Saturday, June 30, 2007

Steve Kangas Character In Nutbar Film?

As we have discussed, one of the more interesting aspects of 9-11 conspiracy theories has been the resurgence of the paranoid left. For the most part, the paranoid left died out in the 1970s. I was in college back then, and as a Leftist (at the time) I can well remember the conspiracy theories that swirled around Richard Nixon (until he got caught in an actual conspiracy and was forced to resign).

But there were still a few paranoid Left-Wingers around, and this article about a 9-11 crackpot movie reminded me of one in particular:

The film centers on the character of Steve Kangas (played by Bradley's brother, Steve) who is thrown into an intricate game of espionage when his girlfriend (played by Jehn Miller) receives a disk implicating Vice President Dick Cheney in the terrorist attacks. Kangas is forced to hide from mercenaries bent on recovering the disc while trying to find his missing girlfriend.


Steve Kangas? Now that name is too unusual to be a coincidence. Steve Kangas was a proud member of the paranoid Internet left back in the 1990s, and if he were around today, I have little doubt he'd be an advocate for the 9-11 Denial movement. But he's not around today, and his experience is something of a cautionary tale for today's kooks.

Kangas was a far Left commenter on Usenet who got the pretty smart idea of compiling a webpage that contained what he considered to be the best arguments for Liberals and Leftists. It was called Liberalism Resurgent. Some of the arguments were pretty good, some of them were quite awful. And some betrayed his paranoia, like this argument in favor of group compensation in the form of Affirmative Action:

Liberals respond with the following reasons for group compensation:

1. Economic efficiency. Group compensation may be the most efficient way to correct mass injustice. For example, suppose the government intentionally detonated a nuclear bomb in Dallas, Texas. Over 90 percent of the surviving population in the outlying areas develops radiation sickness, and half of them will die premature deaths. In the ensuing scandal, the government agrees to pay the surviving victims. However, 10 percent of the survivors (probably in the outermost regions) neither fall sick, nor have to move, nor see their businesses fail, despite being exposed to potentially dangerous radiation fallout. In this case, it would be far simpler and cheaper just to compensate the entire group, because it would cost even more money, time and effort to investigate, medically examine and determine conclusive proof of harm for each surviving victim.


I happen to think that if the government intentionally detonated a nuke in Dallas, we'd have a lot more to worry about than how to compensate the survivors, but that at least gives you the flavor of his nuttier arguments.

Back then, the paranoid left had one bogeyman above all, and no, it was not Dick Cheney. It was a wealthy right winger named Richard Mellon Scaife. Scaife was a major backer of the Arkansas Project, an effort by the conservative American Spectator magazine to dig up dirt on then-President Bill Clinton. The project was indirectly responsible for the series of events that led to Clinton's impeachment (Clinton was impeached, but not convicted).

Kangas did not appear to have any particular fascination with Scaife, but combating the Clinton impeachment was a major rallying point for the Left in America.

These facts are undisputed:

Steve Kangas bought a gun in Las Vegas. He traveled by bus from Las Vegas to Pittsburgh, where Scaife's offices were located. On February 8, 1999, Kangas was discovered by a janitor, hiding in a stall in the men's room of the floor where Scaife's offices were located. The janitor went to find a security guard and when they returned, they found Kangas dead from a shot from his own pistol.

Of course, to most people the solution to this little mystery is pretty simple. Kook buys gun, travels to Pittsburgh in a way that does not require passing through metal detectors, goes to the offices of his enemy and lies in wait hoping for an opportunity to assassinate Scaife, gets discovered and, panicking (and reportedly drunk), shoots himself to death.

Ah, but the paranoid left was not satisfied with the logical explanation, and so they started an Internet "investigation" starting from the premise that Scaife somehow had Kangas murdered. Here's an example. You'll see lots of similar tactics to those used by the 9-11 conspiracy theorists.

For example, consider this brief summary of the case from a site concerned with other matters, but weaving in a bit of the Kangas story:

Steve Kangas: His web site, Liberalism Resurgent, was meticulously researched and presented such a problem to the "real boss" of George Bush, Richard Scaife, that he hired a private detective to look into Kangas' past. Steve Kangas was found in a 39th-floor bathroom outside of Scaife's offices at One Oxford Centre, in Pittsburgh, an apparent suicide. Mr. Kangas, a very prolific writer, left no note. He had brought a fully-packed suitcase of clothes with him to Pittsburgh. He bought a burglar alarm shortly before he left for Pittsburgh. Why did he need a burglar alarm if he was going to commit suicide? An avowed advocate of gun control, he nevertheless bought a gun. What was he afraid of? Why did he go to Pittsburgh? After his death, his computer was sold for $150 and its hard drive wiped clean. Everything in his apartment was thrown away.


