Why Do They Have To Lie All The Time?
9/11 Deniers often point to David Ray Griffin, the high priest of the movement, whenever we debunk one of their more eccentric characters. They insist that we should debunk him rather than the easier targets. Well I admit, he isn't as interesting as say, Alex Jones or Jim Fetzer, there just isn't the pure entertainment value, but he does lie and mislead all the same as I pointed out previously here.
The always excellent 9/11 Myths has another great example in a recent post. Griffin takes a quote from NORAD and uses it to claim they should have intercepted the planes on 9/11.
According to spokespersons for NORAD, from the time the FAA senses that something is wrong, "it takes about one minute" for it to contact NORAD, and then NORAD can scramble fighters "within a matter of minutes to anywhere in the United States." [footnote 4]
There is just one problem with this quote he references. You have to look up the footnote to figure it out, but this quote, from General Ralph Eberhart refers to the post 9/11 procedure, in contrast to the procedures which were in place on that day.
Sir, I assure you that we have, and we practice this daily now, and now it takes about one minute from the time that FAA sees some sort of discrepancy on their radar scope or detects a discrepancy in terms of their communication before they notify NORAD. So that certainly has been fixed.
I think at that time, the FAA was still thinking that if they saw a problem it was a problem that was a result of a mechanical failure or some sort of crew deviation. They weren't thinking hijacking. Today, the first thing they think is hijacking, and we respond accordingly.
I ask once again, if the truth is on their side, why do they have to lie so much? More on this at the link.
posted by James B. @ 9:13 AM
37 comments
37 Comments:
What an ASS. That's just....beyond belief.
Thanks for covering DRG, James.
For any readers that of this blog who:
1) haven't already made up their minds
2) are willing to look at evidence
you will find that the post that James did here, and the material that he references is a thoroughly incomplete treatment of DRG. I contend it is an embarrassment to this blog to treat a subject such as DRG's work with such breezy and casual dismissal.
Has DRG made mistakes or missteps or perhaps false assertions?
Absolutely.
Does the post that James made here attack and refute the meat of DRG's arguments?
Absolutely not.
The only thing embarrassing on this Blog is you BG...
Exactly. There's a big difference between a mistake and an outright lie. Mistakes are forgivable, lies are not.
BG, there really is no difference between a DRG and an Uncle Fetzer and a Jason Bermas (other than of course the degree of sophistication). They all present the same snake oil, just a slightly different bottle.
Pat said...
BG, there really is no difference between a DRG and an Uncle Fetzer and a Jason Bermas (other than of course the degree of sophistication). They all present the same snake oil, just a slightly different bottle.
10:37 AM
I support your right to be absolutely wrong about this and show you lack of understanding as often as you wish.
Griffin, untrained in science, and seemingly completely unaware of the actual nature of explosive demolition states the CD mantra: ‘The buildings collapsed straight down and at virtually freefall speed, as in controlled demolitions.’ We have seen that WTC2 certainly did not collapse ‘straight down’, and that the ‘virtually’ freefall speeds in controlled demolitions, are nothing to do with explosives, but are purely gravity powered.
Untrained in science, but well-versed in public speaking, Griffin smiles at the audience and says: ‘Try this: take a piece of concrete, and drop it a little over a thousand feet, and see if it pulverises into very fine dust. It won’t happen.’ But we have shown that the pulverisation of concrete in conventional explosive demolition has, again, nothing to do with explosives. It is gravity that reduces the buildings in controlled demolition to rubble and dust not to mention the hundreds of tons of drywall which crumbles very easily: the thousands of tons above the piece of concrete, acting something like a hydraulic press, are what smashes it.
The mgh energy in each of the Towers, to repeat the point, was equivalent to 270 tons of TNT: no additional explosives were needed. Griffin also suggests that the very high temperatures in the basement rubble of the Towers ‘points to the existence of very powerful, precisely placed explosives.’ But explosives are incapable of heating up any significant quantity of metal, because their energies are dissipated in fractions of a second as shock waves. Their use in controlled demolition is to cut, not to pulverise or to heat or melt.
