9/11 Conspiracy Theorist

So my Alma Mater, UNH, has its own local conspiracy idiot. And for some reason the Governor has decided that he has to rail against him. Not sure I would bother if I was him. Let the guy have his say, and as appears to be happening, the students will think he's a bit of a loon.

"We haven't had any direct complaints from students in the past about what content he chooses to include in his courses or how he presents that content," University Provost and Executive Vice President Bruce Mallory said in an interview Tuesday. "The conclusion we draw from looking at his 30-year history is that he's exercised appropriate academic freedom in his classes."

Woodward has said he suspects the U.S. government orchestrated or knew in advance of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a theory Gov. John Lynch derided as "completely crazy and offensive." University administrators, including interim President J. Bonnie Newman and Board of Trustees Chairman Andy Lietz, have defended Woodward's right to express his views.

Thirty-one students in Woodward's advanced psychology classes responded to evaluation surveys during the 2005-2006 school year. On a scale of one to five - one defined as "poor" and five defined as "excellent" - Woodward's "overall rating" across all four of his classes was a 4.13.

Just less than 40 percent of students gave Woodward the top rating of "excellent." The same percentage rated him one notch below that mark.

He gets pretty good ratings, though from what I recall, most students filled out good reports for the teachers who were nice or had classes that weren't especially challenging. But then, I always seemed to run into the tough courses with teachers who were completely incompetent at teaching. They were good scientists, no doubt, but they had no clue how to teach.

But then, he's pushing his conspiracy theory in a course and uses crap like Zwicker's film as evidence.

In that course, he says, he introduces his 9/11 theory during a particular class session devoted to the subject of "state terrorism vs. individual terrorism."

Woodward said he shows a clip, roughly 10 minutes in length, from a film called "The Great Conspiracy: The 9/11 News Special You Never Saw." The film, produced and narrated by Canadian journalist Barrie Zwicker, contends the U.S. government's account of the 9/11 attacks is "the overarching fiction and crime and coverup of our time."

In the film, Zwicker claims the Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War and the attack on Pearl Harbor "all involved secretly contrived attacks on Americans planned or encouraged by American Presidents."

I love Zwicker. He's pretty much complete proof that you can twist a tin-foil hat on too tightly.