got this . . .
“Watch again”
How fitting for the world you wallow in:
And I can’t click Play for you either!
On the biggest and most costly lie in modern history (which shaped everything you see today): Half the country took the word of professional know-it-alls over nuclear scientists. And when your camp came up empty on WMD:
You just bought more bullshit from the same people who sold you the first batch:
Shrewd!
Preach Responsibility and Take None!
At every turn . . .
The faithful tap dance around reality — oily evading anything that requires them to hold Sowell to his own standards.
Hard to Imagine:
That I have to explain that quote to people who seemingly live to flood the internet with his words.
He and his flock incessantly complain about the media — and they don’t make policy. But the second I scrutinize Sowell — suddenly you have new standards.
180 — how fitting!
As I said in my doc:
The question comes down to whether or not you’re basing your belief on something in the realm of reason — not some fail-safe fantasy that allows you to believe whatever you want.
— Richard W. Memmer: Act III
In response to all that:
This is the best ya got? . . .
What happened to all this jazz?
In what parallel universe does this even remotely reflect anything like that:
A couple of 2-minute reads that never even mention the tubes that took us to war (or anything else of substance on this endless saga of absurdity). Touting technicalities as “facts” doesn’t get it done: Especially when you make a living selling slogans and catchy quotes about careful consideration. If you only apply the principles you preach when it serves your interests — they’re just empty claims on a cup and a meaningless mantra touted on a T-shirt.
8. Old information at the beginning of the sentence, new information at the end.
— Steven Pinker
How do you feel about no new information — anywhere?
On Sowells’s quote above I couldn’t agree more:
But there’s another reason why so many people misunderstand so many issues. Professional know-it-alls like you pull stunts like this while peddling lines like that as cover . . .
To whitewash your record of patently obvious hypocrisy and lies. What would you call someone who shoots their mouth off without addressing the evidence — but banks on their fabricated reputation to create the impression that they did? It’s painfully obvious what this guy’s up to: He’s engineering an illusion — and you bought it.
You buy — a lot! Which is why “now, even now” — I have to explain the self-evident to you.
And still — you don’t get it!
But Anything Goes:
In this shithole you call home . . .
If that weren’t true . . .
We’d simply be discussing the facts instead of me having to show the spectacularly stupid & childish shit I’ve almost invariably faced in telling this story on Thomas Sowell for 3-1/2 years.
Not to mention your kin who came before you:
It is as though with some people — those who most avidly embrace the “we are right” view — have minds that are closed from the very get-go, and they are entirely incapable of opening them, even just a crack.
There is no curiosity in them. There are no questions in their minds. There are no “what ifs?” or “maybes.”
— Laura Knight-Jadczyk
One Tweet is all it should take: Thomas Sowell flagrantly failed to follow the facts on Iraq WMD — opting to peddle partisan hackery that poisons political discourse & butchers debate to this day. Here’s my 7-part documentary that exhaustively details the WMD Delusion (taking on both parties to boot — on that issue and then some).
In your fantasyland of circular certitude (where Sowell’s fancy quotes amount to fortune cookies for the committed): “There’s no ‘there’ there” and you don’t have to go there.
Your pursuit of truth and accountability seems awfully one-sided, Mr. Sowell. And that’s a fact: “truth verifiable from experience or observation.” Just as my lifelong record of unwavering commitment to the truth and objective scrutiny to find it.
As I said in my doc:
You can’t seem to comprehend that I don’t care what damage the truth inflicts upon politicians of any brand. I have this crazy idea that across-the-board accountability is always in the best interests of the nation.
As for my frustration — I have this thing about people who regurgitate nonsense in the face of overwhelming evidence that counters their baseless beliefs.
— Richard W. Memmer: Act II
“To learn to ask: ‘Is that true?’” . . .
Maybe there’s something to what she just said. Let me think about it. That’s interesting. Maybe I should change my mind.’” . . . When is the last time you can honestly remember a public dialogue — or even a private conversation — that followed that useful course?
Every once in a blue moon — someone has the guts the reconsider. Not long before this Tweet — this Sowell supporter was condemning my efforts like all the rest that day (and every day).
And then he opened the doc . . .
He’s the exception — this is the rule:
You introduce statements and arguments of people who aren’t Thomas Sowell
As this story is also . . .
About the behavior of the echo chamber around Sowell — it’s kinda necessary to include other people to properly illustrate the problem. And I wouldn’t mind explaining everything — if you thought about anything.
If I did cartwheels on TikTok to tell this story — you’d take issue with my form. We’ve created a culture that gripes over “flashy graphics” while worshipping liars in the images. Constant complaining has become a virtue — where everything of value is gain you get in the moment:
And easy is all the rage!