Note that Griffin has moved on from ‘virtually’ freefall speed to straight freefall speed: bad science. As I have shown however, whatever the difficulty in imagining pancaking taking place at these high speeds, it is the practice of controlled demolition that proves Griffin completely wrong again. The speed of pancaking in conventional explosive demolition has nothing to do with the use of explosives: it purely gravity powered.
http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2006/09/01/news/conspiracy.php
Stevew said...
I'd like to ask a question. Is there anyone who can say they, after reading Pat's, James', Stevew's commentary on DRG, have changed their mind about what they think about what are legitimate questions about 9/11, and what aren't legit questions, and how much they esteem DRG?
Perhaps the same question could be asked of everything I've written?
I can't fathom who could be persuaded by such mindless bashing.
I contend it is an embarrassment to this blog to treat a subject such as DRG's work with such breezy and casual dismissal.
I take it you haven't read the New Pearl Habor. I stopped counting after getting to 100 fallacies/mistakes/lies (I counted repeats).
support your right to be absolutely wrong about this and show you lack of understanding as often as you wish.
This is why you people get personal attacks hurled at you.
You are always wrong and you understand nothing yet you have the gall to say things like this at the people who are informed.
There are no benchmarks for these crashes to use as a baseline so every conspirisy expert can come out of the woodwork with silly theories and completly avoid the true facts. Nothing like this has ever happened before. Anyone could take any disaster and ask a myriad of questions that have no relivence. This is all the toofers
have, no facts just the same dumb questions that have been answered over and over
BG, in the previous DRG post I linked you replied almost immediately "Another dishonest and disingenuous post. Congrats on your consistency."
I asked you at the time what was dishonest about it. Now 5 months later, you are still avoiding the question. What is dishonest about these 2 posts? The fact that you do not happen to like them is not an argument.
Please do not say that Mr. Griffin, or any of the other Troothers, are lying.
They are just telling really huge fibs, half-truths, and made up shit.
But they are not lying.
After all, Bill Clinton never "lied." He just let fraud runneth from his lips.
There's a big difference between a mistake and an outright lie.
When someone makes a mistake, they show their good side by admitting to the mistake, thanking those who pointed it out, and promise to do better next time.
A liar knows what they say is a lie, could care less if people know that it is a lie, and are pissed at those who pointed it out because they are angry at getting caught.
The Troothers fall in the latter category, almost to a man.
If DRG ever visits the beautiful Pacific Northwest I would be more than happy to debate with him. I doubt he is in much of a hurry to invite me though.
Truthers have a bit of an advantage during a debate though, they literally have an infinite amount of arguments to call on, we are actuallly constrained by reality.
Yeh, if they can come up with a laserbeam destroying the WTC, how you gonna have a normal debate about that.... I would be completely speechless if that would come up in a debate.
James,
I don't think either one of us is going to gain any satisfaction by getting down and debating DRG paragraph by paragraph. However, I'm not adverse to that tact.
I believe that the reason you can say that I haven't refuted any of your points is due to the nature how we each are making value judgments rather than going from separate sets of facts.
Here's an example. DRG claims the the 9/11 Commission and the Joint Chiefs of Staff have put forward at least three separate sets of 9/11 Timelines. Lee Hamilton has gone public that the untruths were obvious after the first round of questions with the Pentagon personnel.
I would welcome any debate with you about this other than you simply saying
"so what", that doesn't proof anything other than they had trouble getting their story straight.
Let's start with one DRG article: The Destruction of the World Trade Center:
Why the Official Account Cannot Be True
I'm open to two approaches.
1. I'll go through the Screw Loose Change Blog articles about DRG and pick up the criticisms that would seem to apply to the above article.
2. Alternatively, I would ask you to take this particular article and make known your particular criticisms.
I'll be starting work on #1 unless you offer in a comment that you'd rather do #2 to get this started.
You were the one criticizing my post as dishonest. I asked you to explain how it was dishonest. You have had 5 months to come up with an explanation. Don't change the subject to other articles, simply answer the question.
James,
I think you or anyone else who takes the stand that you did in your post long ago here is being dishonest.
Let me review, here's the quote from Loose Change:
At the 22 minute mark, Loose Change, referring to the damage at the Pentagon claims "The only damage to the outer wall is a single hole, no more than 16 feet in diameter."
Let me first say that I believe the words used in Loose Change, to wit, "only damage to the outer wall" are inaccurate when taken literally.