Sound a bit like the claims that a fervent Islamist like Mohamed Atta would not have eaten pork or drunk alcohol? Note in particular the "just asking questions" approach common to CTers who know that their theories will sound kooky if they spell them out explicitly. By the way, the bit about Scaife investigating Kangas is true, but misleading (what a shock!); Scaife unsurprisingly had Kangas investigated after the latter's suicide.

Kangas has come up in the past in connection with the 9-11 CTs. Some have suggested that the New World Order got rid of him two and a half years before 9-11 because they knew he'd investigate it and discover the Truth. Someone else suggested that Kangas had been murdered to send a warning to Noam Chomsky and other Leftist intellectuals that they'd better keep quiet about 9-11.

One of the constant concerns I have about the 9-11 nuts is that somebody's going to pull a Steve Kangas on some imagined co-conspirator, like Larry Silverstein or David Rockefeller.

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Odd Publication Standards

Earlier I pointed out how Steven Jones had published my open letter to him inquiring why he was lying about photographs of WTC debris. Now he has taken posting letters to a new level, and has posted an e-mail exchange that I have written to someone else, which was not intended for submission to his journal, and for which I gave no permission. Earlier when I blogged on how Laurie Manwell misrepresented the 84% poll, I sent her an e-mail as I was curious as to whether she even understood what she was saying. Her responses were polite, albeit somewhat disingenous, but I am mystified how this private correspondence can be construed as a letter to a journal. Oh well, you can read it and watch her dance around the question.

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Conspiracy Theories

Louis Black, of the Austin Chronicle, writes regarding the nature of conspiracy theorists. I have been following the these guys for sometime, and even I was impressed with his analysis. You can find it here and here. An excerpt:

One of the major strategies of those writing in response to my last column has been to invite me to engage in a debate over the "facts" of 9/11. This seems more than reasonable, except that it isn't. Debating a theorist on details is neither a debate nor a discussion. It is the act of the theorist educating you about your own complacent blindness. Theorists know they have the truth. Any detail that vaguely supports their position is true. They discredit and discount sources and experts that disagree with them. They know acres of minor details with which they will happily overwhelm you, losing the forest for the trees, if not also losing the trees for the trees, as well.

Friday, June 29, 2007

Sock Puppet Warning

Some of our readers are better at catching this than I am, but we are starting to get some sock puppets in the comments section. Sock puppets are different names used by one commenter to make it seem like there are a bunch of people expressing similar thoughts. Of course, the problem is that Haloscan logs your IP addy, so you're only fooling yourself. Some socks:



Fair warning; we will ban people from the comments for using sock puppets.

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Airfone Update

There has been some continued discussion over at the JREF Forum regarding the recent Griffin-Balsamo claim that Airfones had been turned off on flight 77. First Apathoid, who works as an airline mechanice= for another company, posts an example from one of his manuals which runs on the same software. While it is not conclusive, it points to the fact that there were two different version dates on the original document, as suspicious.

Secondly, going to the source, Ron Wieck contacts the Corporate Communications office at American, and gets this response:

Ron, engineers at our primary Maintenance & Engineering base in Tulsa tell me that they cannot find any record that the 757 aircraft flown into the Pentagon on 9/11 had had its seatback phones deactivated by that date. An Engineering Change Order to deactivate the seatback phone system on the 757 fleet had been issued by that time.

And then this:

Cell phones may or may not work on aircraft, just as they may or may not work on the ground. It depends whether or not the caller is in range of a tower or satellite. I believe the seatback phones worked by having the signal picked up by land based towers as the aircraft moved across the country.

We do not allow use of cell phones in flight because they can potentially interfere with the cockpit’s navigational and other avionics equipment and thus become a safety issue.

It is our contention that the seatback phones on Flight 77 were working because there is no entry in that aircraft’s records to indicate when the phones were disconnected.

I Suspect Thermite

This is a bit old, but I missed it when it came out. Sadly, several firefighters died as a result. Perhaps someone should let Richard Gage and the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 "Truth" know that fire cannot cause steel buildings to collapse. So I guess these guys aren't really dead.

