Resume Inflation

I am actually getting a bit tired of covering this subject, but they keep lying about it. The "Scholars" whole claim to authority is that they are a bunch of "experts" who are finding the truth about 9/11 that us mere mortals cannot, and to do this they have to have experts to point to. While, as Judy Wood (and I) have pointed out, they have no one in relevent fields, so now they have to fall back on raw numbers.

While numerous 9/11 conspiracy groups exist, Scholars for 9/11 Truth counts 70 professors among its 300 members, Fetzer said. He said the group bases its theories on research that can be explored at the group's website, scholarsfor911truth.org. We're simply a research organization," he said. "We're just trying to find out the truth."

No, actually you don't Jim. There are 77 Full Members, who are supposed to be credentialed academics, but even their own site lists the requirement as "who have or have had academic appointments or the equivalent". Well apparently they use the term "equivilent quite loosely. We have already pointed out examples of resume inflation, Jeffrey Farrer, who was until recently listed as a full member was a graduate student. Kevin Ryan, the famous water tester for UL, has only a BS degree.

In fact, out of the 77 Full Members, only 44 have an academic association listed on the "Scholars" website, although many of them are vague. And even this includes those at such distinguished institutions as Tunxis Community College. Many of the "Scholars" are "Professor Emeritus", otherwise known as retired, or adjunct professors or lecturers, part-time non-tenured posts.

Perhaps the strangest case that I found was:

Richard C. Murray (FM)
Sociology, George Williams College, Downers Grove, Illinois

A search of their website shows that this campus closed 20 years ago:

Despite great effort on the part of many to stabilize the school financially, George Williams College had to close its Downers Grove campus in 1986 and disband its academic programs. The Social Work, LERA, and some applied behavioral science programs were transferred that year to nearby Aurora University, which established a home for these programs as well as many of the faculty, staff, and students associated with them.

I guess he either taught there a really long time ago, or he has been wondering why nobody shows up for his classes anymore.

This Is the Kind of Nonsense the Deniers Come Up With

Watch the video (it's only seven seconds long). Notice how the bridge appears to be moving in the background? Well, of course, it's just an artifact of the camera panning back at the same time as the helicopter doing the videotaping is moving to the viewer's left.

But that's not what the Deniers think. They see something very suspicious, possibly the smoking gun!

Of course, what they're really observing is a very common phenomenon that I first noticed as a child on long car trips. When we'd see a water tower in the distance, especially if there was a hill in between, it always seemed like the water tower was moving parallel to us. This is because the angle of view of something close to you changes more rapidly than the angle of view of something far away.

Update: I love one of the comments left on that YouTube video:

Maybe the sooper-nano-mini-nuklear thermite bomb was moving the bridge, or Larry Silverstein was "pulling it"... lo

Interesting Video on WTC 7

The first half discusses the collapse of WTC 7. Unfortunately that part of the film is rather brief. The second half discusses what Silverstein's company is doing to improve on WTC 7--wider stairwells, with five times the required amount of fireproofing on the steel.

NIST Frequently Asked Questions

Apparently having grown tired of conspiracy theorists spamming them with stupid questions, the National Institute of Standards and Technology has posted a FAQ as a follow up to their detailed studies of the collapses of the World Trade Centers. Now CTs can misrepresent their findings without having to read hundreds of pages of reports. Here is my favorite bit:

12. Did the NIST investigation look for evidence of the WTC towers being brought down by controlled demolition? Was the steel tested for explosives or thermite residues? The combination of thermite and sulfur (called thermate) "slices through steel like a hot knife through butter."

NIST did not test for the residue of these compounds in the steel.

The responses to questions number 2, 4, 5 and 11 demonstrate why NIST concluded that there were no explosives or controlled demolition involved in the collapses of the WTC towers.

Furthermore, a very large quantity of thermite (a mixture of powdered or granular aluminum metal and powdered iron oxide that burns at extremely high temperatures when ignited) or another incendiary compound would have had to be placed on at least the number of columns damaged by the aircraft impact and weakened by the subsequent fires to bring down a tower. Thermite burns slowly relative to explosive materials and can require several minutes in contact with a massive steel section to heat it to a temperature that would result in substantial weakening. Separate from the WTC towers investigation, NIST researchers estimated that at least 0.13 pounds of thermite would be required to heat each pound of a steel section to approximately 700 degrees Celsius (the temperature at which steel weakens substantially). Therefore, while a thermite reaction can cut through large steel columns, many thousands of pounds of thermite would need to have been placed inconspicuously ahead of time, remotely ignited, and somehow held in direct contact with the surface of hundreds of massive structural components to weaken the building. This makes it an unlikely substance for achieving a controlled
demolition.

Analysis of the WTC steel for the elements in thermite/thermate would not necessarily have been conclusive. The metal compounds also would have been present in the construction materials making up the WTC towers, and sulfur is present in the gypsum wallboard that was prevalent in the interior partitions.

First the "Scholar" schism, and now this. Not a good week for a certain professor in Provo.

Another Solid Debunker

Good Science and 9-11 Demolition Theories is dedicated to proving that the controlled demolition believers in the 9-11 Denial Movement are every bit as wacky as the No-Planers. Mike King uses science and logic to debunk Steven Jones and David Ray Griffin. He's also a terrific writer and I recommend his site without hesitation.

Welcome to a New Debunking Blog!

Nice to see another Phoenician battling the 9-11 Denial Movement, with a blog entitled, "Osama Did It--Get A Life!" :)

Interestingly, he's a Marine, a Republican, who drives a hybrid car and uses a Segway also to help cut down on pollution. Now that's already a fascinating individual. He does a great job on his blog, with long, well-thought out posts. Go over and welcome him to the New World Order. ;)

Hat Tip: Kent1 at the JREF Forums.

The Hazards of Hot-Linking

Dylan likes to present the "evidence" on which his film is based. Go to his web page, then click on Evidence at the top, then Pentagon at the bottom. Scroll down about a third of the way, and you'll see a rather surprising picture, purportedly of CNN's Jamie McIntyre.

Gotta host the pictures on your site, Dylan, or somebody's liable to play games with you.

Hat Tip: Gravy at the JREF Forums

Update: The hazards of blogging on multiple blogs: I accidentally posted here on the Duke Lacrosse case, which I've been following over at Brainster's. My mistake!

Markyx Strikes Yet Again!

This time it's not a movie but a text document, which means that Chuck Sheen will complain it's too hard. This one's entitled "Frequently Stupid Theories" and rebuts many of the more insipid theories that the 9-11 Denial Movement comes up with. Of course, we all know he's going to have to update this often, since they come up with a new stupid theory almost daily.

Couple Good Smackdowns of the Conspiracy Theorists

First up is Rick Harrison, who wonders how we can plan for the future when we don't understand the past. He comes up with the best explanation I've heard as to why the film was named Loose Change:

You need merely type "9/11 conspiracy" into an Internet search engine to become swept into this seductive web of nonsense. The creators of films like "Loose Change" (perfectly titled because it doesn't add up to much) and Web sites like www.911Truth.org pick through the details of one of this nation's darkest days with the paranoid verve of mad patriots, convinced they are uncovering the truth behind their worst fears.

He also recognizes the hopelessness of arguing with the true believers:

I'm not about to get into a shouting match with 9/11 conspiracy theorists on the supposed merits of their arguments. Based on how they respond to criticism and reason, talking sense to people like these serves as much purpose as licking a bald man's head to solve algebraic equations.

Dennis Byrne writes in the Chicago Tribune:

Such theories require extensive fabrications to back them up, such as the assertion that the towers collapsed at free-fall speed (false), and that one floor falling on top of another couldn't possibly "pancake" the buildings (actually it was scores of floors collapsing on each floor).

The conspiracy nimrods, of course, won't be there alone. Mainstream media nimrods also will attend in great numbers. TV anchors will solemnly speak of "disturbing new questions" about Sept. 11 and break to interviews with charla-tans, incompetents, nut cases and the gullible, all united as fools.

Dennis Byrne also has a blog, where the nutbars are filling up his comments section.

Hat Tip: WildCat at the JREF Forums.

The Implicit Racism of the 9/11 Denial Movement

We have already spoken at length about the anti-Semetic ties of the 9/11 conspiracy community, from Holocaust deniers to Jim Fetzer's love of the American Free Press, but this is a subtler form of racism. One thing I have seen repeated often, is this terminology, or variations of it, as posted earlier today from a British musician:

Are we really supposed to believe that a man in a cave in Afghanistan managed to orchestrate the most unbelievable attack on the United States of all time?

The "scholars" (I cannot use scare quotes big enough for that word in this case) even use this in their press releases, as delivered by Jim Fetzer:

What this means is that the wrong parties have been accused of the monstrous crimes committed on 9/11. The country appears to have been hijacked, not by a group of 19 Islamic fundamentalists under the control of a man hiding in a cave
in Afghanistan, but by a gang of neo-conservatives right here in front of our very eyes, who have used special effects and propaganda to deceive us.