Stockton Rush’s name will never be forgotten for his folly that took 5 lives in a contraption doomed to fail. That same wishful thinking in totally unsuitable material — was held by a CIA/WINPAC analyst named Joe Turner: Who provided a path to war that cost countless lives, unspeakable destruction, trillions of dollars & counting, and poisons political discourse to this day and probably generations to come.
“Never heard of him!” — I’m not surprised (in a country that can’t even get the self-evident straight) . . .
Even 20 years later!
By Design
America Remains Mired in the Murky
What does it say to you: That on evidence claimed as components to build a nuclear bomb — the “debate” was hijacked by 10-second sound bites? Shouldn’t any debate establish what the debate is actually about? What does it say about a country that can’t even establish that much on a matter of this magnitude?
As I said in my doc:
All the sarin gas shells in the world would have no bearing on the aluminum tubes and other intel, but loyalists to logical fallacies are not burdened by the inconvenience of FACT.
They will nitpick over pebbles while refusing to even glance at the mountain of evidence that crushes their “convictions.”
— Richard W. Memmer: Act V
For the sake of argument: Let’s say Saddam had full-blown active WMD programs on chemical & biological weapons. The tubes would still be a lie — whether the war would have been justified in that scenario or not. I’ll go one further: Let’s say he had a uranium enrichment program in operation as well, but that the rotors were carbon fiber — not aluminum.
Once again, the tubes would still be a lie.
Getting lucky in finding something you didn’t know about — does not absolve you from a case that was woven out of whole cloth.
The road to reality is blocked by detours designed to keep you going in circles. Purveyors of poppycock reroute you with narratives that avoid detail like Black Death. The way out is to start with an inconsistency or two that’s narrow in scope:
And take the trail where it leads . . .
To ascertain the truth on any topic:
If you’ve got something concrete to go on — that’s your point of entry. By all means, keep the door open in every direction. But by nailing down the definitive first, it paves a clearer path to all the rest. This country does the exact opposite on everything:
Lumping it all together and never even approaching where you should have started in the first place:
But why bother putting your critical thinking skills to the test on that:
When you can congratulate yourselves on this . . .
I’m a retired engineer, electrical not mechanical. You are absolutely correct about technical limits on materials such as this sub design. It’s insane this guy took the sub to its breaking point. It’s sad but a good lesson to future explorers. Don’t push the physical limitations of the materials and design.
— YouTube user
Never mind applying the exact same principles to this: “This chart is misleading in several respects . . . Beams centrifuge never actually worked . . . We can infer.” Sounds pretty sloppy to me. Perhaps we should have a conversation to clear up what all this means on matters that have eroded reason beyond recognition?
For over two decades:
America has made it impossible to have this conversation: Painfully obvious deception that shaped everything you see today.
But we’ve got all the time in the world to talk about Titan. You’re all in tune on materials when you find the topic entertaining, but try to discuss the manipulation of materials that started a war that poisoned everything in its math — and right on cue . . .
Out comes the “critical thinkers” of our time:
You’ve probably heard of yellowcake: How about uranium hexafluoride?
Does calling someone a “Bush hater” strike you as a valid counter to that question? Never mind this story goes straight to the top with who’s in the White House right now — on very specific culpability to boot. How so?
How I’d love to live in a world where you’d ask not out of party-line pursuits — but because it’s on the trail to the truth.
If that title doesn’t tell you something about my commitment to objective scrutiny, what would?
The rotor speed required to separate uranium isotopes doesn’t care who’s president, and when it comes to ascertaining the truth, neither do I. In order to maintain such speeds, the material properties of centrifuges are as critical as it gets. You don’t need to interview a world-renowned nuclear scientist to figure that out — but I like to be thorough. To claim that Iraq WMD wasn’t a lie should be like saying we didn’t land on the moon.
As I wrote and produced the most exhaustive documentary ever done on WMD, I would know.
In addition to interviewing world-renowned nuclear scientist, Dr. Houston Wood, I also corresponded with David Albright (the physicist above who wrote extensively on the tubes) — as well as Colin Powell’s chief of intelligence at the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research.
Greg Thielmann said the following in 2013:
It will be up to Iraqis to debate whether their country now has a brighter future than it otherwise would have had without foreign invasion and occupation in the first decade of the new century. But it is uniquely incumbent on Americans to understand who and what were responsible for an enterprise that proved so costly in terms of U.S. lives lost, money spent, international reputation tarnished, and a campaign against al Qaeda diverted.
America just casually moved on . . .
I didn’t — as I knew then what few know now:
The immeasurable value in the willingness to be wrong, understanding why, and looking to learn from it. And that not doing so — increasingly compounds the consequences of no accountability.
