Analyzing Evidence from the Moussaoui Trial

The government released a flood of evidence today from the Moussaoui trial. If anybody wants to take on a portion of the evidence, mention it in the comments--I'd suggest high letters for now, because somebody will surely look at the "A" Files

I took N-R for now, (prosecution) of course, I hope for some help. First out of the chute is pretty shocking evidence, a 757 cockpit mockup found in a trash compactor at a Days Inn at Newark Airport:



NK00196

Look at those photos and tell me this was a bunch of Arabs with boxcutters in a cave with Osama. This was a sophisticated operation done by sophisticated people. And Osama only started living in a cave after 9-11.

Lots, lots more to come. The next file is a 500 meg video!

It's Coming

The 9-11 Deniers in Their Own Words.

Dun-dun!

Another Markyx Production, that looks devastating to the 9-11 Denial Movement.

Stay tuned!

Dutch Technical University to Study 9-11

Thanks to an emailer who will remain anonymous, I received this article.

AMSTERDAM — Students at the Delft University of Technology are to seek the "truth" behind the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in the US.

They will have two weeks this summer to carry out their investigations as part of the Studium Generale (lectures on topics of general interest). A comprehensive programme on 9/11 begins in September and the students will be given a chance to present their findings then, a University spokesperson said on Monday.

This may be a good thing; if they are a legitimate technical university we would expect them to eventually come to the conclusion that the experts here are right.

My anonymous emailer advises that there is an active 9-11 Denial Movement in the Netherlands, and one 9-11 based political party plans to participate in the Dutch elections in November. Fortunately, there is a Dutch blog that has arise to challenge the "Complotten".

We applaud our Dutch friends for their efforts, and as they say, "Wij kunnen het doen!

Another New Blogger

Somewhat less sympathetic to our aims here. Looks like the product a few too many Budweisers.

While we're on the subject of our non-fans, here's noted liar Jason Bermas (MP3 file) on Screw Loose Change:

(9:00) Bermas: Why don't we talk about the fact there's now a Loose Change 'f*ck you' website basically, that gets updated daily. I mean we're having such an impact that some... I dunno... I would assume it's a government agent because nobody can be this ignorant on all these supposed coincidences and ridiculous statements. screwloosechange.blogspot.com. They have a permanent top posting, now what's the latest? Scroll down for that latest post. "9/11 Witness Review Part One".
Other Speaker: They're reviewing 9/11 Eyewitness.
Bermas: Yeah I know, they're ridiculous. These guys, you know these are going to be the same people who say they're part of the 9/11 truth movement and...
Other Speaker: "Dylan and company suck up to holocaust denier"!
All:
Jason: What? Oh here we go, the wicked headlines on Screw Loose Change! "Zionist deniers"?!... this is such garbage.

First, let me point out here that the claim that the Louder Than Words crew are "Zionist Deniers" is from Eric Hufschmid, not SLC. And to the extent that they're on the opposite side of the Zionist issue from Eric Hufschmid (linked above), I give them credit. If you read my original post on the phone call, you'll find that I actually am quite sympathetic to the way they handled themselves on that call, even though I think it's indicative of the 9-11 Denial Movement that they felt compelled to talk things over with that disgusting little man.

Hilariously, this comes after Bermas has just made a big joke of the (indeed absurd) notion that the Louder Than Words crew work for the Mossad:

Dylan: Aren't we about due for a paycheck right now?
Jason: Yeah, where's our paycheck? From the Mossad?
Other Speaker: It's in the mail.
Jason: They keep talking all this, we keep getting this press, and where's our Mossad paycheck? Typical, typical.
Other Speaker: It's in the mail, I swear. (Laughter)
Dylan(Imitates Eric Hufschmid): Your video gets much more promotion than my video. Your video is promoted all over the nation by people who will not even acknowledge the existence of my video, Painful Deceptions. Am I jealous? Discuss.

From the context, it's obvious that this conversation took place in May. Maybe Jason has revised his opinion of SLC in the meantime. For the record, I don't work for the government. James is still in the Guard, so he's suspect. I know Mark Roberts, who's studied these guys as much as anybody out there, believes that Bermas and Avery legitimately believe what they profess. I'm still a little suspicious on that score myself, mainly because the Wally Miller quote mining was transparently dishonest. But at worst, I'd say they're snake-oil salesmen; at best they're buffoons.

Hat Tip: On the Bermas clip: Rob Hinkley.

Welcome to the Living Dead

Two buddies of ours have joined the legion of undead ghouls. Arkan Wolfshade is a poster over at the JREF forums; his blog is called Shade of the Wolf. Right now he's tracing the neo-Nazi connections to the 9-11 Denial Movement. There certainly seems to be quite a few Holocaust Deniers active in the movement, as we have covered in the past.

Taking a different route is frequent SLC commenter The Artistic Microphage (DOH! Make that Macrophage!). His blog is called 9-11 You Judge, and his approach is to provide links to interesting articles on the topic of 9-11.

Both are worth regular visits and we hope to feature significant stories from their blogs here as they are produced.

Where Do They Come Up With This Stuff?

There are some things that the conspiracy theorists argue, the technical details of the World Trade Center collapses for example, that are open to much interpretation. You may not agree with their conclusions, in fact you may find them idiotic, but they are welcome to their opinion. And then there are other theories, in which upon futher examination you can figure out what their logical fallacies are. A good example of this is in claiming the hijackers are not on the passenger manifests, which they derive by looking at a list of "victims" of the attacks and incorrectly claiming they are manifests.

But then there are some things they claim, that just smack you on the side of the head, and you have to ask. Where the hell do they come up with this? From the recent CSPAN broadcast of the LA conference, Alex Jones argues:

We know, this is in Newsweek magazine, that Bush had the full launch orders to invade Afghanistan on his desk. The troops had already massed in the months before 44,000 US troops, 18,000 British troops in Tajikistan Uzbekistan. Two carrier groups all lined up, bombers lined up, everything ready.

There were not 62,000 western troops in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and I seriously doubt Newsweek ever claimed there were. While it is impossible to prove a negative, this is so absurd as to be laughable. Can Mr. Jones come up with a single soldier who can back up this story? 44,000 troops is roughly equivilant to 3 combat divisions. Which 3 divisions were there? There are only 11 total, why didn't anyone notice several of them missing?

If Jones had done the slightest research, he would know that we didn't get the rights to use the largest base in the region Karshi-Khanabad in Uzbekistan, until nearly a month afterwards. And even then it was for only a few thousand troops. Sixty thousands plus troops in remote landlocked Central Asia, would have required a Herculean logistical effort to support. In case he forgot, Bush was being criticized for the slow pace of the invasion for a couple of months, largely because of this difficulty. When Korey Rowe bragged about being in the initial invasion of Afghanistan, it was not until clear into January, when his brigade, only 3-4 thousand troops were brought in, not from Uzbekistan, but directly from Ft. Campbell. What then happened to the 44,000 troops?

Amazing. One just wonders if they have any grasp of reality at all.

Update: I decided to do a little conspiracy theory forensics and try and find the origin of this myth. A web search brings up a bunch of conspiracy websites, Alex Jones' site unsurprisingly being the first, but none actually list a source. So I did a Lexis-Nexis search of all Newsweek articles for the last 5 years, and equally unsurprisingly, none mentioned this.

I think I did find the origin of the 44,000 troops thing though. But it in no way says what he claims it does. From the October 22, 2001 edition of Newsweek:

If bin Laden is spotted, small units of highly trained Special Forces can be inserted nearby. Among America's 44,000-odd Special Operations soldiers--among them, Green Berets, Army Rangers, Air Force helicopter and gunship crews--there are some truly fearsome units, like the supersecret Delta Force and the Navy SEALs' Special War-fare Development Group. The British SAS commandos have a proven record at stealthy combat, and the best unit for fighting in the Afghan mountains in winter may be a specially trained British Marine unit called Commando Three. Though the Pentagon is being appropriately tight-lipped about the movements of these shadow warriors, sources say teams are already stationed at remote bases along the Afghan border in Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, as well as aboard the carrier Kitty Hawk, which has finally arrived in the Arabian Sea.

I am guessing they didn't do so hot on the reading comprehension portion of the SAT.

A Word About Lefty Gatekeepers

This came up in Alex Jones' freak show last night on C-Span. Barrie Zwiecker read off a list of names of people, magazines and radio shows that are not doing enough for the 9-11 Denial Movement, including Amy Goodman (Democracy Now radio), The Nation, Z Mag, and a couple others. The claim is that these hardline leftist outlets are not doing enough to promote Denial, because they're part of the corporate media.

Rolling my eyes here. Look, the reason 9-11 Denial gets ignored by the Lefty Gatekeepers is because it's completely and utterly wacko. It's not that they don't want to help you defeat Bush and the Republicans; it's because they know if they feature you it will discredit them and probably help Bush and the Republicans.

Based on the sudden amount of traffic we are getting here, it's obvious that a lot of people watched last night's show (and today's rebroadcast) and are hitting the search engines. It's not my place to tell liberals and Democrats who are not conspiracy nutbars what to do with their time. But... you could do worse than to thank these Gatekeepers for not giving more publicity to a movement that will only hurt them in the long run.

The Truth? You Can't Handle the Truth!