The implication is of course, that these are a bunch of unsophisticated Arabs living in primitive conditions, and there is no way they could have had the intelligence, planning, and coordination to pull off these hijackings. They are just a bunch of Arabs after all.

But one must remember, Osama bin Laden was not "hiding in a cave" before 9/11. Thanks to his Afghan hosts, he had the free run of almost an entire country. He and his supporters were able to set up camps to train thousands of mujahadeen in the use of weapons, explosives, communications, security, and a variety of other skills. This is just one of those camps.















They are hardly living in caves.

And while the average Al Qaeda foot soldier may be neither educated nor sophisticated, that does not mean that their leadership isn't. Osama bin Laden after all, came from one of the richest families in Saudi Arabia, was educated as an engineer, and learned combat skills in the Afghan war against the Soviets. His number 1 assistant Ayman al Zawahiri is an Egyptian born physician. Aside from providing the inspiration for the attack (if even that) and the funding, bin Laden would not even be needed to "coordinate" the attacks. The 19 hijackers could have easily done this autonomously.

Neither were the 19 hijackers picked from the ranks of Arab peasantry. They were all selected because they would be among those Al Qaeda members able to get along in the west. Mohammed Atta was a Egyptian, who had been studying urban planning for years in Germany. All 4 of the pilots had commercial pilots licenses, requiring at least 250 hours of flight time, and most had at least some college education.

Is the thought of these men coming here, brutally taking over flights, destroying our landmarks and murdering our people repulsive? Of course it is. But dismissing them as a bunch of Arabs led by a man in a cave, in order to absolve them of responsibility is equally so.

Something New

I thought just for the heck of it I'd try something different tonight. I'm checking Technorati for those teeny, tiny little blogs that are discussing Loose Change, and seeing what they say. We'll rate them in descending order as skeptic, half woo and woo. Skeptics denounce the movie as a piece of trash, woo means they buy it.

Skeptic:

I did not locate any small skeptic blogs that have posted on Loose Change in the last few days. In itself this is not a bad thing, as most people who do cover Loose Change trash it once and forget about it. (How I envy them!)

Half-woo:
LarBlog:

So what does my gut tell me about 9/11? My gut tells me that sure, there probably were some people who knew 9/11 was coming. I don’t think 19 guys walk out of the desert and manipulate the American airline system without some help (cough - Saudi billionaires). Was the conspiracy as well-orchestrated as Loose Change states? I’m suspicious about that. To coordinate four airplanes was clearly a huge effort. To coordinate explosives, two airplanes, a missile attack, and the kidnapping of passengers goes off my gut’s scale of believability.

Woo:

Gargantua the Blog:

It raises very legitimate questions about the investigation, the coverage and what we really know at the very least. At the worst it suggests tyranny on such a level that I don't even want to think about it. I'm not sure I believe all of it, there are some logical leaps being made, in particular the motives that would go into such a phenomenally complicated plan.

Troubled Waters of Today:

During that time I have discovered things that are hidden from the majority of people, yet are openly available on the net for anyone with an enquiring mind and decent research skills. The problem is, of course, that school miseducates people, all the more so nowadays, so fertile, enquiring minds (and research skills) are not as common as they once were. The mainstream media is, by and large, owned by people within the same organisations that planned and carried out '9/11' and other atrocities, and with very grave reasons to resist the truth emerging.

Public Secrets:

It left me with some questions. I advise you to take a look at it because it gives a different look on the things going on at the moment if even a few of the facts mentioned are true.

* Nine of the 911 hijackers are still alive [link to BBC article],
* The fact that nothing has been found from the plane that hit the Pentagon or the plane that went down in Pennsylvania.

PDX 9-11 Truth Alliance:

I myself was horrified when earlier this year I looked up from my intense study of the election crisis in this country to peer beneath the surface of the grotesque charade of the 9/11 official story. It is not easy to face the truth. But in the sincere hope you will accept my invitation to explore a fact-based reality, I offer you many resources below.

The Line:

But right from the start, there were people who said that this thing looked a little… off. Those two towers - whilst very tall indeed - are still a mighty small target for a commercial jet to deadeye. That it happened twice was one thing, but further north another plane had slammed into the Pentagon.

(the writer is British so we'll forgive the geographic mistake).

Morgan Reynolds Endorses the Onion's Single Plane Theory

Holy smoke, this guy's pinned the Nutbar-O-Meter!

Here is more food for thought: the same chameleon plane could have appeared at all three events: 9:03a at WTC 2, 9:32-9:37a at the Pentagon, and 10:06a at Shanksville, PA. In truth, the perps only needed the disappearing plane trick at WTC 2 but it is a promising possibility for Shanksville too. The Pentagon event did not really need an airliner but the single plane theory proposed this month as a parody of the JFK single-bullet theory actually might make sense! The same disappearing act by the same secret plane could have been used at all three locations! We shall see if future work bears any of this out.

Shut Up And Sing

Another rocker with theories:

MUSE have cracked America...despite singer Matt Bellamy's outspoken views on George Bush.

The fiery British trio have rocketed to No.9 in the US Billboard charts with their great new album, Black Holes And Revelations.

But Matt - whose passion for conspiracy theories has inspired their songs - has fired a broadside at wily old Dubya in The White House.

He said: "I'm fascinated by conspiracy theories. We're surrounded by them.

"Are we really supposed to believe that a man in a cave in Afghanistan managed to orchestrate the most unbelievable attack on the United States of all time?

"I think 9/11 was definitely an inside job done by a group of high-powered people looking for an excuse to invade the Middle East for oil and other natural resources.

"I think America needed another Pearl Harbor-type event in order to invade Iraq. It gave the US and UK governments the perfect excuse to go to war."

Sounds like the 9-11 Denial Movement has another deep thinker on their side, just like Charlie Sheen.

The Continuing Demolition of the Scholars

Here's some stuff from Ginny Howard, apparently about to become a former member of "Scholars" for 9-11 Denial:

This is a letter Ginny (worked for Scholars) asked me to post on forums for her in relations to recent problems in ST911:

QUOTE:
Below is the lengthy e-mail I wrote Jim on August 18th which lays out the serious problems I had identified in ST911 and explains the situation Jim refers to from my point of view (followed by his response). However, this was NOT the first time these issues were broached; there had been a full airing with Jim of some of the most striking ones in what could be called The 'Two Great Engineers' Saga, which occurred right at the first of August. During this event, which involved Steve trying to insert into Full Membership status (i.e., those with full academic credential)-- on the basis of claims that proved to be FALSE or UNVERIFIABLE and that he had to KNOW were so -- two people who had not even applied for membership! Jim wanted me to accede to Steve's demands on the issue; I refused.

What is MOST telling to me about this whole situation is that, with Judy Wood now removed as webmaster (on trumped-up charges), guess who are now listed as Full Members? That's right! Those 'two great engineers' (nothing intended against them personally), Srs. Winterton and Phelps -- one an elderly gentleman with a B.S. in civil engineering; the other of which we know nothing about. Check it out yourself. [In case these names are removed from the FM roster, the page as of today has been captured.]

And who has control of the webpage? Jim Fetzer.

SO: What this means is that Jones is perfectly willing to LIE about credentials to pad the roles of ST911, and Fetzer is perfectly willing to ACCOMMODATE those lies even after he has been informed in no uncertain terms that that is EXACTLY what they are.

This puts in stark relief the noteworthy lack of integrity that informs the work of ST911. That is, if there is not even an INTENTION to maintain integrity in the membership roles, how can anyone trust there is integrity anywhere else? As I have said more than once, Scholars for 9/11 TRUTH cannot succeed when founded on a pack of LIES.

Speaking of which -- with respect to Jim's claim of 'embracing' me because I was Judy's friend, IMV, I was recruited as membership secretary because I was perceived as a convenient and willing dupe (though no more). Also, as you will see, my actions were not based merely on my 'opinions' about Steve, but rather on a considerable amount of evidence of the general dysfunctionalilty of ST911, as well as the 'quality' of its leadership.

I do need to make one correction about the e-mail below. At the end of it, I said I would continue to work on the applications. In fact, conditions with Jim and ST911 rapidly deteriorated, such that I became even LESS sanguine about the quality of ST911 and about the advisability of continuing to support it. Thus, mostly what I did afterwards was to send out letters of receipt and enter names in the address book. (I, of course, also spent time gathering together materials to inform the new membership secretary, Dave Doering, of the situation and to provide the necessary files so that he could carry on -- if he chooses to do so.

THUS, sadly, ST911 appears to be an organization with a corrupted leadership. If I were a betting woman, I'd put my money on the proposition that it is in fact a creation of, by, and for the perps. Unfortunately, some good people have already been hurt and others will be because we allowed ourselves to be taken in by the attraction of 'credentials' -- without paying sufficient attention to verify the quality and integrity they should have stood for.

Under the circumstances, I believe the only way to limit the damage of this awful situation is for the 9/11 Truth Movement to distance itself as quickly as possible from such low-down chicanery.