Capt. Ralph Linderman of the St. Andrews Fire Department said the blaze was the hottest he could recall in three decades of firefighting. "That fire bent steel like a wet noodle," he said.

Four employees were in the store when the fire started. Two firefighters freed a worker who was trapped in a repair workshop near the building's east side by cutting a hole in the side of the metal building.

Meanwhile, thick, black smoke was filling the showroom, leaving firefighters disoriented as they struggled to find their way through a jumble of sofas, beds and other furniture.


How could the building have possibly collapsed with those black smoked oxygen starved fires?

H/T 911 Myths

Coverage of Vancouver Fest

Sounds like the typical tinfoil hat jamboree. Note the family friction theme comes up several times:

Fuelled by the excitement and intrigue involved with investigating an iconic event, Brinkman frequently visits the Alberta legislature, wearing a 9/11 Truth placard, to implore MLAs to investigate 9/11 theories. So far these efforts have produced no results, and Brinkman's wife and kids, who range in age from 13 to 35, are skeptical of his 9/11 obsession. "I don't think they want to talk to Dad too much about it," he laughs.


And here:

His commitment to the movement has sparked interesting dinner table conversation at his parents' home. Dayton's mother is interested in hearing alternative theories, while his father-an employee of General Dynamics, a large U.S. weapons manufacturer-is less open to his son's activities. "He can't conceptualize or really rationalize because of what it would mean for his personal involvement," Dayton says.


By the way, I will be out for most of today, so there will be limited updates. Be sure to check out the sites on the right sidebar!

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Thursday, June 28, 2007

Canadian Nutter Party



This scatterbrain is actually the leader of a relatively new party in Canada called the Canadian Action Party. She's obviously into the North American Union crap, but she's also a 9-11 Denier and all-around fruitcake. This segment is from the Vancouver 9-11 Conference last weekend.

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Funny and Sad Article on the Columbus Clowns

This one was written by Jordan Gentile, and it's safe to say that Jordan's not neutral on the story. Talking about a theater owner who has agreed to host a Trutherthon film festival:

“I don’t think I’d show a neo-Nazi film or anything like that,” said the theater owner. “Far right, far left—just total wackos. I’m not into that kind of stuff.”

“But,” he said, “I don’t think this is on that same level.”

Told that many people find 9-11 conspiracy theorists to be exactly the kind of “wackos” he describes, Brembeck replied, “Who calls them that? Fox News?”


Heheh, wackos about sums it up. As usual, despite the brave claims that 84% or 36% or 22% of the population are 9-11 Deniers, we hear about how tough things are when "Truthers" come out of the closet:

Sherry Clark can relate. When the raven-haired, Delaware, Ohio-born mother of two—a self-described Republican “trophy wife” who voted for George W. Bush twice—was converted to the cause last year, she was told by friends and relatives to seek mental help. The Presbyterian church she helped create, she said, suddenly wanted nothing to do with her or her activities. And she’s currently divorcing her husband, to whom she became an embarrassment and social liability.


I found this part amusing:

Luckily for the group’s cinematic ambitions, there were lots of radical 9-11 docs to choose from, most of them already in the public domain. One of them, in fact, was the picture that first inspired Clark to join the movement—back when she was still a Republican trophy wife. It’s an Internet movie called Loose Change, and she says it changed her life.

“I was beside myself—I was determined to prove them wrong,” Clark said, referring to the filmmakers. “But doggone it if they weren’t right.”


Sherry's not much of a researcher if she couldn't prove Loose Change wrong. They're hoping to make some conversions, but they're also planning on showing five consecutive movies, and only the last two, 9-11 Press for Truth and Improbable Collapse are 9-11 wackery. Hilariously, this means that people will have sat through 266 minutes--almost four and a half hours--before they actually get to the point of the festival.

Pulitzer Prize Winner Takes On the Nutbars

This interview with Lawrence Wright, author of The Looming Tower, doesn't take too long to get into the conspiracy theory craziness:

Let’s talk about the subject of the book. We’re coming up on the sixth anniversary of 9/11. Do we really know what happened on that day? Because it seems that out here in the world, not just among black-helicopter types, there are still questions about who these terrorists were, what their motives were, and whether there are aspects of the plot that we haven’t entirely figured out.