This is pretty amusing. The Loosers, tired of people linking to websites that disprove their "theories" have put a filter on their forum. If you try to link to the Popular Mechanics debunking piece, it automatically changes it to another Popular Mechanics article. I imagine that if you try to link to a piece on screwloosechange.blogspot.com, it comes up as screwl00sechange.blogspot.com.

Kudos to the truthseekers who find this appalling, like Promythius who writes:

apparently so ... and thats one thing i always thought was cool about this movement ... that we tell people to do thier own research and find the truth on thier own. not to just believe whatever the hell we're saying.

Still Confusing Fantasy With Reality

I had just finished talking about conspiracy theorist Richard Grove and his movie fantasies, when I noticed on the Loose Change forum that he had just done an interview of Avery and Bermas for his new podcast, titled "9/11 Synchronicity". Well it appears, that the Patriot was just the start. Now apparently James Bond is involved:

Grove: They want to start these wars they want to secure the oil, they want all this stuff. I mean that is why they punch themselves in the face. Isn't that what they did in Fight Club? Ed Norton punches himself in the face, and then he gets what he wants.

That's the Hegelian dialectic. That is exactly the control structure that they use and like I said dude, it's all in Hollywood films. All these little things that they do, they put out right in front of us, but we don't think they're real, because that's part of the film.

Look at Goldeneye, look at all those James Bond films. I mean. There is a lot of conditioning that comes from the Hollywood front end of the Pentagon agenda. I mean, you could agree that there are movies before 9/11 that seeded in our minds... look at the Siege. The Siege came out before 9/11. Immediately after 9/11 people stereotypically knew who to blame right after they said, it's Osama, because you know, they have seen it in the movie. They're New Yorkers, they have been affected. They are preconditioned with this traumatic sequence, then it kind of happened to them. Just like in the movie, right? Even with the potential of martical law. You know, Bruce Willis coming in. Just before I went to sleep last night, I was watching Die Hard With a Vengeance, on your 90 inch television.

Hmm, that is 3 Bruce Willis movies. And they haven't even mentioned Hudson Hawk yet...

Bermas: It's not a real TV, it's a projector, but yeah.

Grove: But I was thinking, how ironic that they make this movie in New York. And the original one, well the second one, happened at Dulles Airport. Right? So out of a couple of Die Hard movies you basically have part of the scenario that happened on 9/11. And with some sort of truck left behind with gold, then you think Die Hard With A Vengeance that they took it up to the tunnel, the dumptrucks right?

Bermas? : Yeah

Grove: Personally I think they took it out on the Path train, because the Path train went right under World Trade Center 6.

Bermas: Yeah, you mentioned this.

Grove: Where there is a big hole.

Bermas: So why do you think the truck is there? Out of curiousity.

Grove: A distraction. The reason this other stuff is there.

Bermas: Really you think that is a distraction. You don't think that 's just a convoy? I heard that.

Grove: Think about it. Decompartmentalize, if you have a convoy of trucks. How many drivers that know about the gold? If you put it on the train, you have one guy that knows.

$167 billion worth of gold on a single subway train? Wow, I have never been so impressed with the efficiencies of public transportation. Bermas disagrees:

Bermas: Yeah, but you still need, you still need people to load it in. It's gold, it's heavy. You can't just use robots and computers. You have to have man, manpower on that one. I just think it is a unit in there, that's done a drill, and now all of a sudden it is enacted into real time. They have done a drill where they have to ship something away. It was quick. And now they say, the target is the gold, we don't know what is going to happen to these buildings, we need to get them out. And they all have signed a confidentiality agreement, they couldn't even talk about the drills they have done before. So this is just a live drill for them.

So they moved approximately 18,000 tons of gold out from under the World Trade Center, in a little over an hour from the time of the attacks to the first collapse? Well, hey, they did practice it beforehand... And they signed a confidentiality agreement too!

These People Watch Way Too Many Movies

We have discussed several times how the conspiracy theorists often confuse fantasy and reality. Loose Change after all, by Dylan Avery's own admissions started out as a fiction movie. By all indications it ended up that way too. This guy, Richard Andrew Grove, however, sets some new standards regarding this. He is catching on in the conspiracy community as a "whistle blower", ranting on with a bunch of incoherent theories about banks, corporations and databases. If you have a few hours to kill, check out this article on his website, where he appears to be playing "A Beautiful Mind: The Home Game". I must confess, personally I wasn't able to get through the whole thing.

In any case, this is him in a discussion at the Chicago 9/11 Conference, from the 13 minute mark:

Grove: If you have ever seen Goodfellas, there is a guy who comes up to Paul and says ”I want you to come in with me on this restaurant”, and Paul says “Why me, I don’t know anything about restaurants?” They take it over, they max out all its credit, they burn it down, they collect the insurance.

You can learn everything you need to know about 9/11 by watching Hollywood movies. Die Hard With a Vengeance, watch Money Train, you guys ever see Money Train? Where they steal the money and use the trains underground to take off. There is a ton of different movies. There is a ton of allusion to 9/11 in Hollywood films before 9/11.

Unknown Speaker: Three Days of the Condor

Grove: Three Days of the Condor, the Patriot. Mel Gibson weighs a rocking chair, it weighs 9 pounds 11 ounces. I ask you, has anyone ever seen a rocking chair that weighs 9 pounds? It must have been like this big. But Mel Gibson is hanging it, and weighing the rocking chair at the beginning of the Patriot, and if you turn on the closed captions it says “9 pounds 11 ounces perfect”.

Look at Independence Day when the clock is ticking down and it will blow up different stuff, nine eleven. Eleven oh one seconds. If you look at Long Kiss Goodnight with Geena Davis. We have plenty of allusion there to people being unemployed from the Cold War, attacking America, it is basically the same premise. Look at the Lone Gunmen. It is H. W. Bush and his posse, then you have the Long Gunmen film which came out before 9/11.

Hmm, so Mel Gibson is behind it?













He then manages to connect this all with the JFK assassination, and then rambles on for another 20 minutes. I guess his tinfoil hat isn't working.

More Nuttiness from Fetzer--Guest Post

Update: Kudos to Rob Hinkley, who did this and contacted me with permission to use his name.

This came to me via email yesterday and I didn't get permission to use the person's name, so I'm just putting it here as an anonymous post. As the writer says, this is a hilarious show from Uncle Fetzer, particularly the part about underground camps with "full-size" guillotines. James may have posted on this one already, but it's wacky enough to highlight again. Here's the post:

I don't know if you listened to Fetzer interviewing Bill Deagle on July 6th on Fetzer's RBN Live programme. Fetzer describes as "fascinating" the notion that the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City was attacked with nuclear weapons. Not "stupid", or "simple-minded" or "naive" (or any of the other descriptions he uses for the idea that plane crashes and fires can cause serious structural damage), but "fascinating". Later it veers into stuff about Bush building guillotine-equipped concentration camps, causing Hurricane Katrina, and setting off earthquakes. Extracts below:

After a bit of paranoia about 10-lane NAFTA super-highways slicing the country into dastardly 'economic zones', we get the following take on the Oklahoma City bombing:
----
1st hour, 11:40 onward
DEAGLE: "[my patient] in fact was one of the 5 exposed to radiation from exploded micronukes in the Oklahoma City Murrah building that were..."
FETZER: "Micronukes in the Murrah building?"
DEAGLE: "Right."
FETZER: "Fascinating. Fascinating"
----

The Oklahoma City bombing was done with... Miniature. Nuclear. Bombs. Fetzer challenges none of this.

----
1st hour, 14:00 onward
FETZER: "That [Murrah] building was so solid, it was such a massive edifice, it was inconceivable to me that the alleged cause, this fertiliser bomb, ammonium fertiliser bomb could possibly have done that kind of destruction ..."
----

So when a building which 'allegedly' had an airliner flown into it and suffered resulting fires collapses it is obvious to Fetzer that explosives must have been used. After all, impact and fire couldn't *possibly* - to Fetzer's philosophy professor eyes - have caused that much damage.
But when a building is 'allegedly' blown up with 5000lb of explosives it is obvious to Fetzer that much more powerful explosives must have been used. After all, mere explosives couldn't *possibly* - to Fetzer's philosophy professor eyes - have caused that much damage.

----
1st hour, 16:30 onward -- the concentration camps!
FETZER: "They're building these detention camps all over the country [...] I just think there's going to be a huge group of us marched off to these detention facilities when they perform the next phoney attack on the US, suspend the constition and turn the American military against the American people."
DEAGLE: [describes giant detention camps which can hold a million people each, including some in Canada with special rail connections, and some of the camps underground such as under 'DIA' (Denver International Airport)]
FETZER: "What in god's name is their plan... I've heard different speculations I've heard reports that they're equipped with full-sized guillotines suggesting that they're going to lop a lot of our heads off. I've also heard the idea of creating huge slave labour camps, so it's even cheaper for American corporations to produce their goods."
----

Yes, professor, I've heard the same things too. And thought they were speculative lunatic nonsense. Fetzer challenges none of this.

----
2nd hour, 12:00 -- yelling match!
Deagle, who keeps asking Fetzer not to interrupt, is ranting about environmentalists. Fetzer starts yelling that Deagle's being grossly unfair to Al Gore and tells him that when he's on his on his own show he can tell guests to shut up but not when he's on Fetzer's show - oh no not on the Fetzer Show.
----

That's not strictly relevant, but I thought it was funny.