My final observation is that the leadership (Jones and Fetzer) have abused the trust placed in them (too willingly) by the ST911 membership. It is therefore up to the MEMBERSHIP to re-establish it's commitment to high standards of integrity in thought and action, and to bring these men to account. I suggest members begin to organize themselves to figure out how this can be done in a way most supportive of the long-term health of the 9/11 Truth Movement.

And, undaunted, to move forward.

The August 18th assessment appears below.

Ginny



August 18, 2006
Jim --

This is a long e-mail; I hope you read it, thoughtfully, all the way through.

For my part, I have been thinking quite a bit about the current situation with ST911.

I do not accept your frame. For me this is not about who I’m more ‘committed’ to: ‘my friend’ or ‘the society’ (i.e., ‘Jim Fetzer’).

It’s not about loyalty in that sense.

Instead, I’m evaluating the situation according to a set of criteria which include the following:

(1) Does the organization have a structure that can accommodate a growing membership and provide reasonable avenues to make use of members’ gifts and talents? Is it able to adapt appropriately as it grows and meets new challenges?

(2) How savvy is the leadership in handling the trolls and operatives who inevitably infest the membership of any organization like ours and then try to take over and create an ineffective mess?

(3) How willing is the leadership to create a strong, clean advisory counsel so that problems, issues, and potential actions and directions can be viewed from a variety of perspectives and decisions arrived at by wise, informed consensus?

(4) When indications of serious problems arise, can the leadership objectively evaluative the data and handle the situation in a timely, effective manner, or will problems be allowed to fester until they blow up?

I believe that, however ST911 was originally conceived, its rapid growth and public image, not to mention the fulfillment of its purpose, require the attention, organizational structure, and leadership I am suggesting. Ad hoc is no longer 'good enough'. However, what I believe I am currently seeing with ST911 is an organization without effectiveness in any of these areas.

I know, for example, that I have more than once expressed my strong dismay at the quality of the forum and at the idea that decent new members are to be turned loose there, where discussions * best I can tell * are dominated by trolls with the primary purpose of wasting people’s time and confusing them about the issues.

I have not gotten one response from you about that.

As a consequence, one thing I’ve done is try to drag my feet as much as possible, without looking totally incompetent, on admitting new members. Why? Because I can’t stand the thought of sending decent, caring people, many of whom write quite compelling personal statements, into the forum snake pit, which is the only thing ST911 offers them by way of contact with the organization. I’ve been hoping (now, I fear, against hope) that ‘something’ would soon change for the better so that I could admit them in good conscience.

I also notice that the entire ‘leadership’ of ST911 seems to consist of you * with Judy and me in the only subsidiary roles * covering membership, website, and forum moderating * i.e., virtually the entire ‘substance’ of the organization per se. (In my case, I know there’s WAY too much membership work for me to do alone.) This ‘structure’ * if one can call it that * is completely inadequate for meaningfully supporting a membership in the hundreds * unless those numbers are intended only to serve as window dressing for a few public personalities.

And this gets at another key issue for me: RESPECT.

If we are set upon ‘saving democracy’, I am very, very clear about one thing: You can’t do that without a competent citizenry. And the first step in having a competent citizenry is treating people with respect.

It isn’t RESPECTFUL to invite people to join you to save their country * and then provide them no structure in which to even begin to serve a useful purpose.

In my role as membership secretary, this has been tearing me up.

And yet as I watch in the background, I don’t see any indication that if I approached you on these issues I would get a thoughtful, helpful response. What I see, especially lately, is very erratic, dictatorial behavior.

It’s very disturbing to me.

And now we come to the issue of Steve Jones.

I have in a number of e-mails to you expressly named what this man is: A LIAR!!

This FACT is provable beyond a shadow of a doubt on a number of fronts.

Because he is the co-chair of ST911, this is a very, very serious issue.

The matter of ‘non-glowing, silvery-gray-at-all-temperatures’ aluminum is so obvious and egregious a fabrication as to be laugh-out-loud laughable if the matter were not so deadly serious. You doubt me? Go to his PDF (you’ll need to do this fairly quickly because he keeps changing it) and visit page 69 (of 189):
http://www.journalof911studies.com/J...radeCenter.pdf (In case it’s changed, I can send you saved screen shots of the page.)

What you’re going to see are four pictures:

(1) ‘Molten metal’ (allegedly) pouring out of a South Tower window -* though NIST states the picture is ‘color enhanced’ (or something like that), not to mention there’s a serious question about whether the whole thing isn’t a total fake.

(2) A picture presumably of thermite burning.

(3&4) Two pictures of aluminum being poured.

These four pictures are supposed to offer conclusive ‘proof’ that what is pouring out of the window in the (probably faked) picture is 'thermite' -- and most certainly 'cannot' be aluminum.

Now, what is the problem with this picture? The problem is that the color of molten metals is determined by temperature * not the material itself * as any high school physics student would know. Whatever is shown as pouring out the window (if indeed something did pour out) is of a MUCH higher temperature than the aluminum (which melts at approx. 660 degrees centigrade) shown in pictures 3 & 4. Why is the molasses-like aluminum silvery-gray and NOT the color of the stuff in the ‘window’? BECAUSE IT ISN’T ANYWHERE NEAR HOT ENOUGH!!!!

This is the 'detail' Jones fails to mention.

No way is Jones this stupid. Nope. He’s lying straight to our faces. Indeed, he lied about it to Judy back in February; he lied about it to Bonnie Faulkner and her listeners on Guns and Butter; he lied about it on your program, he lies about it on the ST911 forum (with his lies being affirmed there by his chorus of groupies); and on C-SPAN, he lied about it to the whole nation.

Why is he doing this?

More to the point, why are you not treating this behavior as the unconscionable breach of scientific integrity it is, but are acting as if Jones is being defamed when somebody calls him on it? Why instead are you not dismissing Jones from ST911 for conduct unbecoming a ‘scholar’, and thus protecting the long-term good name of the organization??

(BTW * as I’m writing this, I just received a copy of an e-mail from Alex Floum in which he makes the definitive assertion that Jones is an ‘impeccable’ scientist. Again, what I want to know is, why is an ‘impeccable’ scientist LYING about an item of high school physics that anybody can recognize as false? IMV -- ‘Impeccable’ is as impeccable does. What I’ve just named * the evidence of which is available for the whole world to see in Jones' PDF -- is the opposite of ‘impeccable’.)

But let’s say you don’t want to deal with the ‘non-glowing, silvery-gray-at-all-temperatures’ aluminum issue?

How about this one:

Jones LIES about the people he recruits as members of ST911.

How do I know this?

In THREE CASES * count them * 1, 2, 3 * that we know about * Jones has corrupted or attempted to corrupt the membership roster by getting people listed as Full Members when they did not have the necessary credentials * AND HE KNEW IT! Who are they:

Jeffrey Farrer:
a BYU Dept. of Physics lab manager; apparently a graduate student
Doyle Winterton:
a man in his 70s who worked as a civil engineer but has no advanced
degrees and never held an academic appointment
Joseph Phillips
we don’t really know, but he might be a vineyard owner who once
got a degree in construction engineering.

In the first case, Jeffrey Farrer was listed as a Full Member until Judy Wood saw that he was ‘thanked’ as one of the students who helped in preparing Jones’ PDF. (This statement, which appeared on the cover page and which I saw myself, has since been removed.) In the latter two cases Judy and I wasted an absurd amount of time preventing those individuals from being listed as Full Members -- which you were insisting that I do on Jones’ recognizance alone -* BEFORE we even had their permission to be listed in the first place, which is a legal issue!

Now *

I have a GIGANTIC problem with the fact that the co-chair of ST911 is a PROVEN LIAR!!

He lies in his science, and he lies in his personal communications.

I don’t have to know WHY he’s lying; I just know that ST911’s INTEGRITY is being compromised egregiously and at the highest levels -- and that this CANNOT be good!!

I also know, for example, that there’s NO fixing the forum as long as Jones is a part of it and ST911, and is accepted as THE unquestioned scientific authority figure there.

The corruption of this man is so glaring (the aluminum issue being the tip of the iceberg) that I’ve believed up until today you would surely see it and take appropriate action.

MY BOTTOM LINE:

‘Scholars for 9/11 TRUTH’ will ultimately fail if it has LIARS at the helm -- and protects them to keep them there. Trying to cover up for Jones * or whatever it is you’re doing * can, at best, have a temporary effect. In the end, it will be a disaster.

This is not rocket science. It’s about basic, common decency. If we don’t have that in our organization * or at least are making an honest attempt to strive for it -- we don’t have anything.

My opinion: Either Jones is a paid covert operative, which is surely what he looks like * OR he’s doing a damned good imitation of one, such that the BushCo criminal regime is getting excellent service -- for free!!

I don’t know which is worse.

There’s much more that could be said, but I’ll leave my description of the problem at this.

Now, you probably are interested in what I plan to do:

I will reiterate: I am HORRIFIED at admitting to a dysfunctional, deceitful organization decent Americans who feel honored to be a part of Scholars for 9/11 Truth (as they imagine it to be) and who want to help save their country by joining.

Still, I have taken on the duties of membership secretary, and I likewise feel a certain responsibility in that role.