On the other hand, and this is where I'm saying you are being dishonest, I think close observation of the pictures available does indeed show an entry "hole" into the building, roughly about the size specified. The indication that any of the other damage to be observed can be traced to the Aircraft engines or other parts that might have stayed intact as an assembly, and traveled into the building is simply an unsupportable claim.
So yes, I believe your words that claim to contradict the essence of the Loose Change claim is dishonest.
James,
Should I take on Pat's dishonest posts, or just stick with yours?
You next dishonest post.
You use the headline: All Of Washington D.C. Is Involved In The Coverup
This is dishonest in that it smears with an exaggerated claim those who you are arguing against.
When I used the word dishonest to discussion your behavior and Pat's behavior, this is an example what I find unreasonable in your approach. This category of smearing with loaded words and foregone conclusions (for the truthers to be right, all of Washington was in on it) is my primary beef.
Does the post that James made here attack and refute the meat of DRG's arguments?
Did it ever claim to?
Absolutely not.
The next example of your dishonest work is here: Steel Away
You were critical of Loose Change and DRG here about the Steel and the destruction witnessed (and captured in pictures and videos) of the destruction of WTC1 and WTC2.
Your failure to acknowledge the huge variance of the evidence of the event as being inconsistent with the govt. (specificially NIST) explaination is dishonest.
R.Lange said...
Does the post that James made here attack and refute the meat of DRG's arguments?
Did it ever claim to?
Absolutely not.
2:29 PM
You bring up the crux of my argument here. If James is avoiding the "meat of DRG's argument" his is acting in a dishonest way by avoiding the larger question.
Hey, bg, you asked Dr. Greening for a response to one of your burning questions. You received one that proved inconvenient to your fantasies. What's the matter, truth-seeker? Cat got your tongue?
You have been exposed as a fraud, bg.
Dude, could you try any harder to avoid addressing the actual post you were originally talking about?
Let's start with one DRG article: The Destruction of the World Trade Center:
Why the Official Account Cannot Be True
I'm sure James has better things to do, but I'm bored, so here goes:
They cannot mean that we should reject all conspiracy theories about 9/11, because the government’s own account is a conspiracy theory, with the conspirators all being members of al-Qaeda.
This is, ofcourse, utterly inaccurate, and only succeeds in showing that he has no idea what a conspiracy theory actually is.
When confronted by rival theories---let’s say Neo-Darwinian Evolution and Intelligent Design---scientists and philosophers of science ask which theory is better and why.
Another mischaracterization. No research scientist with any self respect would spend even a moment debating which "theory" is better. That's because Intelligent Design is no a theory at all, in the scientific sense of the word. Intelligent design is a statement: "God did it". It has no basis in science, is untestable, and cannot be confirmed either through observation or testing. It's useless.
The mark of a good theory is that it can explain, in a coherent way, all or at least most of the relevant facts and is not contradicted by any of them.
Once again, wrong. There's no way this guy is a scientist. Here's the definition of a scientific theory:
"A scientific theory is an established and experimentally verified fact or collection of facts about the world. Unlike the everyday use of the word theory, it is not an unproved idea, or just some theoretical speculation."
The key words are "experimentally verified".
This theory clearly belongs in the category of outrageous theories, because is it is contradicted by virtually all the relevant facts.
He opens his argument with a clearly biased, and absolutely unsupported statement. This would be acceptable if he were going off of clearly established facts, but is absolutely amateurish when ALL of his evidence is controversial, and much of it is hotly contested by the scientific community.
The first is the simple fact that fire has never---prior to or after 9/11---caused steel-frame high-rise buildings to collapse.
Right. What he fails to mention is that it HAS caused steel framed BUILDINGS to collapse. Are we to believe that a high-rise is somehow magically more stable than shorter buildings?
Defenders of the official story seldom if ever mention this simple fact.
And with good reason. The first time the space shuttle blew up, you could have easily said "The simple fact is that no space shuttle has ever blown up", but such a comment would have been utterly useless. There's a first time for everything.
Indeed, the supposedly definitive report put out by NIST---the National Institute for Standards and Technology (2005)---even implies that fire-induced collapses of large steel-frame buildings are normal events (Hoffman, 2005).[4] Far from being normal, however, such collapses have never occurred, except for the alleged cases of 9/11.