We know what happened on September 11. It’s not a mystery. The mystery, rather, has to do with human nature, with why people believe in things that have no evidence to support them. I’ve been dogged by conspiracy theorists since the book came out, and I’ve spent time trying to convert them back to reality.


Of course, the interviewer is wrong when he says it's not just the black-helicopter types; as we have discussed extensively, almost all of the 9-11 Truthers are believers in other conspiracy theories, ranging from Oklahoma City to JFK to the North American Union crap.

But it’s not a question of being in cahoots, in a literal sense, with bin Laden.

Oh, yes, oftentimes it is. There are a lot of people who believe we were working with bin Laden. I can’t tell you how many variations there are on this theme: Either we did it entirely and the Arabs were simply passengers—they were innocent—or else they were working for Mossad [the Israeli intelligence agency]. The ability of the imagination to stretch the evident is so impressive.


Yeah, this is the Webster Tarpley "patsy" theory.

Pathetic, Dr. Jones

I have a lot of respect for Mormons. I live in Arizona where there are a fair amount of them, and one of my early bosses was a Mormon. I have a couple of Mormon clients right now. As with any other group that you come in contact with there are some that are bad people, but at least my impression is that the Mormons I have known have been above average in the Boy Scout virtues--trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly....etc.

And then there's Dr. Jones, who gets a bonus beyond that because he's a physics professor. Now as it happens I went to college intending to major in physics, and quite frankly I couldn't cut the upper level material in the subject and had to switch majors. So I have even more respect for physics professors.

And yet I have very little respect for Dr. Jones. Here's a very sad clip of him talking to somebody at the Vancouver conference, and he pulls the ultimate nutty professor routine of claiming he's got some real backing for his position. And whom does he show on his laptop?



Top left, David Griscom, introduced by Jones as a physicist. Griscom has managed to stake out the most offensive territory in 9-11 Truth, as we have discussed with his "no passengers" theory.

I envision a similar 9/11 scheme, but one where the passengers boarded under their true names. Indeed, the seat occupancies on all four aircraft allegedly hijacked on 9/11 were very much lower that industry average (averaging 26% of capacity vis-à-vis 71% for all domestic flights in July 2001). So, here I extend my “all passengers survived” postulate to all four 9/11 “hijacked” flights on the notion that this small number of passengers might have been considered by conspirators as the minimum number for public credulity, while at the same time not exceeding the maximum number of “true believers in the cause” willing to accept long separations from their loved ones (sweetened by handsome Swiss bank accounts).


But, you know, despite his theory being utterly offensive, Jones has to point him out top left, because Griscom is the only other physics professor dumb enough to embrace the 9-11 nuttery.

Bottom right, but introduced first is Graeme McQueen.

Like Stuart Rees, Canadian academic and peace activist Graeme MacQueen has also been a pioneer of peace studies.


Okay, one of the hard scientists of the 9-11 Scholars for Truth, Justice, and the American--errr, sorry, he is a Canadian, right? And actually McQueen does not belong to either of the Scholars groups, which is one of his greatest qualifications.

The token female is a grad student named Laurie Manwell, who published the risible psychological study of why people resist embracing 9-11 Denial (big hint: because it's retarded) that James took on. That said, from the brief video evidence presented by Jones, she is clearly so far Miss January-December 9-11 Truth so far.

Greg Jenkins caught our eye before as the physics PhD who faced off against Judy Wood a few months ago, and whose contribution to JONES so far consists of a paper against her Star Wars Beam Weapon from space. Once again, I'm impressed with the degree but gotta wonder what he's doing here.

Kevin Ryan--chuckle--I mean, nobody out there has not made up their minds on The Waterboy to the point where I can change them, right? He's a joke, but he's one of the supposed whistleblowers, so they can't abandon him completely.

And David Ray Griffin, whose major qualification is that he's actually written five terrible books on 9-11, and whose minor qualification is writing a terrible book on reincarnation, apparitions and mediums.

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Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Well, Should Lepacek Be Considered a Reporter?

A couple of hours ago, I was checking the referring logs and noticed a couple Google searches for Matt Lepacek. So I checked out what happens when you Google his name. We come up sixth, but what's this in seventh?

Why, it's Matt Lepacek's page under the Ron Paul Meetup Group! And what has Matt got to say for himself?