Although I am no longer sanguine that, under present leadership, the concerns I have enumerated can be addressed, yet I do not wish to leave the society’s membership applications in disarray.

Therefore, I am willing to spend a few more days trying to catch up as best I can so that whoever takes over from me will at least have some sense of what has transpired in the three weeks or so I have been at this. Although I remain very concerned about what unsuspecting new members are getting into, I do not wish to inflict harm on ST911.

I hope this information is helpful to you.

Sincerely,
Ginny Howard




Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2006 09:02:44 -0500
From: jfetzer@d.umn.edu
To: Ginny Howard
Cc: jfetzer@d.umn.edu
Subject: Re: ST911 and Membership

Ginny,

Thank you for this extremely interesting post. I had thought it was odd that new members were not showing up, but now I understand. I will see what I can do in arranging a replacement. I appreciate your assistance and am considering everything you have told me. Thanks very much.

So there we have it. On the one hand we have folks who are at least interested in making a plausible case that the "Scholars" are really scholarly, and we have Fetzer and Jones, the heads of the organization.

Of course, if Fetzer wanted to be honest, he would have replied something like this:

Ginny,

Thank you for this extremely interesting post. What you have to understand is that we really have no case against the Bush Administration. Almost everything we claim is a lie, so it's a little late in the game to start pointing fingers at Professor Jones, who at least is providing us with interesting lies that deceive the simpletons of the movement. Have you seen my "Top Ten Reasons the Hijackers Were Fake?" Virtually every word in there is a lie, with the arguable exception of the first reason which even I can't figure out what I was getting at.

Aussie Alert

Loose Change 2 to air on the History Channel, Australia as part of a September 11th marathon.

Perhaps the Naudets would be interested in learning this?

Another Theory Demolished

One of the things that 9-11 Deniers like to claim is that very few of those killed in the Pentagon crash were actually military or other employees of the Defense Department. I suppose the idea is that this makes it more likely that the military could have been involved.

However, a quick check of this CNN tribute website should dispell the myth. As you can see, of the thirty people listed (alphabetically) on the first page, one worked for Verizon, one worked for Booz Allen, and one person's employer was not given. The rest, 90%, worked for the Army, the Navy, the Defense Department or the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Loose Change or Divorce

I am honestly not sure what to say to this. Hat tip Class on the JREF forum.

With that all said, I wondering if I shouldn't just go ahead and say to my wife "Okay look, you're either going to watch Loose Change or I file for divorce." What do you think? I mean hell, I don't push my opinions on people, but I would think I could at least get my own damn wife to watch the show, eh?

CNN Website to Air Full 9-11 Coverage As It Happened

In addition to coverage of the memorial services (and 9-11 Denier rally) at Ground Zero.

Scholar Scorecard

Well the "Scholars" for 9/11 "Truth" seem to be the big story of the day. Exactly 3 months ago today I did my first major post on the "Scholars", where I counted and categorized the 76 Full Members of the organization. They have been receiving a lot of press lately, CSPAN, the AP, the NY Times, FoxNews etc., and they have been bragging about their growing momentum, since according to them, 70 million Americans support them.

So I decided to do another count of their Full Members, and found out that after 3 months of unprecedented growth and momentum their ranks had swelled from the previously mentioned 76 to.... 77.

Wow, if they keep this up, at this rate they will be in triple digits by 2012.

They have actually picked up 7 new members.


Anicha Bay - Visiting Professor of English, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, South Korea
Don Bustion - Attorney, Adjunct Professor, Southern Arkansas University
Joseph Diaferia - Political Science and History, State University and City University, New York
Kenneth Kuttler - Mathematics, Brigham Young University
Joseph M. Phelps - Structural Dynamicist Charter Member, Structural Engineering Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers
Karen Sugrue - Sociology, Limerick Institute of Technology, Ireland
Doyle Winterton - Civil Engineering Structural Engineering

Most notable in this are the two "civil engineers". I cannot find any reference whatsoever for Doyle Winterton, despite the unusual name. I did find Joseph M. Phelps, and he does appear to be who they claim. They are leaving out the fact that he is also 82 years old, and running a 9 hole golf course in Florida. Probably a nice enough guy, but he might be a little past his prime.

To offset that they lost 6 members. Reynolds and Wood of course everyone knows. The only other notable loss was Jeffrey Farrer, who actually didn't leave the organization, but got demoted all the way from a Full Member to a Student Member. Could this have anything to do with me pointing out previously that he was not a professor, but a lab manager for the physics department at BYU?

Update: This is not verifiable proof, but Pat and others have found a Doyle Winterton in Provo, Utah. It looks like he might have sold a stereo to Steven Jones or something. As for why his entry just says "Civil Engineering Structural Engineering " instead of an actual title or position, well according to the Utah Department of Licensing he had a license as an "engineer in training" but it expired in 1999. Who is next, Steven Jones' pool boy?

Moron the Schisms

It just gets funnier and funnier. The latest is this post over at TVFakery, a blog dedicated to proving the "no-plane" theory.

This week st911.org members Cathy Garger and Andrew Lowe Watson signed as 14th and 15th member of the 9/11 Scholars to support a release of a scientific paper at journalof911studies.com to inform the public on the findings of "9/11TVfakery"/"no planes-forensic evidence". The paper will be written by Rick Rajter, supportive of these findings.

Yep, following on the heels of the embarrassing "Elephant Plane" article in the first issue, Journal of Nine Eleven Studies (JONES) is being pressured to present the fruitcake stuff, written by Mr Holocaust Denier himself.

Update: Folks are already picking sides. Reprehensor at 9-11 Blogger links to some interesting pictures of airplane debris, including one with DUNDUNDUN! a serial number!

The Schisms Continue

Morgan Reynolds and Judy Wood Take On Professor Jones

The 9-11 Denial Movement continues to fragment into factions. Reynolds and Jones have had some skirmishes before over the "no-planers" (Reynolds is one, Jones is not), but it's broken out into full scale war now. Reynolds and Wood go after Jones with both barrels. We learn a little more about the "peer review process" at the Journal of 9-11 Studies:

Among other activities, Jones initially was responsible for the scholars' discussion forum and he and Judy Wood instituted a "peer-reviewed" Journal of 9/11 Studies. Jones appointed the advisory editorial board, later Kevin Ryan as co-editor and chose the "peers" to review manuscripts. Peer-review normally boosts the prestige of academic articles because professors within the same discipline review manuscripts but in this case there is little or no such review, even when offered. That fact convinced Wood to resign.

Say it ain't so, Judy!

James will be pleased to hear that the Keebler Elves return:

Figure 3(c): If the tower is viewed as a "towering tree" and the Keebler Elves carved out a residence, no measurable weakening would occur. If their cookie oven set fire to the tree, it would be inconsequential.

Brilliant! They proceed on with a debunking of the Thermite/Thermate claims (which I'm not as confident will be substantive), and accuse Jones of propping up the Official Government Conspiracy Theory:

This statement raises two problems: first, Jones gives credence to the loony OGCT that "19 young Arabs acting at the behest of Islamist extremists headquartered in distant Afghanistan" were involved or caused 9/11. It makes no sense to embrace parts of the government's unproven story without independent proof.

Hat Tip: Abby Scott (at the JREF forums).

Update: Check out the comments on the Looser board; the No-Planers have come out in force over there. Here's my favorite post on this, where "fusion devices" are speculated as having been used to bring down the WTC. Gotta love the idea of Rick Siegel lecturing Professor Steven Jones on fusion.

I also love this part of Reynold's paper:

Collectively we are engaged in a struggle to expose the government's lies about 9/11. The physical sciences and analysis are key to this project. The only investigation worthy of the name has been conducted on the internet by researchers like Thierry Meyssan, Gerard Holmgren, Jeff King, Rosalee Grable, Kee Dewdney, Nico Haupt, Killtown, and "Spooked" who proved no Boeing 757 went into the Pentagon, flight 93 did not crash in the designated hole near Shanksville, PA, and the WTC towers were demolished by explosives.

Oh, yeah, that Spooked has done some terrific research!

Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right

We've certainly heard of a few 9-11 Denier Democrats running for public office, a couple Greens and some Libertarians. But this is the first Republican 9-11 nutbar that I can recall.

In an editorial board interview with The Telegraph on Wednesday, the candidate, Mary Maxwell, said the U.S. government had a role in killing nearly 3,000 people at the World Trade Center and Pentagon, so it could make Americans hate Arabs and allow the military to bomb Muslim nations such as Iraq.

Maxwell would not specify if she holds the opinion that the government stood by while terrorists hijacked four domestic airliners and used them as weapons, or if it had a larger role by sanctioning and carrying out the attacks.

Let me guess, she's just asking questions? And this is pretty wild:

She said this strategy “would be normal” for governments, citing her belief that the British government – and not the Germany military – sank the Lusitania ocean liner in 1915. The deaths of Americans on the cruise liner helped galvanize U.S. support to enter World War I, and benefited England, she said.

Interesting stuff indeed. Has anybody ever suggested that perhaps it was the French who bombed Pearl Harbor? Cui bono, indeed!

