Calling all conspiracy theorists: this should really get your adrenaline rushing.

A former Bush team member during his first administration is now voicing serious doubts about the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9-11. Former chief economist for the Department of Labor during President George W. Bush’s first term Morgan Reynolds comments that the official story about the collapse of the WTC is “bogus” and that it is more likely that a controlled demolition destroyed the Twin Towers and adjacent Building No. 7. Reynolds, who also served as director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas and is now professor emeritus at Texas A&M University said, “If demolition destroyed three steel skyscrapers at the World Trade Center on 9/11, then the case for an ‘inside job’ and a government attack on America would be compelling.” Reynolds commented from his Texas A&M office, “It is hard to exaggerate the importance of a scientific debate over the cause of the collapse of the twin towers and building 7. If the official wisdom on the collapses is wrong, as I believe it is, then policy based on such erroneous engineering analysis is not likely to be correct either. The government’s collapse theory is highly vulnerable on its own terms. Only professional demolition appears to account for the full range of facts associated with the collapse of the three buildings.”

Normally I wouldn’t post this sort of thing, but this is coming from a former Bush administration official, and a high-level one at that. Either he’s gone insane or…or I don’t know. He is actually saying he believes the official story is “bogus.” And that’s a bombshell.

The network of government-paid “moderators” hanging out on Chinese Web sites to help steer the public in the right direction (i.e, pro-CCP) is growing, and they are hiring.

China’s communist authorities have intensified their campaign against the party’s biggest potential enemy – the internet – with the recruitment of a growing army of secret web commentators, sophisticated new monitoring software and a warning that all bloggers and bulletin board operators must register with the government or be closed down and fined.

The escalation of the government’s effort to neutralise critical online opinion comes after a series of large anti-Japanese, anti-pollution and anti-corruption protests, many of which were organised or publicised using instant messaging services, chatrooms and text messages.

….

Applicants for the job – mostly drawn from the propaganda and police departments – were told they had to understand government policies, know political theory, be politically reliable and understand internet technology. Successful candidates have been offered classes in Marxist theory, propaganda techniques and updates on the development of the internet around the world.

A summary of objectives declared that commentators should “be proactive in developing discussion, increase control, accentuate the good, avoid the bad, and use internet debate to our advantage.”

Reports that at least two other localities have recruited similar teams suggest the strategy is being encouraged by the central government. Few will admit to the practice, but Nanjing officials said the city was hiring 20 online commentators from the ranks of its existing employees.

Full- and part-time positions are available. I recommend that you not mention you’re a Peking Duck reader during your interview.

China’s blossoming cottage industry of Internet manipulation and censorship drew some criticism from one of our old friends, the so-called Stainless Steel Mouse:

China’s leading bloggers were equally scathing. “The government’s tactics are too funny. They are actually hiring staff to curse online,” said Liu Di, who was arrested last year for comments she posted under her internet moniker Iron Mouse. “But it also shows that the government can find no better way to deal with netizens’ discussion. Compared to other media in China, the internet is still the most free. It is powerful among young people no matter whether they are chatting online or playing games. It will be difficult for the government to control.”

Difficult, yes. But so far they’re doing a damned good job.

Via the great CDN.

China Hand Rebeca McKinnon tears Microsoft’s hyperactive blogger Robert Scoble a new one (deservedly) over his “see-no-evil” attitude toward Microsoft’s censoring of key words in blogs (you know, really dangerous words like “democracy”).

I lived in China for nine years straight as a journalist, and if you add up other times I’ve lived there it comes to nearly 12. I don’t know what students and professors Scoble met with, and what context he met them in. But to state that Chinese students and professors have an “anti-free-speech stance” is the biggest pile of horseshit about China I’ve come across in quite some time. And believe me, there are a great many such piles out there these days.

In my experience, most Chinese, like all other human beings I’ve ever met, would very much like to have freedom of speech. This goes for students, professors, workers, farmers, retirees, religious practitioners, and even many government officials. Many said so to me in on-the-record interviews. Many more told me so privately, in trusted confidence over beers (or something stronger) among friends.

There is a ton of links here about the Great Firewall and Chinese bloggers, so take a look. And as usual, Rebecca’s observations about the Chinese people are right-on. (I’m so tired of CCP supporters telling me the Chinese don’t care about freedom.)

