We are bombarded on a daily basis with persuasive arguments. Understanding how to assess these arguments is critical to insure that the population is well informed on important issues. Two routes of persuasion have been identified, central and peripheral(Petty and Caccioppo, 1986).

An example of the central route would be of a chess master recommending a move to someone. They base the move off of logic which assesses all of the pieces on the board. The central route is based off of facts.

An example of a peripheral route would be when Bill O'Reilly throws around words such as anti-patriotic when he attacks someone like Rosie O'Donnell. The peripheral route relies upon influencing individuals emotions through cue words, attractiveness of the person proposing the argument(the only thing Michelle Malkin has going for her), or citing quantity over quality ( "50 experts said so!" vs. "1 expert" where the 1 expert is using quality arguments and the 50 are using weak arguments.).

This is a short video in tribute to those who died on 9/11 and after. I haven't seen it posted on this site yet and I apologize if I'm simply reposting it.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5007848987298024263

Well the facists are at it again; using emotion to attack Kevin Barrett. I sent an email to Dr. Farrell who is proabably getting spammed by sheeple from Fascists R Us . The following is the content of that email.

pfarrell@provost.wisc.edu

Your Honor,

It has come to my attention that a campaign against Kevin Barrett is underway. There is even a website, http://capwiz.com/sicminc/issues/alert/?alertid=9089711&type=CU, set up proclaiming why it wants him withdrawn. Some of the reasons listed for wanting him removed include: he claimed the U.S. government planned the 9/11 attacks and he's "requiring" his students to read a book which has an essay by him comparing Bush to Hitler.

With regard to any claims Dr. Barrett has made regarding government complicity in 9/11, it should be acknowledged that there are serious factual discrepencies surrounding 9/11. Some of these problems are so glaring that one has to keep an open mind about all possibilities. To close ones mind is to potentially deny reality. It takes a special kind of mind to be open to different view points of the same situation. This mind set is critical for research. I feel after having read the available literature and Dr. Barrett's public writings on the matter, that he is sticking to the facts. Many of the people attacking Dr. Barrett are attacking based on their emotions not based on examining the facts.