It's been awhile since we've pulled out the old Nutbar-O-Meter, but this woman clearly deserves it:

Gee, Sorry Guys

From the Loose Change Forum:

When I Google "Loose Change Forums" I get several listings of the "Screw Loose Change" folks but the forums here don't show up for me, at least not on first 4 pages of results. After 4 pages, one might well give up. I almost did.

To paraphrase Glenn Reynolds, "Heh".

The Real Scientific Method

Here's a very cool article about one of the JREFers and the experiments he's been conducting to debunk Professor Jones:

But, in fact, Sanders figured out a simple way – several simple ways – to get aluminum to burn. All it takes is bare aluminum, rust and heat.

With a researcher’s true curiosity, Sanders tried various sources of “rust” – iron oxide – including meat. Unfortunately, there was a lot of meat available on Sept. 11, 2001.

He wrote Tom that he got better results with beef liver than with beefsteak. That’s what held Tom’s finger off the delete key.

Very interesting article; be sure to read about how Sanders has been mentioned three times in Ripley's Believe It Or Not.

Interesting Poll Result

According to a new poll, 74% of the American people believe Osama Bin Laden is planning another major attack against the United States.

As the five-year anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks approaches, nearly three-fourths of those responding to a CNN poll said they believe Osama bin Laden is planning another significant attack against the United States.

I'm sure our friends in the 9-11 Denial Movement will be quite disappointed in this poll result. Aren't they claiming that 36% of the people don't believe he pulled off 9-11? So how could he be planning "another" major attack?

The Purges Will Continue Until Morale Improves

The cult of 9-11 denial continues to bifurcate at every opportunity. Judy Wood, whose billiard ball analogy was all the rage a few months ago, has left the "Scholars" for 9-11 Denial.

This may be because of a comment that Fetzer made a couple of weeks ago, when he stated that the group speaks for the individuals, not the individuals for the group. Fetzer himself buys into the entire Loose Change scenario.

Meanwhile, Killtown makes a simple suggestion over at the Loose Change forums, and gets banned as a result. Read that one through to the end; it's hilarious. There are actually people over there speculating that Killtown is a New World Order shill. For what it's worth, I've never seen him in the NWO cafeteria.

Where Did All the Gold Go?

In the first and second versions of Loose Change Dylan absurdly claims that $167 billion of gold was stolen from the World Trade Centers. After finding out that he flunked economics in high school, this is starting to make more sense. In "Loose Change: We still can't get the facts straight" this is down to a measly $1 billion. His facts and logic, however, are still wrong, they just go from absurdly wrong to a mere stupidly wrong.

It is actually kind of interesting to compare the parts side by side, to see how his little brain works.

From LC2:

One of the world's largest gold depositories was stored underneath the World Trade Center. In 1993 the value of the gold was estimated at one billion dollars, rumored to be owned by Kuwaiti interests. When the World Trade Center was destroyed, the amount of gold "far exceeded the 1993 levels. The gold was finally recovered in its entirety in late 2001. Or was it?

And now from LC 2 Service Pack 1:

CNS news reported on September 12th 2001, that at the time of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 the complex was storing at least $1 billion worth of Kuwaiti gold underneath World Trade Center 4. However, the amount that was stored on September 11th, 2001 has never been publicly disclosed. Only that it far exceeds the 1993 levels.

Well at least they report a source this time, you can read the CNS news story here. It is rather ironic to see all these avowed Bush hating liberals cite far right news sources, when it fits them.

In any case, in V2.0 the gold is "recovered in it entirety", now it is not. I guess it was derecovered.

Do-over Dylan continues, in V2.0:

On November 1st, 2001, the Timesonline reported that a large amount of gold was discovered in the wreckage of the World Trade Center. Mayor Rudolph Guiliani announced that more than $230 million dollars was recovered from Ground Zero. However, the Comex metals trading division was storing gold bars for the Bank of Nova Scotia, Chase Manhattan Bank, The Bank of New York, Hong Kong, and Shanghai Banking, totaling $950 million dollars. And that's just one company. Rumor has it that over $160 billion dollars in gold were stored in the World Trade Center.

At least in V 2.1 he drops the silly $160 billion rumor at the end. The rest of the paragraph is unchanged though, and just as unsupported as it was originally. There is no source given for this, and there is absolutely no reason to believe there was any gold missing. I mean, think about, don't you think the banks would notice?

Dylan continues:

So where did all the gold go? Remember the gold that was found in November, 2001? Reuters reported, that it was discovered in the back of a 10 wheel truck, along with several cars in a delivery tunnel underneath World Trade Center 5. No bodies were recovered.

He then goes on to tell an elaborate story of thieves trying to escape with the gold in this truck. This lie is repeated verbatim in the "recut" version. The only problem is, this isn't what the Reuters story said, it never was, and it isn't today. Here is the actual text from the story, reprinted on a conspiracy website, but I looked it up on Lexis-Nexis and this is correct.

Officials finally reached the trove Tuesday after removing a 10-wheel truck and several cars that had been crushed by the debris. No bodies were recovered. More than 100 armed officers watched the workers. The contents of the vaults had to be removed because authorities need to demolish the building.

The gold was not in the back of the truck, the truck and the cars had to be removed in order for them to get to the vault. And why wouldn't there be a truck and cars there? It is a delivery tunnel. Once again, a little creative editing by the truthers.

Well, there is always Loose Change: Version 2 Service Pack 2

Early 9-11 Nutter Departs US for Worker's Paradise of Venezuela

Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Michael!

Displaying his signature flair for dramatic storytelling, Ruppert said he "was holding other key facts until the time is right. There are facts about the timing of the burglary that may eventually connect to events here in Venezuela."

One of America's pioneer cyber-journalists to pinpoint startling contradictions in The Official 9/11 Story, Ruppert's statue in the 9/11 Truth Movement had waned, most recently eclipsed by academic-level research coordinated by Professors James Fetzer and Steven Jones at Scholars for 9/11 Truth.

Debunking 9-11 Myths Podcast

The folks over at Popular Mechanics who did such a great job with their famed article on Debunking 9-11 Myths, and who followed it up with the terrific book of the same name, are podcasting as well. Listening to it right now--it sounds excellent. Unlike Loose Change, they've got experts on their show, like former NYC Deputy Fire Chief Vincent Dunn, who co-authored the book, The Collapse of Burning Buildings.

Debunking Uncle Fetzer

Our buddy the Artistic Macrophage has done a splendid job of rebutting Uncle Fetzer's 15 points.

Most experts, and non-experts now agree it was a combination of the plane crashes, the spread of jet fuel through out the building, and subsequent fires, that eventually brought down the towers. As for his comments on the WTC being "Designed" to "withstand" a plane impact, (a) The WTC was not "Designed" for such an impact, but rather, after the designs were finalized, the plans were analysed to see if such an impact would be withstood by the existing design, and this was found to be true. (b) Most experts say that this was infact true, as the buildings did stand for an hour or longer after impact...no one debates (seriously) that the impact by itself brought the towers down, as they obviously didn't.

Highly recommended!

Moron the British Bombers

Looks like the hopes of the CT crowd that this would turn out to be another false alarm (like the poor man shot in the tubes the day after the second bombiing attempt), is going to be in vain:

Among the finds were "martyrdom videos," an apparent reference to videos in which would-be suicide bombers issued their final testaments. Clarke did not release details.

The eight men named on murder conspiracy charges were identified as Ahmed Abdullah Ali, Tanvir Hussain, Arafat Waheed Khan, Assad Ali Sarwar, Adam Khatib, Ibrahim Savant, Waheed Zaman and Umar Islam, who is also known as Brian Young.

They intended "to smuggle the component parts of improvised explosive devices onto aircraft and assemble and detonate them on board," according to the charges.

The 17-year-old is not being named, but authorities said he possessed items useful for the alleged conspirators, including their suicide notes and wills, as well as a book on bombs.

Dylan on the Radio

I heard about this before, but only now just found the MP3, of Dylan Avery on the John Ziegler Show. It gets rather amusing. We learn, among other things that Dylan had to stay past his 4th year in high school because he flunked economics. He then claims he got an over 1300 SAT. Yeah, right.

It starts at the 18 minute mark.

What Are They Accusing Him Of?

In Loose Change: The Second Lame Attempt at the Truth (abbreviated LC:2LAatT) Dylan and Co. make the following statement about American Airlines pilot Charles Burlingame:

October 24th, 2000.
The Pentagon conducts the first of two training exercises called MASCAL, which simulate a Boeing 757 crashing into the building. Charles Burlingame, an ex-Navy F4 pilot who worked in the Pentagon, Participates in this exercise before retiring to take a job at American Airlines, where, less than a year later, his Boeing 757 allegedly crashes into the building.

In the viewer's guide, and also on here, we point out that Burlingame actually started flying for American in 1979. He eventually retired from the reserves in 1996, four years before Dylan says he participated in this exercise.

Well in "Loose Change: We change those items we didn't want the readers to look up to check themselves" the story changes a bit.