Now he outright LIES, because this time he doesn't specify "high-rise", he says "large steel-frame buildings". We've shown evidence of the collapse of other steel buildings, so no debate should be required. Anyone not familiar with it is welcome to search through the SLC site history.
The towers, however, were designed to withstand the impact of airliners about the same size as Boeing 767s.
True, if you consider 15% larger to be "about the same size". Also, he fails to mention that the towers were NOT designed to take an impact with an aircraft full of fuel, travelling at 500+ mph. This is like saying that a bulletproof vest is designed to take a 9mm bullet, therefore it should have no problem taking a 5.56mm rifle round. While such a comparison would seem to make sense, it fails in all real world scenarios simply because of the added speed of the 5.56mm bullet. In the case of the 767, it was LARGER, had MORE fuel capacity, and more fuel ON BOARD, AND was travelling FASTER than the 707 used for the comparison. So while his statement may be technically true, it is intentionally misleading, and causes the reader to make assumptions which are incorrect.
The official theory of the collapse, therefore, is essentially a fire theory, so it cannot be emphasized too much that fire has never caused large steel-frame buildings to collapse
He repeats the same lie AGAIN.
These claims, however, are absurd. Steel does not even begin to melt until it reaches almost 2800° Fahrenheit.
Here, by addressing early news reports, and random people, he's being disingenuous. I believe you CT nuts like to call it "attacking a straw man". NIST never claimed that the steel melted, so why is he bothering to "debunk" it? The ultimate authority for the collapse is NIST, not some clueless reporter on CNN who wouldn't know a steel beam from a carbon rod.
But for even this claim to plausible, the fires would have still had to be pretty hot. But they were not.
Ah, now he's a human remote-thermometer. Goody.
Photographs of the towers 15 minutes after they were struck show few flames and lots of black smoke, a sign that the fires were oxygen-starved.
A burning tire gives off black smoke, whether it's oxygen starved or not.
Thomas Eagar, recognizing this fact, says that the fires were “probably only about 1,200 or 1,300˚F”
Oh, well then. That's not hot at all!
There are reasons to believe, moreover, that the fires were not even that hot.
Ah, so now even your own sources are inaccurate. Who'd have thunk.
Anyway, I could keep going, but I can't even force myself to read this garbage any more. I'm not even a quarter of the way through his articles, and already I've found enough lies, mistakes, and misrepresentations, to make even Dylan jealous. I actually skimmed some more past that last bit, just to see if he would address the bowing of the perimeter columns. He never does. That, in itself, is telling. All of the CT nuts can go on for hours about how gasoline isn't hot enough to soften steel, but not a single one has so far offered to explain why there are pictures of visible displacement (read buckling) of the perimeter columns. Not a one. If this guy had offered even a token explanation, I might be inclined to take his work a bit more seriously. Instead he simply ignores it as if it's totally irrelevant to his argument. Bullshit. If fire didn't cause the steel to soften and the columns to bend, then why did they bend? You can't use loose theory to clobber observable phenomenon. Either explain why the columns bent, or give up on the fire argument.
HAH! One last thing! I was just scrolling through the rest of that article, before closing the window, when this bit caught my eye:
"It is very puzzling, to be sure, that Silverstein, who was ready to receive billions of dollars in insurance payments for building 7 and the rest of the World Trade Center complex, on the assumption that they had been destroyed by acts of terrorism, would have made such a statement in public, especially with TV cameras running. But his assertion that building 7 was brought down by explosives, whatever the motive behind it, explains why and how it collapsed."
He is, ofcourse, talking about Larry Silersteins "pull it" comment.
And you expect us to take this clown seriously? Come ON! You have GOT to be joking Bill....
Alex,
you said:
Right. What he fails to mention is that it HAS caused steel framed BUILDINGS to collapse. Are we to believe that a high-rise is somehow magically more stable than shorter buildings?
Most any structural engineer would be glad to explain to you the the nature of the design of a high rise building is fundamentally different and does require a substantially different design criteria versus a building of a few stories, and especially different than one of the big "warehouse" buildings, which are not designed to bare loads from floors above, or to have additional structural elements to handle wind strength (and ballasts to tamp vibrational concerns) in the face of hurricanes.
