joedirt makes some good points...but there are a few promblems with his praise of Clinton.
Clinton took office shortley after the economy started to improveat the end of George H. Bush's admistration (during a breif recession). Clinton was able to grow the government and deficts were low, not due to any great managment, but simply because the economy was doing so well that the tax revinue more than made up for it. We could have had a chimpanze in the Oval Office at the time and the deficit would have been just as low (if not lower). There were plans to have had the budget completely balanced and much of the deficit paid off within several years simply by keeping the rate of increase in government speanding just slightly above (or at inflationary levels). Many Democrats (including Clinton) opossed this, calling slower rates of increasing speanding a "cut in speanding" and scaring people about cuts in the budget that would have never existed. Shortly before Clinton left ofice the economy started to shows signs of trouble again...

Then George W. Bush got elected, the economy was still winding down when 911 sent the economy into a tailspin. Bush then poured gasoline on the fire by increasing spending all over the board (not just for the military). The inevitable result was the budgetary mess that we have today. Frankly, from what I've been hearing, even many Republicans are fed up with the budget mess that he created.

In the end both of the two main parties only increase the government. Clinton was lucky to take office at the right time and wasn't some great economic leader. Presidents in fact have very little control over making the economy better, but they easily make it worse. Don't even get me started on how the past three administrations foreign policy decisions have created much of the mess we have today.

Pretty amusing...but the example of BB's for nuclear weapons was somewhat misleading.
The U.S. nuclear arsenal isn't divided into "Hiroshima Sized" bombs, nor is another country like to build there cities in nice neat little pockets designed to receive maximum blast damage. They are also not likely to build most their cites out of wood,paper,and bamboo, like much of the housing in World War II era Japan.
Using misleading examples can ultimately work against his argument.

Also, his projections assume a static model of the situation. People that like to throw money at problems usually do...

For example, the more money that has been spent on education (and the more centralised it has become as a result) the lower scores have gotten. Also, spending more on energy independence sounds appealing, but the government has a dismal record at such activities.

I would much rather see people get a break on education & investing in energy production. Then you could let the people decide for themselves what to do with it and not some some bureaucrat or special interest group.

While I'm all for a healthy mistrust of any government. This 911 conspiracy stuff is just getting ridiculous. It seems to be more motivated by hate for Republicans in general (and Bush in particular) than it is any sort of reasoned analysis.

theo47 is correct that Republicans paint "liberals" with a broad brush, but then Democrats do exactly the same with Republicans as well. Both sides refer far to much to name calling and scare tactics.

As to joedirt's comments... a jet plane was flow into each of the buildings & it was caught on film by several cameras! Of course the buildings would have collapsed! A detailed analysis would takes several years (if not a decade or two). As for bad welds, or learning from mistakes...how would you suggest building such a structure to survive a direct hit from a jetliner (other than building it underground)? The structural analysis wasn't considered that important because...
1) Both building suffered severe damage to their structures.
2) The steel in the girders loses much of it's strength at temperatures well within the burn temperature of jet fuel.
Any engineer or architect would already know those facts.

As to the claims that thermite residue was found on the girders...
1) It's unnecessary to invoke demolition to explain the collapse
2) One person can claim anything especially if they have an ideological axe to grind
(get back to me when it's been verified by multiple independent sources).
3) A benefit of talking about thermite is that most people don't know what it is (answer: powdered Aluminium & Iron Oxide).

Let's see now...what was the jet made mostly out of? (answer: Aluminium)
What was the building girders made of? (answer: Steel, which happens to be mostly Iron). So, I'm not very surprised that someone can claim that he found Thermite traces, proving it is a very different matter.

As far as Barrett goes...trying to claim that all of those other terrorist actions were all orchestrated (and with out any major leaks) comes off as being rather implausible. Sort of like the Lunar Landing conspiracy crank claims about all of the launches & landings being faked without anyone being caught. Both sides just ended up resorting to name calling...hardley informative (but not unexpected).

gorgonheap: taking a stand isn't closed minded. Tanking a stand that is fundamentally irrational for whatever emotional reasons and then ignoring logic & contrary evidence...that is being closed minded.
Also being closed minded is accusing someone, that disagrees with your position, of making "no decision" just because they're being logically consistent. Agnostics for example, simply acknowledge that no is zero credible evidence for the existence of a supernatural supreme being. While at the same time, they realise that unless you define such a hypothetical entity narrowly enough that you can't complete disprove it's existence. That is the problem with trying to "prove a negative".
For example..I'll assume that you I both agree that Santa Claus doesn't actually exist, now try to PROVE that he doesn't exist. For every logical reason that you give that there is no Santa Claus. Someone can come up with some rationalization to still justify the belief in Santa Claus. That why the "Burden of Proof" is important in critical thinking.
Most agnostics if asked would reply that they don't belive that there is a supreme being because
1)there is no proof to support it
and
2)because it is a unecessary hypothisis

But they know that they can't prove the negative because most religons try to survive crtical analysis by being as vague as possible in such matters.
As to the clip...what little it shows is basically accurate in the broad sense (even though they took "artistic license" with the history). The biggest difference between a cult and a religon (in many peoples minds) is how many people belive in it.