"Matt Lepacek & a few others from WeAreChangee.org (sic) are coming down from NYC to support Ron Paul and the NH RP Crew!"


Oh, my! Now it is certainly no shock that Lepacek is, like many 9-11 Deniers, a Ron Paul supporter. But that he wrote this beforehand certainly reveals that he was not going into that Spin Room as a legitimate reporter, but as a political operative, official or not, of the Ron Paul campaign.

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Truthers For Peace?

There's apparently going to be an "Emergency Antiwar Convention" in Philly next week (on the Fourth of July), called by Cindy Sheehan:

Cindy gave a call to, "all citizens", "to join us in Philadelphia on July 4th to try and figure a way out of this "two" party system that is bought and paid for by the war machine which has a stranglehold on every aspect of our lives. As for myself, I am leaving the Democratic Party. You have completely failed those who put you in power to change the direction our country is heading. We do not condone our government's violent meddling in sovereign countries and we condemn the continued murderous occupation of Iraq.”


Sponsors include:

Peace Action-Delaware Valley, Philadelphia Regional Anti-War Network, Northeast 9/11 Truth, Green Party of Vermont....

Here's an ad (MP3) for the event, featuring Cindy's support for a new investigation of 9-11. Apparently Cindy herself will not be attending.

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Kooks Threaten Purdue Researchers

No surprise here.

The animation drew the attention of conspiracy theorists across the Internet who have taken it upon themselves to target not only the animation but the team behind it. By seeking to prove links between the researchers and the United States government, the theorists hope to find a slant of bias in what was promoted as independent research.

Mete Sozen, professor of structural engineering, said this was not the reaction he was expecting.

"Most of the feedback was negative and threatening," Sozen said.


Because, you know, the "Truthers" don't want real investigation of their claims.

Put Those Debunkers in Jail!

I listened to the MP3 of David Ray Griffin and Rob Balsamo talking about their newest airfone story. Most of it was pretty boring, the callers were pretty much limited to troofers calling in to pour adulations on Griffin's latest book. Griffin also repeated quoting the same Amazon.com review for what easily had to be the 10th time. They spend a lot of time complaining about the debunkers, and act indignant that we question their evidence, but yet imply that evidence that we haven't even presented yet must be fake.

I was rather amused by this question posed by Rob Balsamo though, about 36 minutes into the second hour:

Balsamo: I have a question, you know, these debunkers out there, if it is proven that this was an inside job, beyond a reason... beyond a doubt. I mean it's almost beyond a reasonable doubt right now. And we have the perpatrators names. I am wondering if these debunkers can be charged with obstruction of justice with their spin, and their tactics.

Swenson: Yeah, that is what I have been saying on this show is that these Fox News pundits, they get on there and they refuse to talk about 9/11 at all, and when they do, they bring us up and they call us names, but they never bring up any evidence.

Griffin actually has the good sense to dismiss this idea, but I was struck by the irony of this. The whole claim by the 9/11 conspiracy movement is that they are "just asking questions", that they just want a new investigation, to find out what happened that day, that they want an open discussion, that they are suffering under government oppression, and that the US government is bordering on fascism.... and yet they want to throw people in jail simply because they disagree with them. I mean, these are the same people who complain because European courts throw Holocaust deniers in jail because that is a violation of their right of free speech.

Yeah... OK.

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TrutherFest '07 Plans

Dylan put them up on the blog after consultation with Luke:

9/7
Friday

Street Action ( either at Federal Reserve or CFR )
Event covering 9/11 and other issues
Possible Concert

9/8
Saturday

Street Action at Ground Zero
Event for family members

9/9
Sunday

Street Action most likely at Times Square
Event for rescue workers

9/10
Monday

Possible Street Action
Screening of Loose Change Final Cut ( we mean it this time ;) )
Concert with Remo Conscious

9/11
Tuesday

Peaceful vigil at Ground Zero during the memorial services
Event round-table at undetermined location


Final Cut, Rough Cut, what's the difference? And I strongly suspect that Luke is the force behind the demonstration at the CFR/Federal Reserve.