Alex,
about the Silverstein comment "pull it".
I'm not joking. If you don't think the area of who decided to "pull" WTC7 and how it was done is an unresolved issue, then your honesty or sanity has to be questioned.
Ok, so what you're saying is that if a 1 story steel structure and a steel highrise both catch fire, the 1 story structure is more likely to collapse?
....
Well, with logic like that, who needs meds, right Bill?
Also, the word is "bear" not "bare", and the floors in the WTC didn't bear the weight of other floors - the core and perimeter columns did. The floors only acted to connect the perimeter columns to the central core, and to support the weigh of the office furniture, drywall, and people who inhabited those floors.
Why do I have to explain such elementary concepts to you?
As for the other bit, if WTC7 had been "pulled", you might have a point, but seeing as how "pulling" a building would involve cables and some rather large vehicles, I think we can safely disregard that theory.
Pick up the phone and call any demolition company. They'll tell you exactly what "pull the building" means. There's absolutely no excuse for you to continue to believe those lies Bill. It just tells me you're lazy and dishonest.
Why Do They Have To Lie All The Time?
Because if they didn't, they'd have nothing to say.
They weren't thinking hijacking. Today, the first thing they think is hijacking, and we respond accordingly.
David Ray Griffin-1
Gen Egghead-0
BULLSHIT! That General is complete liar or he doesn't know what he was talking about!
9/11 Report Cites Many Warnings about Hijackings
By Eric Lichtblau
The New York Times
Thursday 10 February 2005
WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 - In the months before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal aviation officials reviewed dozens of intelligence reports that warned about Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, some of which specifically discussed airline hijackings and suicide operations, according to a previously undisclosed report from the 9/11 commission.
* The report discloses that the Federal Aviation Administration, despite being focused on risks of hijackings overseas, warned airports in the spring of 2001 that if "the intent of the hijacker is not to exchange hostages for prisoners, but to commit suicide in a spectacular explosion, a domestic hijacking would probably be preferable."
Five of the intelligence reports specifically mentioned Al Qaeda's training or capability to conduct hijackings, the report said. Two mentioned suicide operations, although not connected to aviation, the report said.
A spokeswoman for the F.A.A., the agency that bears the brunt of the commission's criticism, said Wednesday that the agency was well aware of the threat posed by terrorists before Sept. 11 and took substantive steps to counter it, including the expanded use of explosives detection units.
The F.A.A. "had indeed considered the possibility that terrorists would hijack a plane and use it as a weapon," and in 2001 it distributed a CD-ROM presentation to airlines and airports that cited the possibility of a suicide hijacking, the report said.
Now, why did the general lie under oath during his testimony?
*sigh*
Anyone want to explain to Swing Wanker exactly why the Generals explanation and the NYT article are not contradictory? I don't have the strength for it right now...his current level of stupidity is making my head hurt...
Heh. I fuly understand that people here are lying through their teeth. They are BG, Swing Dangler, ewing, Pd'oh, and, our new addition, Democrat. How's that lawyer thing working out for ya btw? Win a lot of imaginary cases recently?
BG, you are missing the entire point of this post.
9/11 conspiracy theorists are constantly asking why the establishment won't engage them in debate. Well, one of the rules of debating is that participants must represent truthfully the evidence they bring to the table. If you cite a source, you must on the one hand make your citation complete enough that I can check it myself, but you also have an ethical obligation to represent the source truthfully, so that I won't HAVE to check your source. If your source says "A" and you say it says "B," then you have committed what in scholarly circles is called academic fraud.
Academic fraud is a serious offense. One instance of it is enough to get a fully tenured professor tossed out on his ass in any respectable college. And once you have engaged in that kind of behavior, there is nothing shamefull about refusing to debate you.
This is why the establishment will not debate Griffin: he has proven himself a liar. Capisce?
wow you death-eaters sure are grasping at straws here,. was there some sort of upgrade done to the airforce after 9/11 ? bigger jets perhaps,. or it just took over an HOUR to scramble a jet back then,. what with having to hitch up all the hourses to launch 'em? good thing millitary tech. has evolved in the past FIVE YEARS to make this stunning NEW response time possible!
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