----
2nd hour, 17:55 -- The chemtrails, HAARP, weather modification, man-made earthquakes!
FETZER: "What's going on with this chemtrail business? What's the purpose of it, what's it accomplishing?"
DEAGLE: "Well its primary purpose is threefold. Number 1 it's to turn the air into a plasma so they can have geo-tectonic effects using scalar satellite-based technologies to trigger what's called the 'peizo-electic slip threshold' with specific harmonic frequencies of any [earthquake?] so they can trigger off an earthquake as a weapon anywhere on Earth, like the Bam earthquake in Bam, Iran that occured a little over a year ago. They can also set up what's called a trans-dimensional vortex..."
FETZER: "Just to translate this for some of our listeners because you're using a lot of very technical scientific language - what you're saying, Bill, let me translate it, is they can affect the weather, that they're doing things that will make the atmosphere more useful as a medium for using HAARP technology to bring about events like earthquakes, hurricanes, the whole bit."
DEAGLE: "Right. And they actually created what's called a trans-dimensional vortex that pulled in the storm cells that formed Katrina over New Orleans, that was done on purpose. Number 3, they're using it so..."
FETZER: "You're saying that Katrina was allowed to grow and become a force-5 hurricane and hit New Orleans on purpose."
DEAGLE: "On purpose."
FETZER: "Just elaborate on why."
DEAGLE: "Because first they had to destroy the oil production facilities down there they had to create a wetland which is part of the hijacking again, the use of the environmentalist movement. They had to allow only certain areas to be rebuilt which is what's happening we see [Donald Trump??]"
FETZER: "Just tell me a bit more about why, why did want to destroy the oil production facilities off the coast of Louisiana?"
DEAGLE: "It's the Goldfinger Effect, which is why we're in Iraq not to steal their oil but so nobody else..."
FETZER: "To make the cost of oil go up and up and up up because the supply has gone down and down and down."
----

Just to condense that a little... the chemtrails turn the air into a plasma so satellite-based scalar technologies can trigger earthquakes and a trans-dimensional vortex makes a hurricane so the oil barons can create a wetland... and Fetzer challenges none of this. Now of course I'm not a Distinguised Professor Of Philosophy from Duluth - I'm just some guy who writes software in England - but obvious crap in the above scenario includes, but is not limited to:
"The chemtrails",
"turn the air into a plasma",
"satellite-based scalar technologies",
"can trigger earthquakes",
"a trans-dimensional vortex" and
"makes a hurricane"

As Fetzer would say: Fascinating! Fascinating!

(Pat speaking again: Great post!)

Update: Deagle (at 50:35 of Hour 1): My contacts have told me that our Navy will not survive a war with Iran.

The Real Truth

Image created by JREFer Shrinker. Excellent job!

Great Interview

This was pointed out in the comments earlier. Here's a terrific interview of a 9-11 Denier by Ronald Wieck, who absolutely demolishes him. Kudos to Wieck, who cites 911Myths several times and Mark Roberts (the master debunker). He clearly did his homework and indeed seemed quite a bit more familiar with the topic than Les Jamison, the other side of the debate. You can see that Jamison is somewhat conflicted--should he go full out nutter or not? He pretty much decides to swing for the fences, and so we get Tim Osman and the John Ashcroft not flying commercial planes routine--one place where Wieck did not rebut with the best argument, which is that even Michael Moore changed Fahrenheit 911 when he learned that Ashcroft had flown twice in the months before 9-11 on commercial planes on personal trips.

Also note the obnoxious smirk ever-present on Jamison's face. He repeats the ridiculous canard that the standard procedure called for the planes to be shot down if they refused to land after contact by the fighters. Wieck comes back with the point that everybody who criticizes Bush now for not having the planes shot down would have been the first to call for his impeachment if they had been shot down on 9-11. Perhaps a better point to make is that if this was all so automatic, why are there no cases in history where US fighters have shot down a hijacked airliner?

Still, a terrific job by Wieck, marred by some occcasional sound problems. Predictably, the 9-11 Denial crowd thinks they won this.

Update: Part II of the interview here. Wieck keeps up the tremendous work.

Update II. Perhaps I was too hasty in saying that the 9-11 Deniers thought they won this debate. Although some of the commenters here liked it, most were dismayed.

True Respect for the Passengers

Here's a nice little video tribute to Mark Bingham, one of the heroes of Flight 93. Or as Dylan and Uncle Fetzer would say, one of the "alleged" heroes. It's mostly stills of Mark, one of which will surely take your breath away--I know it startled me.

9-11 Denier McKinney May Be Heading Home

We may have some reason to celebrate on August 8th. That's when Cynthia McKinney will face fellow Democrat Hank Johnson in a run-off election for the Democratic nomination for her seat in Congress. Listen to these poll numbers:

A new poll by InsiderAdvantage shows Johnson leading McKinney 46 percent to 21 percent, with one-third of voters undecided. The survey recorded the responses of 480 likely voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

The old rule of thumb in politics is that the undecideds will break heavily against the incumbent. For McKinney to be sitting at 21 percent is stunning. I doubt that this has a whole lot to do with her 9-11 antics and quite a bit to do with her assault on a Capitol Hill police officer. But we'll take a victory over her any way we can get it.

Full Disclosure: I am a Pajamas Media blogger at Brainster's Blog and Johnson has run advertisements on PJ Media blogs.

Screw Loose Change: 100,000 Served

In less than three months we have had 100,000 visitors. We rolled the odometer sometime late last night. Thanks to all who've linked us, especially the forums, bloggers and other 9-11 conspiracy debunkers. Thanks to our readers, commenters and supporters.

No, I'm not going to thank Dylan and his cronies.

Somebody Needs to Tell Zawahiri

That Al Qaeda did not pull off 9-11.

The deputy to Osama bin Laden wore a grey robe and white turban during the statement. A picture of the World Trade Centre on fire was on the wall behind him along with pictures of two fighters.

I Guess They Do Support Terrorism

One can always count on Jim Fetzer to provide idiotic quotes on any of his radio appearances. We have been arguing whether the CTs support the terrorists. Well, now I guess we find out who they think the terrorists are. From today's show, during a discussion of the current events in Israel and Lebanon, at the 36:53 mark:

Maybe even acknowledge that there are situations in which terrorism may be the only recourse. Witness the colonists fighting the Revolutionary War against the British. If we weren’t able to resort to terrorist actions we could never have defeated them.

OK, I am a bit of a history buff. Could anyone please explain to me how we defeated the British through the mass use of terror. Were there some cart bombings I never heard about?

Another Loose Change Debunker

Here's a guy who's a little tired of all the exhortations to watch Loose Change. (Strong Language).

Markyx Strikes Again!

Terrific video demonstrating the Loosers' callous attitude towards the passengers and pilots:

On Billiard Balls and Keebler Elves

One of the "Scholars" is apparently upset that people are making fun of Judy Wood for her billiard ball theory. I think this is an unfair accusation, we gave that up a long time ago, we have been making fun of her Keebler Elf theory instead. Let's face it, it is much more entertaining, and who doesn't love those cute little cookie bearing munchkins?

Both inside and outside ST911, there have been outright gross attacks against Prof. Wood, but there's been subtle stuff, as well, which has really (and outrageously) undermined her credibility. For the longest time, we thought the problem was sexism. (That is, at some level the idea of a woman knowing more about engineering than men is being taken as an offense to the male chauvinist sensibility.) I do think sexism plays its part here, but other factors have been in the mix, as well: arrogant egos, jealousy -- and psy-ops, for sure.

In other words, a debilitating toxic stew.

Well I certainly can't speak about what happens inside of ST911, somehow I doubt they would let me into the inner sanctum at the moment, but I can say definitely there is no sexism going on here. We make fun of Morgan Reynolds, Jim Fetzer and Kevin Barrett way more than her, and the last I checked none of them was a woman. Well, OK, Fetzer and Barrett cry like little girls anytime someone says something mean about them on FoxNews, but that is not quite the same thing.

The complainer, Ginny Howard continues, with the most unintentionally hilarious line:

I don't think there's anybody else in ST911 who comes close to having her level of expertise for addressing the problem at hand.

The sad thing is I would have to agree with her. She is the most qualified member of ST911. That is the problem.

And of course in their typical paranoid fashion, anyone who criticizes a "scholar" must be on the CIA payroll.

One of the things that has driven me WILD is to have to sit back and watch her work being attacked by people who feign expertise but show no evidence of it.

Not to mention the intelligence operatives.

Damn those intelligence operatives. I told Pat to quit running covert operations throughout Southeast Asia, but he just won't listen.

She then praises Wood's teaching ability:

The second reason I believe in Prof. Wood's work is that she's a damned good teacher.

Hmm, well apparently some of her students don't seem to think so, she got an average score of 1.7, out of a possible 5. Evidently some of them were freaked out by her telling stories of being in a coma for 6 years.

Ginny then goes on to defend her physics:

What people don't realize (though I think the OCT ops do) is the depth of scientific understanding that's hidden from view. Far from having 'forgotten' conservation of momentum, Prof. Wood has complete mastery of the issues involving momentum as they apply to the analysis of the WTC "collapses". They're ACCOUNTED FOR in the way she's set up her thought experiment.