Look around!
If only you’d laid it all out exactly as I like it — then I’d abide by the principles I preach
Is that how it works?
That’s about the size of it. I guess I figured that if you didn’t understand something — you’d try this on for size, but I’m old-fashioned that way:
Einstein borrowed from the one below:
The worth of man lies not in the truth which he possesses, or believes that he possesses, but in the honest endeavor which he puts forth to secure that truth; for not by the possession of, but by the search after, truth, are his powers enlarged, wherein, alone, consists his ever-increasing perfection.
Possession fosters content, indolence, and pride.
— Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
And now, even now . . .
The cat . . . TOTALLY out of the BAG! You’re still standing here . . . “debating”
What follows epitomizes possesion — as this guy proudly proceeds to make it all the more murky in this conversation I came across:
Incredibly, we’ve created a world in which I have to point out the premise of your own point to make mine. The first two words of “False pretense?” foretell the fallacies to come. Let’s make this explicitly clear in no uncertain terms: You’re saying the war was not a lie because of what you found, correct?
Colin Powell didn’t go to the UN on chemical weapons alone.
So there’s more to the story — any anyone with an atom of objectivity would consider that information in ascertaining the truth. But why keep your word when you keep the faith?
“Remember what the Dormouse said”:
Who’s the Dormouse and what did he say? What does Never Mind mean in an image that is crystal clear on what you continue to make cloudy? Do I have to explain why the artist is crossing out the letters? And if you don’t get what’s going on in Easy as 123:
Perhaps you should inquire before you blur out #1 and flagrantly ignore #2 and #3.
Unfortunately, I feel the need to point out that NDIA is for illustration purposes only (as it spells out the acronym and captures some key aspects I assume are similar across all such organizations).
Note the “Nuclear” in the name:
And this name . . .
It seems that someone qualified in that field of defense would consider the nuclear component of the equation — as opposed to the wishful thinking that started a war and weaponized systematic self-delusion for decades. And there’s no end in sight as countless millions still cling to this crap after 20 years.
Perfecting the shamelessness it takes to never STFU long enough to consider anything that flies in the face of calcified convictions that cannot survive scrutiny.
Right on cue | Never fails
Lemme get this straight:
On an issue involving the separation of uranium isotopes (an industry where fractions of a millimeter matter): I remind you of the “nuclear” in your name — and you brazenly ignore the evidence on that front (along with a scenario that clearly explains why the premise of your original post could not be more wrong).
Getting lucky in finding something you didn’t know about — does not absolve you from a case that was woven out of whole cloth.
Instead of considering anything in the “whole cloth” case — you steer the “conversation” right back your way to get your way (never learning anything as you gleefully wallow in willful ignorance). And incredibly — you wanna tell me about your job rather than do your job (as in demonstrating that you have the capacity & integrity to objectively consider information being presented to you.
Below is my reply to that “False pretense?” poppycock he’s peddling. He may very well be an expert in his field, but he didn’t know jack about what matters most. And what’s worse — he doesn’t want to: As he “insist upon ‘affirmation independent of all findings’” (borrowing from Peck who borrowed from Buber).
A TON of that goin’ around!
My surgical specificity in that clip puts this lie in its place in 5 minutes alone. To take a story this complex and convoluted and boil its essence down to a few minutes was no small feat.
Imagine what I did with 160:
“There is no skimming over the surface of a subject with [Hamilton]. He must sink to the bottom to see what foundation it rests on.”
— Major William Pierce (Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton)
Wouldn’t it be absurd to share that quote if my clip contained nothing but trite talking points? Some circles are not burdened by squaring their walk with their talk. They seem to think that advertising virtue equates to embodying it.
Case in Point:
By Definition:
- A delusion is a mistaken belief that is held with strong conviction even when presented with superior evidence to the contrary
- Characterized by or holding idiosyncratic beliefs or impressions that are contradicted by reality or rational argument
- Something a person believes and wants to be true, when it is actually not true
A lot of that goin’ around!
That anyone would blow right by all that and go straight into this utterly ridiculous exchange that follows: Is central to the story of a nation that’s gone out of its mind. From erosion of reason that took decades of denying the undeniable in the Gutter Games of Government — this country craves the familiar (and anything that doesn’t instantly compute is seen as complex as quantum physics).
What part of “Mired in the Murky” do you not understand? Try some of this for a change and you’ll be amazed by the clarity that comes with it.
As I said in my doc:
DOE’s standard is to spin a tube at 20% above 90,000 RPM before failure — so 48,000 short is a pretty loose definition of “rough indication.” . . . Out of 31 tubes in subsequent testing, only one was successfully spun to 90,000 RPM for 65 minutes — which the CIA seized on as evidence in their favor.