Update: The mainstream media are finally picking up this story. What took them so long?

Gordon replaces the kid gloves with brass knuckles and holds a mirror up to his nemesis. Nothing can sink someone so fast as his own words.

A place where every voice is heard and respected. Talk about what you’d like; I’ll be back tomorrow.

This is right here in my backyard, and it makes me totally sick.

The freckle-faced 17-year-old said he was left to fend for himself last year after being forced out of Colorado City, Ariz., a town about 40 miles east of here, just over the state line.

“I couldn’t see how my mom would let them do what they did to me,” he said.

When he tried to visit her on Mother’s Day, he said, she told him to stay away. When he begged to give her a present, she said she wanted nothing.

“I am dead to her now,” he said.

Gideon is one of the “Lost Boys,” a group of more than 400 teenagers — some as young as 13 — who authorities in Utah and Arizona say have fled or been driven out of the polygamous enclaves of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City over the last four years.

His stated offenses: wearing short-sleeved shirts, listening to CDs and having a girlfriend. Other boys say they were booted out for going to movies, watching television and staying out past curfew.

Some say they were sometimes given as little as two hours’ notice before being driven to St. George or nearby Hurricane, Utah, and left like unwanted pets along the road.

Make no mistake about it: I hate all irrational, birdbrained cults. They don’t have to be in China. They leave nothing in their wake except misery and brainwashed misfits. Arrest them and hold them to the law. (Though, of course, that can only be done in a country that recognizes and respects the rule of law.)

Apparently yesterday’s post by Senator Andrew Bartlett caused the administrator of the Patriot China site — the one I wrote about recently — to shut down, at least for now. The administrator explains in comments on Bartlett’s blog:

To Senator Andrew Bartlett
Dear Senator Andrew Bartlett.
I’m the admin of Patriot China,first I want to apologise for the extreme articles which I wrote,but I hope you can understand that because of one Chen Yonglin and his 1000 spies allegations,negative impact on Chinese in Australia may be caused.Before this incident,90% of my articles were about China guides,travel informations and sino-Australia relations and we all knew that due to the difference in cultual understanding and ideology,it’d be better that we didn’t get involved in politics and actually we never wanted to.
Dear Senator Andrew Bartlett,I can fully understand why you seem so angry,and I can tell that you are a good politician who’d always put Australian people’s interests first and it seems to me that Australians are pretty happy having you represent them.
I have shut down my site(http://www.prtcn.org) because still I need to prepare for my exams and during this time I really don’t want to have any trouble although freedom of speech is what makes Australia the best country in the world.

Regards
Alex

Barlett writes about this at length in a new blog post — he strikes me as a true class act (and not just because he linked to Peking Duck yesterday.

Bingfeng has some interesting thoughts.

Luckily, even the right-wing blogosphere is condemning the latest scurillous rubbish, which borders on true evil. Of course, it’s being propagated by Matt Drudge, the man who brought us the non-existent Kerry intern scandalette a year ago. To hell with him. He’s nothing more than a character assassin and a slanderer.

I could have told them that more than a year ago, but it’s good to see they’re now saying it themselves.

A growing number of senior American military officers in Iraq have concluded that there is no long-term military solution to an insurgency that has killed thousands of Iraqis and taken a heavy toll on U.S. troops during the past two years.
Instead, officers say, the only way to end the guerrilla war is through Iraqi politics — an arena that so far has been crippled by divisions between Shi’a Muslims, whose coalition dominated the January elections, and Sunni Muslims, who are a minority in Iraq but form the base of support for the insurgency.

“I think the more accurate way to approach this right now is to concede that … this insurgency is not going to be settled, the terrorists and the terrorism in Iraq is not going to be settled, through military options or military operations,” Brig. Gen. Donald Alston, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said last week, in a comment that echoes what other senior officers say. “It’s going to be settled in the political process.” […]

Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, expressed similar sentiments, calling the military’s efforts “the Pillsbury Doughboy idea” — pressing the insurgency in one area only causes it to rise elsewhere.

Can’t blame the liberal media for this one — it’s all straight from the horse’s mouth. And yet we keep funneling military money and lives into Iraq like there’s no tomorrow. Just because Bush has decreed that we must “stay the course,” even if that course is the very worst thing for America and for Iraq.

Via Kos.