October 24th, 2000
The Pentagon conducts the first of two training exercises called MASCAL, which simulate a Boeing 757 crashing into the building. Charles Burlingame, an ex-Navy F4 pilot who worked in the Pentagon for 17 years, participates in an earlier version of this exercise in 1989 before retiring to take a job at American Airlines, where 12 years later his Boeing 757 allegedly crashes into the Pentagon.












OK, well they are still wrong with his retirement date, but at least they are a little closer. The major question to ask though, is so what? MASCAL, as the name implies is short for Mass Casualty. It is not an exercise to work out the details of an attack, it is an exercise to test the response to an event which causes more casualties than the normal medical channels are prepared to handle. The website the Loosers cite even explains this, mirrored here.

An Army medic found the practice realistic.

"You get to see the people that we'll be dealing with and to think about the scenarios and what you would do," Sgt. Kelly Brown said. "It's a real good scenario and one that could happen easily."

A major player in the exercise was the Arlington Fire Department. "Our role is fire and rescue," Battalion Chief R.W. Cornwell said. "We get to see how each other operates and the roles and responsibilities of each. You have to plan for this. Look at all the air traffic around here."

Each participant was required to fill out an evaluation form after the training exercise.

"We go over scenarios that are germane to the Pentagon," Jake Burrell of the Pentagon Emergency Management Team said. 'You play the way you practice. We want people to go back to their organizations and look at their S.O.P. (standard operating procedure) and see how they responded to any of the incidents."

These exercises are hardly limited to the Pentagon. Here is an article about one taking place in Bosnia.

Camp Butmir - The helicopter could be seen coming in to land. Then something went terribly wrong, the tail end went up in the air and then the whole thing came crashing down.

Once the smoke cleared and the dust settled, passers-by could see bodies strewn about the ground on the outside of the helicopter and screams of pain and agony could be heard coming from inside the wreckage.Within minutes, sirens of emergency vehicles could be heard approaching the scene to rescue the victims.

Fortunately, the scene was not a real one, but a Mass Casualty (MASCAL) Exercise that was part of Adventure Express/Dynamic Response, an exercise that involved troops all over BiH. Soldiers and medical teams from all three multinational divisions
(MNDs) in BiH came together on May 3 to take part in this necessary training.

This is another one of those "sinister assertions", where they list events only remotely connected, along with some creepy sounding music in order to imply some sinister, although completely unexplained force is at work.

So what exactly are they accusing Burlingame of doing? Participating in an exercise which might end up saving the lives of US servicemen? The horror...

Korey Rowe--Errors in LC on Purpose

Sheesh, these guys aren't too ridiculous:

ROWE: What I encourage people to do is go out and research it themselves. We don't ever come out and say that everything we say is 100 percent. We know there are errors in the documentary, and we've actually left them in there so that people discredit us and do the research for themselves -- the B52 (remarked to have flown into the Empire State Building), the use of Wikipedia, things like that. We left them in there so people will want to discredit us and go out and research the events yourself and come up with your own conclusions. That's our whole goal, to make Americans think. To wake up from the 16 amps of your television to watch something and get a passion in something again.

Of course, to most of us, the errors indicated that Loose Change was a shoddy piece of agitprop. But to Rowe, it's just a test to see if we're paying attention. Maybe that's why they hate SLC and the Gravy Guide so much; because you don't have to do your own research.

Another Day, Another Lame Conspiracy Theory

This time it's "Flight 93 was shot down!"

This one has all the earmarks of a typical CT. Evidence presented is practically nil and what there is is frequently wrong, like this:

But a bigger mystery is why the engines went missing.

Considering their weight, they should have plunged deep into the earth along with the rest of the airliner.

Yet they weren’t in the crater and only a one-ton segment of an engine was ever recovered, again more than a mile from the crash site. The FBI said, unconvincingly, that it had ‘bounced’ there.

In fact, one engine was buried in the ground and the other did bounce, but only a few hundred yards, not a mile from the crash site. And get this:

They found it hard to believe that an airliner up to 155ft long, with two engines each weighing more than six tons, could have penetrated the ground so completely as to utterly disappear. Had it, in reality, been blown to pieces in mid-air?

Can we say something obvious here? If the plane had been blown up in midair, wouldn't there be debris over a wider radius? Wouldn't the debris be more recongizable? Here's part of the plane that was exploded over Lockerbie in 1988:



Then we get the usual "isn't this mysterious" about stuff that has been explained ad nauseum before. Talking about Todd Beamer's call with Lisa Jefferson of Verizon:

She had not taken a recording of it, contrary to convention. She had not gone through the routine questions in her distress-call manual. She had not connected this agitated man to his wife waiting anxiously at home. Nor had she informed his wife subsequently of the call as promised.

It is a shame that she did not record the call; at the same time, can you imagine being the person who received that phone call, knowing what Jefferson must have by then?

As to why she didn't connect Todd Beamer with his wife, he was worried that she might lose the baby. And Lisa did inform his wife subsequently of the call, but it was delayed because of the FBI:

It happened on a Tuesday. I went back to work on that Wednesday, Thursday, just like as if nothing had ever happened, and on that Friday, when I went into work, the FBI did not want me to mention anything to his wife until they got back in touch with me. And then Friday, they got in touch with me and told me it was okay to let her know the message that I had for her.

Moron the Holocaust Deniers and 9-11 Deniers

This is becoming one of the more amazing aspects to the 9-11 Denial Movement and the Loosers. Here's another handy-dandy poll to let us know where they stand. The question: Was it wrong to question the Holocaust?

As of now, the pool is running 2-1 against. But check out some of these comments on the post:

Sorry if some people thought it made the truth movement look bad, that was not my intention, N however there is no denying that 9/11 is connected to it.

The Holocaust and 9-11 are connected? Get these various comments from different people:

I'm not denying that the Holocaust happened. I just think there might have been something fishy about it when it did occur.

It's not wrong to question the Holocaust. Just don't try and drag it around with the 9/11 truth movement. They have no connection.

well it's possible that Israel/Zionists was involved in 911 and they were involved with the holocaust, so there could be a connection.

I think all the huge events in the past few hundred years might be linked.

Yes, I seem to recall there were some Zionists involved with the Holocaust, as well. What was their role? Victims I believe?

And you know that the CT crowd is not going to leave alone that last sentence about how all the events of the past few hundred years are linked:

...THOUSANDS

A Denier with some connections and seeming sense steps in:

The connection with the Zionists, I agree with. But you start talking about Zionists being behind 9/11 and start talking about the Holocaust, and a lot of people will dismiss you and any evidence you have. Too many people don't have the distinction that Zionism is not Judaism. The Zionists have done a good job intertwining themselves with the Jewish faith. And has been posted numerous times here, there are Jews against Zionism.

But by a few posts later he's gone off the deep end:

Okay. Israel and the Mossad connection is seperate in most people's minds from Zionism. The misconception is Zionism = Judaism. That's all I'm saying. Don't get into a trap about Zionism with the unitiated. Once some one sees the evidence of 9/11 and wants to expose the truth, then bring up the dancing Israelis, the Israeli "art students," the Fox News report on Israeli spying, etc. Then you can move on to Zionism not being Judaism and talk about the Zionists. Once you get past the Zionists, then you can move on to the history of it, and talk about the Holocaust.

Good old NesNYC explains how all these events are related:

You're right, they are ABSOLUTELY connected in that the "Holocaust" was the outcome of a world war and 9/11 is the spark that will ignite the next world war. The same power player "banksters" that were involved in the creation of WW2 are the same people behind 9/11 and the coming WW3. To understand 9/11 fully, you must understand how WW2 happened and the mechanics of the "Holocaust" and how it has been used and manipulated to set up the Zionist state.

Something A Little Lighter for a Friday Afternoon

Here's a great humor piece by Daniel Y, which touches on the subject that we're discussing here in an arch way. Great job, Daniel!

A Message from One of the Smarter Loosers

FH*CK YOU!! FH***CK YOU! YOU ARE ALL A BUNCH OF F*CKIN DRUG ADDICTS IF YOU THINK THAT LOOSE CHANGE IS'NT 100% CORRECT!! WHY DO YOU POSSIBLY THINK OTHERWISE??? MAYBE BECAUSE THE F*CKING GOVERNMENT RAN NEWS CORPORATIONS TOLD YOU OTHERWISE?? MAYBE BECAUSE PEOPLE WHO SPOKE OUT AGAINST THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION AND THE LIKELINESS OF THE WTC ACTUALLY BEING A TERRORIST ATTACK CHANGED THERE MIND AFTER GOVERNMENT OFFOCIALS THREATENED THEM OR PAID THEM OFF? F*CK YOU, F*CK THAT, F*CK YOUR VIDEO, F*CK EVERYHING ABOUT YOU! EVERYONE INVOLVED IN THE MAKING OF YOUR PIECE OF SH*T, NON SENSE MAKING F*CK OF A VIDEO SHUD OF DIED IN THE SABOTAGE OF WTC!! YOU STUPID ASS CORRUPT GOVERNMENT LOVING C*NTS!

It is seldom that one comes across a 9-11 Denier who writes so eloquently and dispassionately, with references to source material buttressed by sound, logical thinking.