One DOE analyst offered a superb analogy of that contorted conclusion: “Running your car up to 6,500 RPM briefly does not prove that you can run your car at 6,500 RPM cross country. It just doesn’t. Your car’s not going to make it.”
In an industry where fractions of a millimeter matter, these guys were playing horseshoes with centrifuge physics . . .
— Richard W. Memmer: Act II
As in — not this . . .
By the way: Do you really need a proverb to know how undestanding has worked since the dawn of time? But now that you’ve been remindered of what you already know, how you will you handle what you don’t?
In an industry where fractions of a millimeter matter, these guys were playing horseshoes with centrifuge physics . . .
“Who are these guys?” seems like a pretty good place to start. Or not:
What’s wrong with that picture?
And this one:
Not to mention — this one . . .
Associated Press, October 3rd, 2004: Rice said she learned of objections by the Energy Department only after making her 2002 comments.
Richard W. Memmer: Are we to believe that the National Security Advisor of the United States was unaware of an intelligence dispute of this magnitude that had been going on for well over a year?
One Congressional investigator went so far as to call it a holy war. And doesn’t it strike you as suspicious that she didn’t bother consulting the DOE before serving up images of a nuclear detonation?
— Act II
Holy War
Something’s not right!
Start with those 3 little words of wonder and you’ll be amazed at the clarity that comes with it. But whatever you do: Spare me your nitpicking over pebbles. At least attempt to address something from the bullets below, all of the above, and the mountain of evidence I put on a silver platter for you.
That you swat away like your kin who came before you:
It is as though with some people — those who most avidly embrace the “we are right” view — have minds that are closed from the very get-go, and they are entirely incapable of opening them, even just a crack.
There is no curiosity in them. There are no questions in their minds. There are no “what ifs?” or “maybes.”
— Laura Knight-Jadczyk
What is Truth
A young man sittin’ on the witness stand
The man with the book says “Raise your hand”
“Repeat after me, I solemnly swear”
The man looked down at his long hair
And although the young man solemnly swore
Nobody seemed to hear anymoreAnd it didn’t really matter if the truth was there
It was the cut of his clothes and the length of his hair— Johnny Cash
- Are you disputing that sarin gas shells have nothing to do with enriching highly enriched uranium?
- What’s a Zippe/Beams Hybrid Centrifuge? Who’s Zippe? Who’s Beams?
- Why am I pointing to the cell stating 2.8mm?
- Why am I notating the image with numbers corresponding with the cup?
- What’s Thomas Sowell’s role in the story and what are his half-truths I’m referring to?
- What is going on in this image I included in the banner image above and the ones below?
- What’s an Italian Medusa vs. a Nasser-81mm rocket and why does it matter?
- Who’s saying, “Because we say so!” — and on what basis are they “disputing” the tolerances”?
- If you’re claiming that Iraq was going to shave the walls — why does that negate the assertion on tolerances?
- “The rotor wall thickness for the Beams centrifuge has always been specified as 6.35mm”: Why does that matter and why am I pointing to “Beams centrifuge never actually worked”?
Anyone wanting to know the truth would not behave in ways that make damn sure you never will. And anyone entering this discussion with sincerity — would come away realizing that there is no debate, and there never was.
They just made it up:
To think that congratulating yourselves for ordering a book & broadcasting it for Likes is in the interest of problem solving is pure fantasy. Same goes for recycling the same story without moving the needle and never examining the efficacy of your efforts.
A lot of that goin’ around too!
V for Victory & Venom for Values
In this fantasyland where wishful thinking rules: You can win an argument without even knowing what the issue is about. What you do in denying the undeniable daily would be unthinkable for me to do ever.
Islands of Idolatry
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
Lara walked along the tracks following a path worn by pilgrims and then turned into the fields. Here she stopped and, closing her eyes, took a deep breath of the flower-scented air of the broad expanse around her. It was dearer to her than her kin, better than a lover, wiser than a book. For a moment she rediscovered the purpose of her life.
She was here on earth to grasp the meaning of its wild enchantment and to call each thing by its right name, or, if this were not within her power, to give birth out of love for life to successors who would do it in her place.
― Doctor Zhivago (referenced in Into the Wild)
In the spirit of discovery that clarity, curiosity, and courage can inspire:
And on that note:
OR . . .
We can keep doing it your way:
I wonder . . .
How many remember what it was like to be uplifted by the genuine spirit of America? Maybe it wasn’t as real as I imagined it to be, but that authenticity is worlds away from where we are now.
Your move . . .
Thank you for reading!
When you open your eyes to what’s underneath — it intrinsically trains your mind to see with increasing clarity.