Yes, she ACCOUNTS for momentum, by DISMISSING it entirely, saying it isn't enough to have an affect. What is her proof that it wasn't enough? Well, she said so! Weren't you listening?!

So go ahead, spread the word of billiard balls and Keebler Elves far and wide. We have Internet access too. We will be right behind you to clean up.

Juveniles

That's what Dylan and his buddies strike me as. For an example, consider this bit from the Fred McChesney Show (MP3) on Air America Phoenix, back in mid-April (begins at 19:50):

Caller: I was just wondering about--there was a man that was on Flight 93 in Pennsylvania that phoned his wife--

Bermas: That's not true, Ma'am. You're referring to Todd Beamer, correct?

Caller: Right.

Bermas: Yeah, Todd Beamer never talked to his wife. He only talked to a Verizon operator for what--19 minutes, Dylan? Yeah, and she actually offered to patch him through to his wife and he didn't really want to talk to his wife. I guess it wasn't all that important.

There's a word I'd like to use, but we have requested that our commenters cut down on the profanity, so I can't use it. But this is typical of the callous treatment that Dylan and Bermas exhibit towards the passengers on the planes. They get asked all the time about the passengers, and one gets the feeling that the Louder Than Words crew is a little annoyed at how the passengers seem to be preventing their message from being accepted by the general public.

As for why Todd Beamer decided not to be patched through to his wife, it was well-reported at the time.

Several days passed before she spoke with the GTE Airfone operator, Lisa Jefferson, who had spoken with Todd for a quarter of an hour as the passengers planned their uprising. Jefferson recounted Todd's last words. Almost as important, she explained that Todd had not called his wife directly because he was afraid she might lose the baby if he did.

Punks. Juveniles. Jerks. That's what Dylan Avery and Jason Bermas are.

Holocaust Deniers and 9-11 Truth

We have talked about this in the past, but there is an interesting overlap between 9-11 Deniers and Holocaust Deniers. Perhaps the classic example of this is Eric Hufschmid, who goes so far as to call Dylan Avery and the Louder Than Words crew "Holocaust Promoters".

In a way, the convergence of 9-11 Denial and Holocaust Denial is not surprising. First, both groups posit vast plots to deceive the people as to a major historical event. Second, many anti-Semites immediately leapt on the idea of the Mossad as being behind the 9-11 attacks, putting them early in the 9-11 Denial Movement. And third, you have an intersection of many people wanting to move the story off 19 Islamofascist hijackers, including Muslims, Neo-Nazis and 9-11 Deniers.

Who Is Rick Rajter?

A particularly interesting 9-11 Denier is Rick Rajter. Rajter is a student member of the "Scholars" for 9-11 Denial. He is cited in a new paper (PDF file, see Page 24) by Professor Stephen Jones, as being in the process of preparing a rebuttal of 9-11 Myths. He has also collaborated with "Scholar" full member Morgan Reynolds on Reynold's website.

Rick is a young man, recently graduated from MIT. He's apparently an athlete as well, as his bio here notes:

Born in raised in a small town in upstate NY, Rick came to MIT as an undergraduat in Materials Science and Engineering in 1999. Though rife with injuries during his undergraduate years, Rick's determination led him to such accomplishments as MVP of the indoor track team, leading season point scorer 3 times and Indoor NE Div III Pentathlon Champion.

(Update: A prior version of this post mentioned two other individuals on Rajter's MIT track team who obviously have nothing to do with his odious views, but were mentioned in his bio. I have removed their names from the post and wish those men nothing but the best.)

Obviously not much of a writer; there are a couple misspellings and some awkward phrasings in that brief paragraph.

But he's also a Holocaust Denier.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes a very good point, stating that

“Some European countries insist on saying that Hitler killed millions of innocent Jews in furnaces and they insist on it to the extent that if anyone proves something contrary to that they condemn that person and throw them in jail,”

Exactly. European countries are doing everything they can to quickly imprison and silence these revisionists. But why? Why not show them the facts and shut them up? Well, unfortunately the facts are not in their favor. So imprisonment becomes their ‘final’ solution :)

Of course, the media is having a hissy fit with his statements, and the ADL probably shat a brick upon hearing someone question the standard old “6 million died” rhetoric that we’ve been fed for years. Don’t worry, we’ll invade them soon and set the record straight.

Many other resources point out the contradictions and science of why the 6 million figure is preposterous. I guess even saying that makes me anti-semitic eh? But I’d rather tell the truth than worry about what people think about me.

Note in particular that Rajter links to Stormfront, a neo-Nazi site under the word "other" in that last parargraph. When his dubious citations are brought up in the comments, Rick responds (3rd comment):

Also, who cares if IHR is a “known holocaust denier” website. If I’m making the argument that 6 million didn’t die, wouldn’t they be a source I would want to cite? Particularly since they’ve put a lot of hours of research into it. Sure, they are biased. You know what, so are those that believe 6 million died. You know, when Auschwitz lowered their “official” death toll down from 4 million to 1.5 million, the “6 million total” remained. I don’t know about you, but basic math dictates that the number should at least go down to 4 million even if you believe the official numbers.

Cheers
-Rick

Comment by Rick Rajter — 2005-12-09 @ 4:18 pm

Say it loud, say it proud, Rick. The argument about Auschwitz is such a familiar trope of the Holocaust Deniers that it's even mentioned in the Wikipedia Entry on Auschwitz:

For many years, a memorial plaque placed at the camp by the Soviet authorities and the Polish communist government stated that 4 million people had been murdered at Auschwitz. This number was never taken seriously by Western historians, and was never used in any of the calculations of the death toll at Auschwitz (which have generally remained consistently around 1-1.5 million for the last sixty years) or for the total deaths in the Holocaust as a whole. After the collapse of the Communist government, the plaque was removed and the official death toll given as 1.1 million. Holocaust deniers have attempted to use this change as propaganda....

Essentially what the Holocaust Deniers try to claim is that the 6 million estimate includes 4 million at Auschwitz, but we know know the total deaths there were more like 1.5 million, so that means we have to reduce the estimate of the total number of Jews killed in the Holocaust to 3.5 million (6 million less 2.5 million).

See also comment #17 on that thread by Rick:

Interestingly enough, the Red cross later apologized for not agreeing with the numbers of 6 million (there red cross tally, I believe, was on the order of 400,000) and those deaths were not due to gassings and/or bullets to the head… but rather rampant sickness from typhus, malaria, etc from the marshy lands in Poland.

I don’t deny that people don’t have tattoos on their arms and actually had to stay in the barracks… but there’s absolutely no proof of gas chambers being used to kill people. In fact, the one gas chamber they do show has a plaque stating that it was built after the war!

So he doesn't even buy the 1.0-1.5 million estimate. Just disgusting. We'll see if the Scholars, Morgan Reynolds and Professor Jones disassociate themselves from this young man.

Hat Tip: (On Rajter) to Kent1 at the JREF forums.

Fetzer, Fetzer, Fetzer

Playing this kind of game calls for a memory like a steel trap. Hey, I make mistakes too; IIRC I talked on Constitutional Public Radio about the pilots flying buildings into planes.

Anyway, Uncle Fetzer's not quite up to the task, as I think a lot of the "Scholars" for 9-11 Denial are starting to realize. Here's a video; I believe it's fairly new, called September 11 Revisited.

Right about the 52:00 minute mark, Fetzer steps in it:

Larry Silverstein... had a conversation with somebody he described as the Chief of Police, where Silverstein reported he told the chief, "Well, there's been so much death and destruction, the best thing we can do is just pull it."

Immediately afterward, the film jumps to some old footage of Larry Silverstein, apparently from 2002:

I remember getting a call from the uh, Fire Department Commander. And told me that they were not sure they were going to be able to contain the fire. I said, you know, we've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it. And they made that decision to pull, and we watched the building collapse.

Now, I'm sorry, but if you can't even remember it was the Fire Department rather than the Police Department, you haven't really done your homework.

I'll have a complete review of September 11 Revisited a little later in the day.

Kevin Barrett: Scholar for 9/11 "Truth" (snicker)

They posted previously on the Loose Change blog about Kevin Barrett complaining that FoxNews host Bill O'Reilly had threatened him. Now I am not the biggest O'Reilly fan, but I suspected this story was false, especially because he wouldn't actually quote what O'Reilly had said. Here is the first part of Barrett's complaint:

Rupert MurdochBull-Goose Loonie & Fascist Billionaire Extraordinaire
Fox News

Dear Mr. Murdoch,It has come to my attention that one of your announcers, Bill O’Reilly, has stated on national television that he would like to see me murdered and thrown into Boston Harbor.

Since I get so many email death threats I can’t keep track of them (among the 10% of my 9/11-related emails that are negative) this is a pretty inflammatory thing to say. If anything were to happen to me, Fox News would find itself facing the mother of all lawsuits, and my family might very well end up in control of the Murdoch fortune.

Of course the "Scholars", never ones to miss an opportunity for self martyrdom or publicity issued an ominous press release on the subject.