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Norman Mineta Confirms He May be Wrong About the Timeline

The truthers have been going crazy about this, even posting here in the comments demanding to know why we have not posted on it, as if it is our responsibility to immediately point out the fallacies in any of their stories. They have also been plastering the Internet with their misleading stories, like this headline on the Jones Report reading: "Norman Mineta Confirms That Dick Cheney Ordered Stand Down on 9/11". 9/11 Blogger also had a similar lie posted as a headline before they changed it. If you actually watch the interview, Mineta says nothing of the sort, in fact the issue of a "stand down" is never brought up, and Mineta clearly says that he thought the order was to shoot down a plane. So starting about 30 seconds in:

Interviewer: I don't want to ask a rhetorical question, but was Vice President Dick Cheney already at 9:20 there...

Mineta: I might have been mistaken on the 9:25, but he was already there.

OK guys, here we have it. To the best of my knowledge nobody has ever claimed that Cheney was not in the bunker before Norman Mineta. The only issue is at what time that occurred, and on that issue Mineta admits he may be mistaken. He in fact is. The 9/11 Commission Report specifically mentions that there is a conflict as to the exact time Cheney entered the bunker, but they determined it was much later than 9:25 based on the preponderance of evidence. From the footnotes:

209. American 77's route has been determined through Commission analysis of FAA and military radar data. For the evacuation of the Vice President, see White House transcript, Vice President Cheney interview with Newsweek, Nov. 19, 2001, p. 2; USSS memo, interview of Rocco Delmonico, Oct. 1, 2001 (evacuation of the White House); see also White House notes, Mary Matalin notes, Sept. 11, 2001. On the time of entering the tunnel, see USSS report,"Executive Summary: U.S. Secret Service Timeline of Events, September 11-October 3, 2001," Oct. 3, 2001, p. 2. Secret Service personnel told us that the 9:37 entry time in their timeline was based on alarm data, which is no longer retrievable. USSS briefing (Jan. 29, 2004).

210.White House transcript,Vice President Cheney interview with Newsweek, Nov. 19, 2001, p. 4; President Bush and Vice President Cheney meeting (Apr. 29, 2004).

211. On Mrs. Cheney, see USSS report, "Executive Summary: U.S. Secret Service Timeline of Events, September 11-October 3, 2001," Oct. 3, 2001, p. 2 (time of arrival);White House transcript, Lynne Cheney interview with Newsweek, Nov. 9, 2001, p. 2 (joining the Vice President). For the contemporaneous notes, see White House notes, Lynne Cheney notes, Sept. 11, 2001. On the content of the Vice President's call, see White House transcript,Vice President Cheney interview with Newsweek, Nov. 19, 2001, p. 5.According to the Vice President, there was "one phone call from the tunnel. And basically I called to let him know that we were a target and I strongly urged him not to return to Washington right away, that he delay his return until we could find out what the hell was going on." For their subsequent movements, see White House transcript,Vice President Cheney interview with Newsweek, Nov. 19, 2001, p. 5;White House transcript, Lynne Cheney interview with Newsweek,Nov. 9, 2001, p. 2.

So we have the testimony of the Secret Service, the White House alarm records, the Secret Service logs, Dick Cheney, and the notes of the White House, Mary Matalin, and Lynne Cheney on one side of the issue, and the hazy recollections of a 76 year old man who admits he may be wrong on the time on the other side. Hmm, who do we go with?

They continue:

Mineta: It wasn't 10....

Interviewer: It was 9:58 which doesn't make much sense at all.

Mineta: Oh no...

Interviewer: So it goes against his own testimony, it goes against your testimony where he says he was there at 9:38. So he was already there?

Mineta: Oh absolutely.

Interviewer: And you also said that you thought he was going through a shoot down order with a young man and do the orders still stand. Do you recall that at all?

Mineta: Well I was not involved in that conversation. I overheard...

Interviewer (reading): Well the young man said do the orders still stand?

Mineta: I heard that.

Interviewer: Well you stated that you thought it was a shoot down order, when you learned later that was not actually the case.

Mineta: Well when I overheard something about "the orders still stand" umm... and... so... what I thought of was that they had already made the decision to shoot something down. I remember later on when I heard about the Shanksville plane going down the Vice President who was across from me said, "Do you think we shot it down ourselves?" He said "I don't know" so let's find out." So he had someone check with the Pentagon. So that was about 10:30 or so. We never heard back from the DoD until probably about 12:30. And they said "No, we didn't do it."


The interviewer then once again asks whether Cheney was there when Mineta arrives. Once again, a point entirely not under contention. Mineta even states that Lynne Cheney was there, once again showing his timeline is off, because Mrs. Cheney did not arrive at the White House until 9:52.