Is Uncle Fetzer an Anti-Semite?

This article comes with a yellow light, because it appears that the writer clearly blew his characterization of Steven Jones in the fourth paragraph; it's Uncle Fetzer who calls for armed insurrection, even a military coup.

But look what else he has to say about kindly Uncle Jim:

James Fetzer, a philosophy professor at the University of Minnesota who poses as a scientist, praised Venezuela President Hugo Chavez and promoted Chavez's proposal for an international criminal tribunal to put the Bush administration on trial. By e-mail, professor Fetzer accused me of being Jewish – sadly, I am not – because I disagree with his theories.

I have requested a copy of this email. We have chronicled the anti-Semitic tendencies of the 9-11 Denial Movement in the past but mostly with marginal figures like Rick Rajter and Eric Hufschmid. Fetzer, whom we have lampooned in the past as just another nutter, is a significantly more important figure.

Loose Change: The Third Lame Attempt at the Truth

They got rid of my man Karl Schwarz, and they changed the wording of some parts to avoid criticism, but for the most part it is just as stupid as before. I noticed one case where they actually dig themselves in deeper relative to the last version, showing even after 3 attempts, they still can't be bothered to do any actual research.

According to the FBI's website, Osama is left-handed. Yet, in this video, he's both writing, and eating with his right hand.

OK, guys, I realize Korey Rowe may have been too busy blowing up empty caves in Afghanistan to pay attention to the local culture, but you could actually look this up.

There are certain table manners that are indispensable. Say 'Bismillah' when starting, to thank Allah and say 'Alhamdulilah' when finished. Eat what is in front of you. Eat using your right hand. A hypocrite was eating with his left hand when the Prophet saw him and advised him to eat with his right. The man falsely said 'But I cannot' The Prophet said 'May it be so' and the hypocrite was not able to lift his right hand again.

The companions of the Prophet followed his example in stressing the use of the right hand while eating. Omar was Khalifa when he saw a man eating with his left hand and similarly advised him to eat with his right. The man answered 'My right is busy' Omar repeated his request and the man repeated his answer. Omar asked him 'What is it busy with?' The man answered that it had been severed in one of the battles. Omar blamed himself for neglecting such handicap and ordered the treasurer to provide the man with a servant to help him.

Well, maybe they can get it right in version 4?

Loose Change Recut Available for Viewing

I'll check and see if any significant changes have been made. It's a little longer.

Loose Change Final Cut Update

Dylan Avery announced over at the Loose Change Forums that the Final Cut will not be appearing in theatres on September 11, 2006 as promised at the end of the Smorgasbord video. He's hoping for Sundance in January.

Kudos to all who've contributed to setting back the release date for Loose Change, the Final Cut Until We Get Sued Again.

It's the Jerry Springer Show

I know I have been discussing Jim Fetzer too much, but the guy is so damn funny. Now he is on Jerry Springer's radio show. Jerry, although he falsely calls Fetzer an engineer on a couple of occasions, actually does a pretty good job. All those years of interviewing wacko ex-boyfriends and strippers must have paid off. Fetzer is obviously not used to people challenging him, and gets quite testy when Springer interrupts his usual talking points. How sad is it when Jerry Springer is the voice of reason?

Terrific Post from a Liberal Canadian

This guy can write!

What I found wasn’t a group of people searching for the truth, I found a vast network of people living and dying on shoddy reporting, bad evidence, embarrassingly horrible science, and outright lies. I was puzzled by this because these people claimed they wanted the truth. I would assume if you wanted the truth about 9/11 you would speak to people who are experts in the fields you’re investigating. Talk to chemistry professors about fire and steel so you can figure out for yourself how the Towers collapsed; talk to flight attendants and airport security personnel about the procedures that were in place on 9/11 so you can determine how they were circumvented, talk to computer programmers about creating a simulation of the North tower collapse so you can examine how the debris would have damaged Building 7. All of these things might be out of reach for one person, but as I said this movement comprises of thousands of people. Their stated purpose is to pressure the United States government in to launching a full and independent investigation it to September 11th, what they don’t realize is that if they were organized, open minded and did a proper investigation themselves they wouldn’t need the government to help them. However it appears that the goal of the leaders of this movement is not one of truth at all.

Highly recommended!

Loose Change Inspires Terrorists?

Well, now Cynthia McKinney is no longer the biggest idiot to have watched Loose Change. One of the men arrested in the airplane bombing plot may have seen it as well:

After 9/11 and 7/7 Waheed was sceptical about whether Muslims could have been responsible. He watched conspiracy videos on the internet. He believed them and thought they made sense. Like most people in the world, he was anti-war. But his solution was: fight the enemies of Islam by showing them the real Islam, a religion of peace.

That's a friend of his talking to the reporter; obviously he appears to have intended something quite different.

Perry Logan's Words of Wisdom

On the subject of vaccinations for children:

We all love to laugh at Alex Jones...

But it's not so funny when one man's delusions threaten an entire community's health.

On his August 7 "InfoWars" show on PACT TV, Jones babbled for most of the hour about vaccines. It was pretty exciting, but—as usual—not a single statement Alex made was true. He did not cite a single source for anything he said.

(There are no sources for anything Alex Jones says, because nothing that Alex Jones says is true. The crazy stuff Alex says seems to come from his misreading and distortion of news sources.)

I've looked into Alex's claims about vaccines, and I assure you, it is all 100% BULL CACA. In fact, nothing the man has ever said about vaccines is true.

If anyone reading this is stupid enough to believe Alex Jones, please heed my words. Don't let this one conspiracy nut damage the health of you, your children, and your local community. There is no secret eugenics plan to poison the vaccines that only Alex Jones was smart enough to see. The United Nations has not been "caught" putting sterilization drugs in vaccines. Thousands of babies have not been brain-damaged by vaccines.

I've checked it out, and it's all fantasy. Absolutely none of what Alex Jones says about vaccinations should be believed.

Do your own research on vaccinations. But don't damage your children's health by trusting the ravings of a known lunatic.

(And don't believe Alex when he says "everyone is waking up." Conspiracy nuts always say that.)

Perry's got a funny site, and he loves to bash the 9-11 Deniers (and some other people, I can't quite figure out who they are). But he's right; this is serious, and sadly too many people are buying into this anti-vaccination crap. Nobody would say that vaccinations are completely without risk, but the risk of not getting vaccinated is much, much higher. Every parent knows that they can't protect their child all the time from every danger, but that they have an obligation to improve their child's odds as much as possible. That's what vaccinations do.

Idiotic Loose Change Forum Post O' the Day

I keep on telling myself they can't get any stupider. They keep on insisting on proving me wrong:

I was thinking about the control centre in wtc7, and millitary ops and how important this is, and it occured to me:NO WAY WOULD THEY DO THIS WITHOUT SOME WAY TO FIX ANY PROBLEMS THEY RAN INTO...... IE they needed a way to get in and out of the buildings after the crashes if need beTHEY ALSO NEEDED EYES NEAR THE TOWERS TO EVALUATE DAMAGE to determine the best demolition sequence to cover the collapse, and again, fix problems if neccesary now this fits nicely with 911 eyewitness and also some stuff on this page

http://www.rense.com/general63/wte.htm

where helicopters are seen hovering around the top of the towers, and what even appears like a millitary precision pick up/put down or similar occurs (eg where the chopper has people below on the end of a rope, slows slightly so they wing forward, then accelerates as they swing back so that they are stationary relative to the "ground" and can detach, all without the chopper seeming to slow down.)

It also makes for an interesting addition to the jumpers: I was told that forensic investigation on one of the jumpers found he was actually killed pre "jumping" by being stabbed with a pen (some CSI style documentary a friend of mine saw). what if the "jumpers" where witnesses to a special forces squad coming in and replacing/fixing/planting extra explosives or something like that (or even a robbery on some important building/office, surely there was some business in that building uncontrolled by the elite that had something they wanted.......)

Yeah, some elite Special Forces soldier was dropped by helicopter onto the burning towers, where he proceeded to kill witnesses with his pen.

Un-freakin-believable.

Is Jim Fetzer a Nazi, or Just Stupid?

Yesterday I posted an interview with Jim Fetzer in which he (falsely) claimed that Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff and Popular Mechanics editor Benjamin Chertoff of being cousins, based off the neo-Nazi newspaper, the American Free Press. A reader pointed out in the comments that he also accused Michael Chertoff of having dual American-Israeli citizenship, based off, you guessed it, another article in the American Free Press.

The AFP website is down (thankfully) but here is a link to a mirror of the article:

CONTROLLED PRESS CONCEALS CHERTOFF'S ISRAELI ROOTS
By Christopher Bollyn
Exclusive to American Free Press

Michael Chertoff, the new head of the Department of Homeland Security, was approved in a 98-0 vote in the U.S. Senate without the question of his Israeli roots and nationality being raised.

On February 15, 2005, Michael Chertoff, an apparent dual national with Israeli roots, was sworn in as the second Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The new "homeland security czar," who oversees the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, seems to be hiding his own dual-national status all with the cooperation of the controlled press.