FOX COMMENTATOR THREATENS 9/11 ACTIVIST

O'Reilly suggests he should be "floating in the river"

Duluth, MN (PRWEB) July 21, 2006 --- Bill O'Reilly, the host of "The O'Reilly Factor" on the Fox News Channel, has suggested that Kevin Barrett, an outspoken 9/11 truth activist, belongs "in the Charles River floating down". James H. Fetzer, founder and co-chair of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, a non-partisan society of more than 300 members dedicated to exposing falsehoods and revealing truths about 9/11, said that the absence of response from the FCC, Fox News, and the national media speaks volumes about the state of the nation. "When public threats can be made to a citizen's life for expressing his opinions on a controversial topic and neither the government nor the media respond," he observed, "that is a sure sign we are living in a fascist state."

Well I heard that this story was going to be on the O'Reilly Factor tonight, so I set my Tivo, and behold, O'Reilly played the clip of what he really said. If anyone can find the clip on the web, let me know, but this is the exact transcript:

This guy would have been gone at Boston University, my alma mater, in a heartbeat. The Chancellor there, John Silber, this guy would be, you know, in the Charles River floating down towards the harbor.

Funny, it doesn't say anywhere that O'Reilly would murder him. O'Reilly doesn't even say that he "should be floating in the river". All he is saying is that if Barrett had taught at Boston University he would have been immediately fired.

Well I am glad they are scholars for the "truth".

BTW, if you want to hear threats, read the words of Kevin Barrett.

On O'Reilly:

Also, you might want to tell O’Reilly that HE'S the one who should worry about ending up in Boston Harbor. 9/11 was an act of high treason and mass murder, and media figures complicit in the cover-up will be viewed, a few years hence, the way we now view Dr. Goebbels.

On President Bush:

I am writing because I am concerned that Mr. Cook's statement may be incorrect, and I wish to request Secret Service guidelines about how I may correct Mr. Cook's mistake without running afoul of your agents. As I understand it, the usual penalty for treason is hanging, not death by firing squad. In that case, it is likely that Mr. Bush will be hanged, not shot, for treason. By making this prediction, am I running the risk of having my clothesline confiscated? I also think that there is a real possibility that Mr. Bush will be electrocuted for the mass murder of 2,500 Americans in the World Trade Center. By stating this, am I risking a court order shutting off my electricity? I also foresee a small but very real possibility that Mr. Bush will die in the gas chamber. Does raising this possibility mean that my gas could be cut off?

In an e-mail written to Senator John Kerry:

Either way, it appears that masturbating in a coffin in front of your sick Yalie frat buddies doesn't do much for your intestinal fortitude. As far as I'm concerned, you're history. But hey, prove me wrong. Get onboard with 9/11 truth NOW or condemn yourself to historical irrelevance.

He is hardly the one to be complaining about a lack of civil discourse.

Update: I just noticed. If you read down in the press release they quote O'Reilly. So they know he didn't threaten to murder Barrett, and they still lie about it.

Vanity Fair Article Now Online

The profile of Dylan and Company is now on the website, sans pictures. Screw Loose Change gets mentioned on the third page; unfortunately they don't give us a link.

Stone's World Trade Center Getting Bigtime Kudos

Cal Thomas:

I have a long list of favorite patriotic movies, including "Victory at Sea," "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and "Sands of Iwo Jima," but Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center" is right up there with the best of them. It is one of the greatest pro-American, pro-family, pro-faith, pro-male, flag-waving, God Bless America films you will ever see.

What? Oliver Stone, who hangs out with and praises Fidel Castro? Oliver Stone, who indulges in conspiracy theories and is a dues-paying member of the Hollywood left? Yes, THAT Oliver Stone.

Kathryn J. Lopez:

Oliver Stone, who served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam, has put together a beautiful tribute to John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno, to every single person who ran toward danger to save others, and to every American who protects and defends Americans today. So move over, Superman. These guys aren’t cartoon superheroes, they’re even better — they’re heroes who are real. McLoughlin and Jimeno, as portrayed and in person, are regular guys, with regular families — good, all-American people who were called to do something selfless and answered that call. It’s important for us to talk about them and the good they do — and to be grateful for everyone who sprints toward danger to save one of the rest of us.

Ellsburg: I Am Not a Nut

Daniel Ellsburg writes to correct the impression that he supports the 9-11 Denial Movement:

Since your story has already given rise to paraphrased assertions on the web that I now “suspect” or regard as “probable” or “likely” or “conclude” that the government staged 9-11, I’m forced to try to describe my state of uncertainty less ambiguously than words like “may” convey. I did say that I believed the psychological (not “physiological”) CAPABILITY for staging or provoking an attack did exist in elements in this administration, as in the past, but at this moment I would personally put the odds in favor of this actually having happened at about one in a hundred, or 1%.

Bermas Interviews a Firefighter

At a screening of Loose Change last winter. The guy apparently likes Loose Change, but doesn't like the cutesy, sarcastic bits (probably regarding the cellphone calls). But he closes with an endorsement of another investigation, which he says "Is not that outrageous". Note particularly that despite the claims of the nutbars, this firefighter is completely comfortable giving his name and his opinion of the film. So much for the theory that the firefighters are under pressure to back the official story.

It's not outrageous; it's just a waste of time and money. Unless the panel doing the investigation is made up of Jim Fetzer, Jason Bermas and Kevin Barrett, they're going to find the same thing as the first 9-11 Commission, and they're going to get the same reaction from the 9-11 Denial Movement.

Now We Know Why He Isn't a Military Expert

Yesterday, I made a post on an video of speeches given by Morgan Reynolds and Ken Jenkins at the recent Chicago conspiracy theory conference. I pointed out that Ken Jenkins argued, correctly, that the hole in the side of the Pentagon was not 16 feet wide, but 90 feet wide. Well here is an article (hat tip BG) from the other half of the duo, from Morgan Reynolds, presumably the one guy who would know economics, but in the tradition of the "scholars", they prefer to discuss issues entirely outside of their field of knowledge.

Here is my favorite quote:

MR: “Well, a lot of us [Scholars for 9/11 Truth] have worked on the physical evidence front, because it is a lot stronger than eyewitness testimony.

Well yeah, when the overwhelming majority of the witnesses go against you, you have to discount their testimony as weak. That is called the "scientific method".

Now he gets into the weaponry:

LSI: “What do you believe regarding the Pentagon? Was it a missile that hit it?”

MR: “Most likely. It was a cruise missile, I think. I mean, if you want to bust bunkers, which is what they’re made for. They are sub-sonic, penetrating, explosive warheads. There are other theories that I would not reject offhand. It could have been an F-16. It could have been, and I don’t believe this, but it could have been an AT Sky Warrior [sic]. There are others that believe it was an entirely internal explosion. On my website (nomoregames.net), I assembled the strongest evidence I feel proves that it was not a Boeing 757 that hit the Pentagon. The most recent development is that you couldn’t, at 500 miles per hour plus, bring a plane in at the first floor. It is physically impossible.”

OK, professor, please explain what model of "bunker buster" cruise missile can knock a 90 foot hole in the side of a building, explode, and then continue through 3 more rings of the Pentagon, all while distributing airplane parts. Or how exactly an F-16 can do that.

Now he is an expert on aircraft construction:

LSI: “What about the light posts? Wouldn’t a plane’s wing get ripped off from hitting just one of those?”

MR: “Right. Yeah. As the movie Loose Change shows, there was a small, corporate aircraft that his one light pole at Houston/Hobby and, um, it wrecked the plane. It was everywhere. People don’t appreciate the difference between steel and aluminum. I mean, I went and weighed my sledgehammer. It is 9 ½ lbs. I could take that hammer and just wreck havoc on a 757’s wing. I could whack a few panels off very easily. The fuselage is only two millimeters thick. It would not be difficult.”

OK, you weighed your sledgehammer, congratulations. Now I have an idea. Go out to the runway at Dallas-Fort Worth, and stand there in the middle and wait for a 757 to land. Hold your sledgehammer up and take a whack at the wing. Let me know which suffers the most damage, you or the wing.

Now he bizarrely argues that the towers were more hardened than the Pentagon, which was made out of reinforced concrete.

MR: “The point is, while the towers were definitely more hardened than the pentagon, the plane would just shatter; crumple. There would be debris.

And finally Professor Reynolds flunks 8th grade science.

If I put my arms out, and come walking toward you at a fairly fast pace, and then bump into you, my arms move forward. (Laughs) Just simple physics! This is 8th grade science, here! Then, you have these engines, with 50,000 pounds of thrust, driving these things into the building. And somehow they folded up and didn’t impact the wall of that building? People need to do their homework on such an important issue.”

OK, professor. Here is an idea. Put your arms out, and slam against the wall at 500 MPH, now what happens to them?

I am still amazed. What is it about conspiracy theories that makes otherwise intelligent people into blithering idiots?

Economic Illiteracy

One of the most amusing bits about the 9-11 Denial Movement is the absolutely staggering amount of economic illiteracy out there. In some cases this is not surprising. For example, nobody really expects Dylan Avery to be very conversant in matters economic; he's a 22-year-old kid who didn't go to college (according to Vanity Fair). To him the notion of $160 billion in gold stored beneath the World Trade Center is completely plausible, because he doesn't have a clue as to what that would mean in reality.

But there are others--Morgan Reynolds, for example, who don't have the excuse of youth and inexperience--who should step in and lecture the economic illiterates. That this doesn't happen is just more evidence that the 9-11 Denial Movement is a cult rather than a group searching for the truth.