213. On the Vice President's call, see President Bush and Vice President Cheney meeting (Apr. 29, 2004). For the Vice President's time of arrival in the shelter conference room, see White House record, PEOC Shelter Log,Sept. 11, 2001 (9:58); USSS memo, OVP 9/11 Timeline, Nov. 17, 2001 (9:52; Mrs. Cheney arrived White Houseand joined him in tunnel);White House notes, Lynne Cheney notes (9:55; he is on phone with President);WhiteHouse transcript, Lynne Cheney interview with Newsweek, Nov. 9, 2001, p. 2 ("And when I got there, he was onthe phone with the President . . . But from that first place where I ran into him, I moved with him into what theycall the PEOC"); White House transcript,Vice President Cheney interview with Newsweek, Nov. 19, 2001, p. 4(9:35 or 9:36 arrival; he estimated a 15-minute stay); Carl Truscott interview (Apr. 15, 2004) (arrived with Riceand the Vice President in conference room; called headquarters immediately; call logged at 10:00); President Bush and Vice President Cheney meeting,Apr. 29, 2004 (Vice President viewed television footage of Pentagon ablaze in tunnel);White House transcript, Rice interview with Evan Thomas, Nov. 1, 2001, p. 388 (Rice viewed television footage of Pentagon ablaze in Situation Room). For the Vice President's recollection about the combat air patrol,see President Bush and Vice President Cheney meeting (Apr. 29, 2004); White House transcript, President Bush interview with Bob Woodward and Dan Balz, Dec. 17, 2001, p. 16.

So what we have here is a man whose timeline conflicts with every other piece of evidence available, and who admits he may be wrong. When asked about a shootdown order, he replies that he thought there was one, yet the truthers manage to take this and make headlines stating that Mineta confirmed that there was a standdown order, exactly opposite what Mineta thought there was. Amazing.

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Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Screw Loose Change Amber Alert

As a public service to our readers, we would like to notify everyone that the man on the left, Christopher Bollyn, is a convicted felon who is wanted by authorities for skipping out on his sentencing hearing. He is to be considered armed and dangerous, and if you see him do not approach him, but please call authorities to report his location.















The man on the right is just a failed physics professor, if you see him, just ignore him.

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Mike the Mechanic?

I started a thread on this ealier on the JREF forum, but didn't want to make a blog post until I had done more research. In the tradition of Lauro Chavez and "Mike the EMT", the troofers have come up with yet another "whistleblower" this time an anonymous American Airlines mechanic who claims to have provided a page from a manual showing that airfones were not in place on AA 757s during the September 11th attacks. This document is used as the centerpiece for yet another article on the subject by David Ray Griffin, apparently retracting his previous retraction on the same subject, and Rob Balsamo.

The fact that airfones were removed from 757s is not under dispute, in fact I first pointed out that Airfones were being removed in February 2002 in my first post on this subject. While doing a little research today, I even found more news reports backing this up:

So the only relevant point of contention is, when the phones were removed. While there aren't (thus far) glaringly obvious Lauro Chavez/Jesse MacBeth signs of tampering, that is where the document gets suspicious.




















Note, several of these points have been brought up by JREF posters, so I don't claim these are all my original thoughts.

1. The date on the top for the software version (Jan 28/2007) coincidentally matches up with the date at the bottom (1/28/2001), leaving open the possibility that the last number was changed.

2. The date at the very top is blacked out. While it makes sense to black out personal information, why would you go to the trouble of blacking out the date, which is the most important piece of information in this document, unless you were trying to obscure something?

3. This document does not actually deal with the deactivation of the phones, those documents are mentioned as ECO F0878, F1463, and F1532, which conveniently were not found.

4. This document lays out the operation of the phones, which would seem pretty pointless if it were produced after the phones had been deactivated and\or removed.

5. The date in question "01/28/2001" is faded, and different in appearance than the entire rest of the document.

6. Right above the date, the word "Page", appears as "Pace" with the bottom of the letter "g" having been cut off for some reason, as if it were cut off during an editing operation.

None of this is definitive by any means, but considering this is based on anonymous sources channeled through people who will go to anything to promote their conspiracy theories, it is not credible thus far.

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Bollyn on the Lam?

Heheh, our favorite urinalist, err, journalist, did not show up for his sentencing yesterday.