On what does he base this? Well, his mother worked in Israel for a while.

The omission of Chertoff's mother's Zionist past suggests that there is an effort by the media to conceal his ties to Israel and his status as a "de jure" Israeli national, by birth.

Under Israeli law, a child born to an Israeli citizen, including children born outside of Israel as first generation out of Israel, is considered an Israeli citizen. The child remains an Israeli national until he or she formally renounces their Israeli nationality.

Even worse (gasp) his mother was a flight attendent:

Chertoff was born on November 28, 1953 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, to the New York-born Rabbi Gershon Baruch Chertoff and Livia Eisen, the first hostess for El Al, Israel's state-owned airlines, founded in 1948.

Then Bollyn suggests a newspaper coverup, even though he admits that he isn't even sure of Chertoff's mother's citizenship:

Even in 1998, however, The Star-Ledger was vague about Livia's nationality. "Born in Poland, Mrs. Chertoff lived in Palestine and Elizabeth before moving to Florida several years ago," it wrote.

Israel's citizenship law of 1952 says: "Any Jew who immigrated to Israel before July 14, 1952, was granted citizenship after declaring a desire to reside permanently in Israel." As El Al's first hostess, Livia probably held Israeli citizenship.

The article gets even stupider from there. This whole thing is silly though, because even if Chertoff had "dual citizenship" even Bollyn doesn't claim it was based on anything he did. He never applied for it, lived there, or even intended to live there. His mom worked there as a flight attendent. Although I suppose for a Nazi, that is enough to condemn you.

This is perfectly legal based on US law incidently:

A U.S. citizen may acquire foreign citizenship by marriage, or a person naturalized as a U.S. citizen may not lose the citizenship of the country of birth.U.S. law does not mention dual nationality or require a person to choose one citizenship or another. Also, a person who is automatically granted another citizenship does not risk losing U.S. citizenship. However, a person who acquires a foreign citizenship by applying for it may lose U.S. citizenship. In order to lose U.S. citizenship, the law requires that the person must apply for the foreign citizenship voluntarily, by free choice, and with the intention to give up U.S. citizenship.

Perhaps you are saying, James, I think the American Free Press is stupid, but aren't you a little over the top in calling it "neo-Nazi"? Well, that is a good question. Let's do a little research, since we know Uncle Fetzer won't.

The American Free Press was founded by a man named Willis Carto. Willis Carto also started a site called The Barnes Review. Here is a sample article from the Barnes Review. No, this is not a satire.







Christopher Bollyn has appeared on David Duke's radio show several times. And look, if you go to David Duke's website, look who all appears in his "links" section.

Links
Duke Radio Archive
The Council of Conservative Citizens
Stormfront Forum
The Truth at Last - Dr. Ed Fields\' website
American Free Press
E.U.R.O. - European American
Unity & Rights Organization
National Vanguard
American Renaissance
The Barnes Review
The Occidental Quarterly
The Institute for Historical Review (IHR) Noontide Press

Well I am glad "Distinguished McKnight University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota, Duluth" Jim Fetzer, only uses sources of the highest unimpeachable character.

Debunking 9-11 Podcast with Popular Mechanics

By the famous Instapundit and the Instawife.

The More Things Change

The more they remain the same. In 1998, Uncle Fetzer wrote a book about the JFK Assassination, called The Great Zapruder Film Hoax, the central theory of which was (as the title implies) that the famous video of the Kennedy Assassination was faked.

Today the no-planers push the theory that the Gaudet Brothers famed clip of the crash of American Airlines Flight 11 into the North Tower was faked, and even more improbably that two dozen or more other clips of United #175 impacting the south tower were also faked.

Yes, it's bizarre. But I'm telling you, if the no-plane theory is gathering steam, can the no-building theory be far behind?

Please Tell Me This Is A Joke

Here's another "experiment". I've been burned on this stuff before, so I won't automatically assume he's serious. But if you look at this page, it certainly appears possible.

Fashionistas Tout Loose Change

Here's one of the odder blogs (scroll down, permalink seems to be busted) to cover Do-Over Dylan. In the middle of discussions about Jessica Simpson's divine shoes and darling bags from Prada comes this:

According to the 22 year old director and narrator, Dylan Avery, the official government side of things has nothing to do with the truth, and everything to do with the time-honored practice of governments everywhere being ready & willing to sacrifice their own people - should the proles inconveniently interfere with their agenda. Not a conspiracy theorist, Avery explains the rampant popularity of the internet phenomenon he created this way: "There are alternative explanations for what happened, and the American people know they havent been given the whole story." Check out the podcast-interview with Avery at NPR.org & view it for yourself at LooseChange911.com.

Not a conspiracy theorist? Bwahahahahaha!

Debunking 9/11 Myths

I read the new Popular Mechanics Debunking 9/11 Myths book over the weekend. It is pretty good. My biggest complaint is that it isn't very long, only about 200 pages. It doesn't unveil anything stunning, but it is well researched and provides an indepth analysis of certain areas. There are over 300 experts listed in the appendix, although they are strangely missing any theology or philosophy professors.

Speaking of which, the release of this book is obviously worrying some people, since Jim Fetzer is attacking it, without having read it, just like he did to the website 9/11 Myths. I guess this is what they call the "scientific method". Here is Fetzer being interviewed by Air America's Mike Newcomb:

Fetzer: I might want to add Mike, that there is a current effort to spread diisinformation. To revising and expanding [sic] a Popular Mechanics piece that appeared some time ago. It’s been thoroughly taken apart, dismantled by several studies on our website. But the point I want to make is this. Popular Mechanics was taken over, and the main researcher on Popular Mechanics debunking of 9/11 research was done by Benjamin Chertoff who is the cousin of Michael Chertoff our Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Which means that, you know, this guy who is deeply committed obviously to the government’s account. Michael Chertoff, I can’t understand has a joint citizenship, both Israeli and American. Why we would have someone in a vital position like that who has an obvious conflict of interest is beyond me.

Mike: Well…

Fetzer: This Popular Mechanic’s piece is nice disinformation, you can find it taken apart on ST911.org.

Mike: Beautiful

Speaking of disinformation. For the umpteenth time, Michael Chertoff and Benjamin Chertoff are not known to be related. The only basis to make this claim this is an interview in that scholarly source, the neo-Nazi propaganda rag the American Free Press. The editors at Popular Mechanics are obviously annoyed by this, because they mention it in the book, from page 102:

Soon after the Popular Mechanics report appeared, conspiracy buffs began parsing the names of the various researchers who contributed to the article, noting the odd coincidence that Benjamin Chertoff, then head of the magazine's research department, has the same last name as the then newly appointed head of the Department of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff. In a rare instance of reportorial initiative (most 9/11 "Internet researchers" rarely venture beyond Google), Christopher Bollyn phoned Ben's mother, who volunteered that, yes, she thinks Michael Chertoff might be a distant cousin, "Chertoff's Cousin Penned Popular Mechanics 9/11 Hit Piece," read the headline on Bollyn's next American Free Press story. "This is exactly the kind of 'journalism' one would expect to find in a dictatorship like that of Saddam Hussein's Iraq," he concluded. Later a headline was added to his article: "Ben Chertoff: Propagandists & Illuminati Disinformation Tool."

As often happens in the world of conspiracy theories, a grain of truth- it's possible that Ben and Michael Chertoff are distantly related- was built into a towering dune. In fact, Ben and Michael Chertoff have never spoken. And no one at Popular Mechanics had any contact with Michael Chertoff's office while preparing the article.

Now the question is, does Fetzer know he is lying, and that he is relying on Neo-Nazi propaganda, or is he just so sloppy and lazy he doesn't bother to do any research to check out his sources?

Update: A reader points out that Fetzer also claims in this interview that Michael Chertoff has dual American-Israeli citizenship. Some quick research shows this story also started with, you guessed it, Christopher Bollyn of the American Free Press.

Dylan Avery, Tour Guide to Ground Zero

Over at the Loose Change Forum, somebody posted this vidcap of WTC 7 (the big building on the right that is smoking):



He initially posted that it showed the southeast corner of the building. Then, realizing his mistake, he asked for a moderator to correct the header. Fortunately, Dylan Avery, who's been studying this stuff for like four years, man, stepped in:

it's the southeast side.

Of course, it's not the southeast side, it's the southwest side. The building at the left is the Verizon building, which was adjacent to WTC 7 on the west.

Hat Tip: Chipmunk Stew in the JREF Forums.

9-11 Denial: It's Not Just for Loosers Anymore

It's also used by Jihadi apologists in the UK:

ON the streets of High Wycombe, north of London, where the British police are searching a number of homes in a major anti-terrorist operation, a young Muslim named Amir denounced all talk of terrorism.

The September 11, 2001, attacks on the US, he declared, were not carried out by al-Qa'ida suicide bombers. They had been proved to be the work of the US air force.

In Birmingham, central England, where police also arrested suspected Islamist terrorists, Mohammed Naseem, chairman of the city's central mosque, said there was no proof the London train bombings on July 7 last year were carried out by British Muslims.