I listened today to (mp3 file) a stunning interview between two Canadian 9-11 Deniers, Dr Joe Hawkins and David Hawkins (apparently no relation), a member of our old friends the Scholars for 9-11 Denial. It's filled with nutty economics, perhaps not surprising, given this explanation by DH (15:50):

When I taught as a mechanical engineer, and of course people tend to buttonhole you and say, "Well, what do you know about economics, etc?" Well, I know a great deal of economics because money is energy and energy is money. Right? And the way energy moves through complex physical organizations is very similar to the way money moves through complex financial organizations.

For example, get this rather bizarre example from DH of how fiduciaries controlling pension funds supposedly could make money (17:40):

"If they sell on the 10th, that was Monday, the 10th of September, 2001, if they sold NorTel shares for future delivery, or Enron shares, let's say, to be delivered in November at $27, they take the $27 now. If they know that someones going to fly a plane into the buildings, and the stock market is going to panic, and all the scandals inside Enron are going to be revealed, come November, when they have to deliver the shares, they dip into the union pension funds, and they force the union pension funds trustees to sell them shares to them, but by then, they could buy them at 27 cents!

There are almost too many fish in that barrel. First, why would anybody pay $27 now for shares two months from now but not take delivery until then, unless of course the stock was worth something more than $27 at the time?

Second, why Enron? Enron wasn't impacted by 9-11 as far as I know; obviously energy prices might decline a bit with economic slowdown, but they're hardly the company to short on 9-10 on the basis of foreknowledge of the attacks. They were engaged in lots of fraud but a heck of a lot of that was common knowledge as of August 15th.

Third, the last part doesn't make any sense at all. In fact, there is no requirement to actually tender the stock in a situation like this; it is just necessary to adjust the final payout on the transaction for the value of the stock itself. And anyway, if the trustees were left holding the bag on Enron stock that was worth 27 cents, then they should be happy to sell it for that price because that's its value.

But it gets worse. Here's another handy-dandy scheme to make money right on the heels of the last one (18:45):

Or, if you are a big insurance company or the client of a big insurance company, and you happen to know that someone's going to fly a plane into the building, you can insure that building. Right? Which is what they did. Guess who insured it? It was the big union pension funds, including the Teachers and the Teamsters, quietly took out huge insurance on those buildings through their mortgage broker.

Okay, my jaw is dropping to the floor here. Once again we have this absolutely ridiculous idea that the way for an insurance company to make a lot of money was to insure the World Trade Center. Hello? When an insurance company insures a building and it is destroyed, the insurance company loses money. A lot of money. The fortunate thing from the insurance company's standpoint is that not a lot of buildings are destroyed every year, so they have spread the risk over many properties. But make no mistake about it, every single insurance company that took on part of the World Trade Center's insurance coverage wishes they hadn't, and it's insane and stupid to argue otherwise.

Second, the pension funds did not "insure" the building; David Hawkins is blurring two distinct roles. GMAC (which Hawkins refers to as the mortgage broker) provided the loan for the up-front payment required by the Port Authority Ground Lease to Silverstein. In all probability the loan was participated out to several pension funds. GMAC, as has been well documented, insisted that the property be insured for more than Silverstein had initially desired, to make its loan as secure as possible. GMAC and its participants in the loan did not insure the buildings; they required that they be insured with casualty insurance companies.

There's more; in the next section of the interview David Hawkins is explaining about remote controlled aircraft, but you know how it is; I'm already thinking he's a nut. His areas of expertise at the Scholars are listed as:

Forensic economics, Joint-venture enterprise, Management and network design.

Good Lord!

Glasgow Towers to Simulate 9-11 Fire

Here's a pretty interesting story about an experiment that promises to have a little more validity than one of Spooked911's attempts.

The disused tower block is at Millerfield Place in the Dalmarnock area of Glasgow. It was built in 1964 but has lain disused for more than a decade.

The Peruvian-born academic is one of a number of experts across the world who believes that the Twin Towers should have stayed up after they were hit by hijacked airliners on September 11 2001.

Torero believes that by studying why the buildings did collapse, future structures can be made safer.

He said: "Those buildings should have withstood burnout. From my perspective, those buildings were designed to last structurally for between three to four hours, enough time to get everyone out who had survived. At least that's what you expect."

The amusing thing, as pointed out by Reality Bites at the JREF forum, is that the 9-11 Deniers are hoping for the experiment to prove that the WTC towers could not have come down the way the official story says.

Change In Terminology

After thinking about it for a bit, I have decided to change some of the terms I use here. From now on, the Loosers and other CTers are not going to be referred to as "Truthers"; they will be called 9-11 Deniers. And those who deny Osama was behind 9-11 (or claim that a number of the hijackers are still alive) will be referred to as Osama Apologists.

So Much For That 16 Foot Hole

I started watching this video from the Chicago 9/11 conference, which the Loose Chanage boys were at, for Morgan Reynolds, the economist who constantly tries to pass himself off as a Bush insider. He comes off as the typical conspiracy theory nut here, but I found the second speaker, Ken Jenkins, an activist from San Francisco, more interesting.

At the 42 minute mark he points out that the 16 foot hole in the Pentagon, claimed in Loose Change, among others, is a fallacy.



















He shows that this is just the hole in the second floor, where the tail section went through. The 90 foot wide hole on the bottom floor is obscured by the firefighting efforts in that photo.















So Dylan, you constantly argue that you are just interested in "the truth". Loose Change: The Final Cut will be your third attempt at "the truth". Now that you have been called out by a member of your own community, will you discontinue this dishonesty? I know you read this blog Dylan, will you?

WTC 7--Is This The Holy Grail?

This picture was posted on Democratic Underground in the past two weeks. It's a stunning photo, possibly the missing piece in the WTC 7 puzzle.



As yet it's unverified but it fits with much that we've already seen.

Compare it to this picture, shot over the Winter Garden:



Both pictures show modest damage to the top several stories of the building at the southwest corner. Note particularly the break in the parapet wall just to the right of the corner in both pictures.

The vidcap needs to be confirmed; it definitely looks like it's from a San Francisco-Bay Area station. But if that can be accomplished?

Case Closed.

The Sacred Lists

One of the favorite bits of evidence that the "Truthers" like to present are the Sacred Lists.

1. Barbara Olson isn't on the Social Security Death List.
2. The passenger manifests don't include the hijackers.
3. The tail numbers of two of the planes were not retired.
4. The NTSB never investigated the crashes (i.e., they're not on the "list").

It's like these lists are so sacred that people may engage in a conspiracy to kill 3000 of their fellow Americans, but they balk at the idea of changing any of these lists. Can you imagine the conversations?

Bush: Okay, so we'll kill everybody above where the planes don't crash into the World Trade Center, and a buncha folks in the Pentagon. Any loose ends?

Cheney: Well, we're going to have to mark the supposed passengers on the planes as dead on the Social Security Death List.

Bush: We can't do that! That's against the law!

Or:

Airline PR man: Sir, the Press is looking for a passenger manifest.

Airline Executive: Here, give them this one.

Airline PR man: Sir, don't you think we should add the hijackers' names to the manifest?

Airline Executive: Tampering with a passenger manifest in the event of a crash is punishable by a $5,000 fine! Go ahead and put it out; only the mentally unstable will notice it.

The Jim and Jim Show

When conspiracy guru Jim Fetzer interviews fellow conspiracy nut Jim Marr, you know you are in for an interesting time. One could write an entire book on the idiocies of this radio show, but here are the highlights (or lowlights you could say):

Marr: There are so many questions it is hard to know when to begin. But number one of course, we do have the news stories from Europe, that says about half of those 19 hijackers that are STILL named by the FBI as being the 9/11 hijackers those folks are still alive over in the Middle East.

Notice his repeated use of the word "still". Guys, the last news report to claim the hijackers might still be alive was the BBC, on September 23rd, 2001, just 12 days after the attack. Hello!! Welcome to 2006. Over 1700 days have passed since then. How many hijackers have shown up alive in that time period?

Later, during the call-in portion, Jim "I'd beat them with my suitcase" Fetzer puts on his University of Minnesota philosophy department militia hat and calls for us to be armed and prepared for revolt.

Fetzer: Rick I think you are right. My greatest fear is that they are going to use another phony attack to suspend the constitution and turn the American military on the American people. If that day comes, I think we have to be armed and prepared to battle another American Revolution.

The caller, Rick, then hilariously claims that the US is in a deflationary spiral. Yeah, OK... Does Ben Bernanke know about this?

Of course no conspiracy theorist worth his salt can leave out both the evil plots to control our minds, and the Nazi concentration camp comparisons:

Caller: Do you know if they are now putting fluoride in Iraqi water treatment plants?

Marr: Of course. You know, most people don’t realize, but the Nazis put fluoride in the drinking water of concentration camps for the purpose of making the inmates… dumb them down, and make them passive so they wouldn’t try to revolt inside those concentration camps. And of course aluminum fluoride is a waste product of the aluminum industry and after World War II they realized how hazardous it was because what happens when you cook on aluminum cookware, you get Alzheimer’s. So they outlawed it. So what did they do, they launched a campaign through the American Dental association to put it in our drinking water. We are drinking the aluminum industries waste and it is dumbing us down and nobody seems to be paying attention.

Yeah, it was the fluoride that kept them oppressed. The starvation, armed guards, and gas chambers had nothing to do with it... Obviously their attempt to "dumb down" America has worked on some people.

Then of course, we have the typical distortions regarding the PNAC "Rebuilding America's Defenses" document:

Fetzer: Let’s turn to Cort (phonetic) in Alabama. Cort are you there?

Cort: Yes, I am, thank you very much for your work. I just have one question, I’ll listen off the air. I have this Project for a New American Century and I have read it once and I have skimmed it once. And I can’t seem to find the section where it talks about how America needs a new Pearl Harbor. And I can’t think of a better way to wake people up then to show them this document. And so if you could think about that and maybe have another caller call-in call in to talk about it, on the air and give me an answer. I’ll listen of the air. Thank you both for your work.

Fetzer: Oh sure, absolutely.

Uhh... Maybe you can't find it, because it doesn't say "America needs a new Pearl Harbor" anywhere in the document? I have discovered it is surprisingly difficult to find things that DON'T EXIST.

It gets worse, here is their response:

Fetzer: Jim do you know the exact part of the New American Century where that shows up?

Marr: Well, it is in there. Basically, and I am paraphrasing. Maybe at the next break I’ll have a chance to find that. It’s thoroughly covered in my new book “The Terror Conspiracy”. What it is, is that the authors of this report for the New American Century called “Rebuilding America” state that we need to invade Afghanistan, have a regime change in Iraq and increase military presence in the Middle East. Exactly echoing Cheney’s words, but they were a little astute, they said that this is going to be kind of a tough sell unless there is a “catastrophic and catalyzing event like Pearl Harbor”.

Fetzer: Like a New Pearl Harbor, exactly.

Yeah, you are definitely ""paraphrasing". I think that is conspiracy speak, for "I am making most of this up". I'll tell you what. I will pay $1000 cash to anyone who can show me where in the PNAC "Rebuilding America's Defenses" it says that we need to invade Afghanistan. Please, I am dying to know where it is.

Marr goes on from here to discuss how FDR knew about Pearl Harbor ahead of time, the Rothschilds are behind the New World Order, some rather confusing oil conspiracy theories, and even finishes up with an enthusiastic plug for Loose Change. I'll let you listen to those parts, if you want.

Phil Jayhan's Contribution Forgotten?

This is a minor thing, I suppose, but one oddity about the Loose Change spread in Vanity Fair is the discussion of how the film was financed:



Here it's just Dylan hustling his butt off, waiting tables and pouring Vente Lattes, but I seem to recall that in earlier stories about Loose Change, that Phil Jayhan was the "Angel" who financed Version 1 of the film. Heck, we get mentioned in the Vanity Fair article (thank you Google!) and Phil Jayhan doesn't? Cold, Dylan, very cold.

Introducing, The Journal of Debunking 9/11 Conspiracy Theories

About a month ago, the "Scholars" for 9/11 "Truth" created an on-line journal titled "The Journal of 9/11 Studies". Apparently, since they have been unable to get any of their "research" published in any respectable academic journals, they have created one of their own, subject to their own review, and their own dubious academic standards.

An examination of this journal finds it to be completely lacking in academic merit, with easily debunked papers (in particular see the Flying Elephant paper) based on Internet rumors as much as scholarly research. It is not credible that these papers underwent any serious "peer review" as the scholars claim they did.

Well, a few of us debunkers found this ridiculous, so we decided to start our own journal, titled "The Journal of Debunking 9/11 Conspiracy Theories" to counter their weak attempts at academic rigor. I personally contributed towards two of these papers. So if you have some free time to read, enjoy.

Killtown Looks at Flight 93 Crash Photo

Okay, I don't usually link to the conspirazoid stuff except to point and laugh, but this is actually a pretty interesting post by Killtown on the topic of the photo showing the explosion cloud over Shanksville after the crash of Flight 93. I suspect that the problem is related to pinpointing the exact location where the photo was taken and/or the effect of wind on the explosion cloud. I don't agree with his conclusion, but it certainly appears that he's done hard and honest work on this post; if more "Truthers" were doing that, their movement might actually be deserving of some respect.

Proof We Never Landed On the Moon

Inspired by Spooked911's experiments, Humbug decided to use the scientific method to establish once and for all if a rocket could reach the moon.

New Documentary Covers 9-11 Commission Report

At least, that's what the director indicates here; she also throws around the word "truth" a lot.

"I hope the truth does not get lost amongst the fiction," Linda Ellman, a former NBC News producer, who made her film directorial debut with "On Native Soil," told Reuters.

"I don't have a problem with fictionalized stories or fictionalized efforts about 9/11, because people need to be kept aware and should never forget. I just hope the truth isn't replaced by fiction, because the truth is shocking," she said.

Sounds like a conspirazoid, but apparently she's not:

Unlike those works, Ellman's goal with "On Native Soil," airing next month on cable channel Court TV, was to stay true to the 9/11 Commission Report -- the government's account of the suicide hijackings that killed about 3,000 people -- and present an historically accurate version of events as they unfolded, almost in real time.

Stupid Loose Change Forum Post O' the Day

I browse the Loose Change Forum on occasion, even though I can't post there because they ban dissenters. I am always struck by the idiotic things people post, rarely corrected by their truth seeking colleagues. Not to mention the off-the-wall paranoid theories. My favorite is the thread on the dangers of fluoride, in which the poster manages to spell fluoride in numerous creative ways. In any case, this post wins my award for "Stupid Post O' the Day":

3. Osama, if hes still alive, has just a big enough ego to take credit for anything as a propaganda tool. I mean, the word "al Qaeda" comes from the CIA and wasnt even found til 2001..yet Osama now calls his group this? He's a liar.

OK, I have to be honest, his sentence structure is so poor that I am not exactly sure what "found" means, but I am assuming he means that the term Al Qaeda was not used until 2001. I found this interesting, because I remember sitting in a hotel room in Arizona in 1998, watching a documentary on CNN on Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. So as we hop in the wayback machine, and do a Lexis-Nexis search, we find, that CIA front organization, the Vancouver Sun, August 21st, 1998:

Within hours of the Kenya and Tanzania bombings earlier this month, U.S. intelligence officers were pointing the finger at Osama bin Laden, the multi-millionaire Saudi dissident bankrolling a "holy war" against American interests worldwide.

Backed with a $ 500 million Cdn fortune he inherited from his father, a Saudi construction magnate, bin Laden runs a well-armed, well-manned terrorist organization like a private corporation from his base in eastern
Afghanistan.

Sheltered by the Taliban religious army that controls most of the country, 44-year-old bin Laden can call on between 3,000 and 5,000 Islamic extremists in a dozen countries to carry out attacks under his umbrella organization called Al Qaida (The Base).

Suckers!

Dylan put the following video up on his blog today, apparently thinking this is great evidence:



The big news here is that Jack Kelley claims that his sources told him that the FBI thought that as the planes hit the WTC towers, that trucks packed with explosives went off at the same time. Intriguing story, and it may even be true that was an early theory. But....

As I mentioned the other day, neither James nor I have commented on Dylan's girlfriend on this blog, despite his paranoid claims to the contrary. Why? Because she's irrelevant to the topic we're discussing. Dylan himself is frequently irrelevant; he's not the issue here, it's the outrageous claims he makes in his movie. Unlike, say, Eric Hufschmid, I don't care if he goes out drinking with his buddies at the end of a long day. I did too when his age.

But here's a case where I'd say that Dylan's relative youth is relevant, because he's obviously not been a news consumer for a long time. Nobody who's been paying attention the last couple of years would link to a video where Jack Kelley of USA Today makes interesting claims about what "sources" told him. Why? Because he was fired from his job at USA Today for making up sources!

When neither the newspaper nor Kelley could verify a story he reported in Belgrade in 1999, Kelley essentially invented a witness to corroborate the account, the editors said in a statement published on the newspaper's Web site.

What's next, citing Jayson Blair and Stephen Glass?

A Request to Our Commenters

Please try to debate these posts in a civilized manner. I know that emotions can get rubbed raw due to the sensitive nature of the subject being discussed, but the operative rule here is the same as in soccer; play the ball not the man. Too many insults are being slung and not enough facts. These do little to help the cause of debunking the "Truthers". And please, eliminate the obscenities. If you wouldn't want your grandmother to hear what you're saying, don't say it!

The Danger of Pretending to be an Expert

Is illuminated marvelously on this thread on a professional pilot's forum. A poster named Anatomist demonstrates his cut and paste skills, claiming that 757s and 767s (which he hilariously refers to as "commuter aircraft" can takeoff and land via remote control, and about a dozen other things. By the time the pilots get through with him, all that's left is a skeleton.

Hat Tip: Longtime SLC reader Markyx at the JREF Forum.

Campos: Loose Change Certifiably Insane

Paul Campos, a law professor at the University of Colorado and a longtime columnist reviews the "Truth Movement":

First, the 9/11 Truth movement features a wide variety of claims, ranging from the quite plausible (the government's negligence prior to the attacks was not wholly displeasing to certain members of the Bush administration), to the wildly improbable (the WTC towers were brought down by controlled demolitions), to the certifiably insane.

The latter category includes claims such as that 9/11 was a plot to steal $160 billion in gold buried under the WTC (this theory is put forth in the film "Loose Change," which has purportedly sold 100,000 DVD copies); that no airplanes hit the towers (the theory here involves sophisticated holographic imaging equipment); and that the passengers supposedly killed on the four flights hijacked that day were all herded onto United Airlines Flight 93, which landed safely in Cleveland before the passengers were transferred to a top-secret NASA facility.

If you're curious, you can also find plenty of stuff about how it was all really the work of Satanists, or an elite secret society that was set up several thousand years ago by space aliens. (A morbidly amusing sidelight to the 9/11 Truth movement is that many of its members have become convinced that other members are either unwitting dupes or conscious agents of the government, who are propagating obviously outlandish theories for the purpose of discrediting the movement as a whole.)

Could These People Get Any More Bizarre?

Earlier I posted a radio interview with prominent "Scholar" for 9/11 "Truth" Kevin Barrett, in which he talked about how the movement needed to focus on 9/11 and not "Illuminati bloodlines, UFO's etc" so as not to confuse people and make them think they are "conspiracy theorists" (gee, ya think?). Well Kent over at the JREF forum points us to this letter written by Barrett to John Kerry posted on his "Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth" site, demonstrating exactly why he needs to be careful to hide his true views from the world:

Dear John,

You, my “war-hero” friend, are a feckless yellow-bellied WIMP. 19 months ago, when you could have walked away...you did! You let the Bush crime family and their 9/11 perp friends the neocons steal the election you won in a landslide 53%-47%. If you had the slightest shred of guts or integrity, you could have had us all out in the streets taking back the country. Instead, you tucked your tail between your legs and fled like the coward you are. Unless, of course, the two candidates from Skull and Bones had the whole thing fixed in advance. Either way, it appears that masturbating in a coffin in front of your sick Yalie frat buddies doesn't do much for your intestinal fortitude. As far as I'm concerned, you're history. But hey, prove me wrong. Get onboard with 9/11 truth NOW or condemn yourself to historical irrelevance.

Sincerely,

Kevin Barrett

McNutty McKinney in Runoff

I have to admit, my political prognosticating skills were off on this one; the only Member of Congress who's seen Loose Change (according to Dylan) is now facing a runoff for the Democratic nomination for her district. Go, Hank (Johnson), go!

McKinney became infamous in 2002 for voicing 9-11 truthiness and then losing her congressional seat to Denise Majette. Unfortunately Majette decided to try to step up to the Senate in 2004, giving the House back its nuttiest member:

Constitutional Public Radio Report

Thanks to Andrea and Mark again for having me on the show. It's always terrific to talk to such intelligent and well-informed people. The show will be rebroadcast tonight from 9-11 Eastern time. I think you'll agree the discussion was lively and intelligent, unlike, for example, Dylan Avery on the Alex Jones show.

I do apologize for not reading the chat while I was talking. I would have loved to respond to more questions, but I also had a great deal of material I wanted to get through. I was disappointed that none of the Loosers called in, although there certainly were plenty in the chatroom.

Thanks again to Third Wave Dave for setting this up!

Screw Loose Change on the Radio!

(This post will remain near the top until tomorrow--scroll down for newer content)

I'll be on Constitutional Public Radio with Andrea Shea-King and Mark Vance Tuesday afternoon at 4:05 Eastern time. CPR is broadcast on AM 1510 WWBC, Brevard County, Florida. For those not lucky enough to live on Florida's Space Coast, you can listen in over the internet.

We'll be discussing Loose Change, and Screw Loose Change. I have been on with Andrea and Mark before and they always keep it interesting and lively, so be sure to listen in!

There's also an online chat feature here so you can interact with us on the show. Just type in your name, city and state and submit query to get into the chat.

Thanks to my buddy Third Wave Dave for setting this up!

Update: Looks like we might get some company. Let me say here that James and I have said zero about Dylan's girlfriend here, so I don't know what he's talking about. She may have come up in the comments, but we don't control those, anymore than he controls Killtown's nutty posts about no planes at the WTC in his forum.

More Science from Spooked911

This time he's got a challenge:

1) Obtain the Microsoft Flight Simulator Software and install it.

2) Learn to fly a Cessna 172 prop plane (if you already are a pilot, you can skip this).

3) Download and install the Boeing 767 plug-in, and take-off from Boston Logan airport.

4) Navigate to Manhattan as fast and efficiently as possible, then accelerate to 540 mph-- and on your FIRST ATTEMPT, fly perfectly through the middle of lower Manhattan, where the WTC used to be.

5) Let me know if you succeed.

If you DO succeed, also try a run taking off from Washington Dulles with a Boeing 757, going west for an hour, then turn around, and navigate to the Pentagon and try the "Hani Hanjour maneuver" (a 270 degree turn at 500 mph, then level off and approach the Pentagon on a flat approach, only a few feet off the ground.

Of course, you know what the toughest part of this challenge is? No, it's not buying Microsoft Flight Simulator. It's the part where you have to "take-off from Logan Airport". I've got an older Flight Simulator program; I think the name was F-2000, which simulated the entire San Francisco Bay Area. Drove me crazy trying to learn how to take-off with that plane. Apparently the designers realized that this was difficult, because they included an option where you could just take over the controls in mid-air (as happened on 9-11).

And when that difficult part was removed, flying the plane itself was actually quite easy.

Coming to a Public Access TV Station Near You

Somewhere between the ranting preachers.

City attorney Doug Jarman's legal opinion about the cable franchise agreement concerning PEG (Public access, Education, Government) Channel 99 cleared the way for the airing of the film, "Loose Change ."

The documentary did not air in May, as officials previously had promised Nick Pretnar of Taylor Springs.

Mayor Bill Baran made the decision to ban the program.

That prompted Pretnar, a college student, to seek an explanation at the council's June 27 meeting. The mayor then sought a legal opinion from the city attorney.

Jarman said the present use of Channel 99 for public access programs like church services, sporting events and community parades indicates the city should either abide by PEG rules in programming or air no public access programs at all.

Bruce Willis Not a CT Nutjob

Michael Yon e-mails, as posted on Hot Air:

Bruce got back to me this morning saying the press has misconstrued his statements and that this is untrue. Bruce said in part, “…the Linklater statements have been completely misconstrued, as usual by the media.”

[I]t’s clear that some media are just attaching Bruce’s name to gain traction. I will not talk about private communications so will keep this very brief by saying I know Bruce’s support for the troops is ongoing and, if anything, increasing. Bruce does not believe this conspiracy theory.

Yippee ki yay...

Professor Fetzer Admits His Classes Are Bogus

I have discussed the subject of quote mining on numerous occasions, this is the practice where conspiracy theorists take a quote, or part of a quote, out of context and then apply their own interpretation to get the quote to mean something that supports their argument. This occurs not just in Loose Change, but the movement as a whole, the Larry Silverstein "pulling" quote, and Norman Mineta, among others. I figured, just for fun, that I would do the same to them, to make an example. From 2 minute mark of the second hour of the aforementioned radio program with Professor Jim Fetzer:

To have a course you got to have readings, you got to have a syllabus; you got to have exams, none of that is true of any of my undergraduate courses.

Well now that we have him on record admitting his classes are academic frauds, it makes his conspiracy theories that much easier to understand.

Hypocrisy and Invisible Pipelines

I was struck by the irony of Jim Fetzer's words, when I listened to his July 14th interview of fellow "scholar" Kevin Barrett.

His spokesmen [referring to a Wisconsin politician criticizing Barrett] have even said that they don’t need to go to ST911.org and check out the research of physicists, and aeronautical engineers and mechanical engineers and civil engineers and pilots. They don’t need to do that because they know that we are all just Bush haters.

First of all, what were the names of the civil engineers again? Secondly, I was immediately reminded of an article on the "scholars" in the Chronicle for Higher Education (emphasis added):

911myths.com, a Web site run by a software developer in England, is one of the few venues that offers a running scrutiny of the various claims and arguments coming out of the 9/11 Truth movement. Mr. Fetzer has heard of 911myths.com, but he has never visited the site."I have been dealing with disinformation and phony stories about the death of JFK for all these years. There's a huge amount of phoniness out there," he says. "You have to be very selective in how you approach these things."

Well I am glad they are open to contrary evidence.

Fetzer then goes on to lie about oil pipelines (emphasis added):

Look at the situation in Afghanistan today. We have had negotiations with the Taliban, where we told the Taliban that if they allowed an oil pipeline to be built across the northern part of the country, that we would bath them in gold, and if not we would bath them in bombs. They didn’t, we did. And today that pipeline, Melissa, is constructed, being constructed across Northern Afghanistan and the two massive permanent bases situated perfectly to protect it.

OK, so these pipelines are being built? That is interesting. Where are they? Who is building them? What oil companies are involved. What areas are they connecting? Where are the pictures of the construction? The news reports?

Fetzer doesn't even pay attention to the basics of Afghan geography. He claims that our bases are "situated perfectly" to protect the pipeline across "Northern Afghanistan". There are two main bases in Afghanistan, the first in Bagram, just north of Kabul, and the second in Kandahar, which is in Southern Afghanistan. The only way this could be along a pipeline is if you wanted to waste billions of dollars to run a pipeline to nowhere, along the Pakistani-Afghan border.




















There are a lot of other things to debunk in this interview, including more lies about PNAC, cell phones, the phrase "Allahu akhbar", and how Hugo Chavez is a great guy, but I don't have the time.