A judge issued a warrant today for the arrest of Christopher Lee Bollyn, the one-time Hoffman Estates mayoral candidate convicted by a jury in June of resisting arrest and aggravated assault.

Bollyn, 50, was scheduled to be sentenced this morning, but never showed in court.

Cook County Judge Hyman Riebman issued the no-bond warrant about an hour after the scheduled court time.

“I’m not certain of the exact reason” he failed to appear, Bollyn’s lawyer, Paul Moreschi, said afterward. “I really just don’t know.”


I think the Jooooooos got him!

Some investigative leads:

I have investigated 9/11 since it happened and looked into the many unanswered questions of the terror attacks. I discovered last year that I had had at least two FBI informants crawling around my house for years. This is the main reason I do not feel safe in the United States. It is also why I spend much of the time in Europe or at safe houses in this country, with fellow 9/11 researchers like Ellen Mariani and Eric Hufschmid. I have two small children.


And:

I intend to seek asylum in Norway or Switzerland. I can read the writing on the wall.

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Monday, June 25, 2007

Yet Another Dumb Journo Falls for the Deniers

At a Bay Area Democratic Club:

Most Americans expect over-the-top conspiracy theorists and extreme left wingers to call the 911 Commission Report a lie. But scientific-minded architects and engineers?

The Tri-Valley Democrats met this week in Dublin to hear Richard Gage of Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth speak on the structural physics of the collapsed twin towers. His goal is to bring about further investigation.

"The public bought the 911 story hook, line and sinker. But the idea of questioning is very important," said Danville resident Ellis Goldberg, who is president of the club.

Gage provided scientific data and video footage to prove his hypothesis that the impact of the plane and the fire could not have taken down the steel frame buildings. He suggested the 110-story buildings were destroyed by controlled demolitions but did not speculate who was responsible for them.


The journo, Natalie O'Neill, fairly gushes as she describes this event. Wow, he proved his hypothesis? Natalie, I'd like you to meet NIST. Not some crackpot like Richard Gage NIST is actually made up of people who want to understand 9-11, not so they can sell their inevitable DVD and book (wait for it), but so they can design more reliable buildings in the future.

Structural steel melts at about 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit, while plane fuel only burns up to 1,600 degrees. Knowing this, there is no way the heat could have caused the immense building frame to collapse, Gage said. He then made several references to steel frame high rise fires that have burned for up to 17 hours without melting the building's frame.


Yawn. It never ends with the melting steel.

Gage is every bit as retarded as I have thought:

The first plane's impact crashed into the top sixth of the north tower. Even with that segment demolished, the weight would not have been enough to crumble the rest of the building, he said.

"Is a mass of one kilogram, placed on top of a mass of five kilograms going to crush it? No," Gage said.


Is this guy really an architect? And is Natalie really a journalist?

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Purdue Simulation Contradicts FEMA?

This seems to be the latest talking point that the Deniers have picked up in an attempt to debunk the devastating simulation done by Purdue University. And, as usual, they're all wet.

Here's Truth or Lies:

The following statement was used in the Purdue simulation: "The weight of the aircraft's fuel, when ignited, acted like a flash flood of flaming liquid". This is a direct contradiction of the FEMA report (which can be viewed HERE)which stated: "despite the huge fireballs caused by the two planes crashing into the WTC towers each with 10,000 gallons of jet fuel, the fireballs did not explode or create a shock wave that would have resulted in structural damage.”


Now, a careful reader will immediately observe that Purdue did not state that the fireballs exploded or create a shock wave that would have resulted in structural damage. They are saying that the weight (perhaps more appropriately the mass) of the jet fuel acted like a flash flood of flaming liquid, smacking into the fireproofing on the steel and stripping it away. Incidentally, Truth or Lies does a little editin g of FEMA's quote. They got the meaning right, but it is traditional to give an indication by using ellipses when you drop a few words from a quotation.

Truth or Lies sets up a straw man here:

According to the simulation video, "The weight of the aircraft's fuel, when ignited, acted like a flash flood of flaming liquid…and stripped away fireproofing which caused the steel to weaken”

However, a problem lies within this explanation….

According to the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) Report, (which can be viewed HERE)and an article from Fox News, which can read HERE, “fire-proof asbestos was only used up to the thirty-eighth floor of the north tower and not at all in the south tower”.

These accounts state that because non-asbestos fire proofing was used in simulations by NIST, the non-asbestos fireproofing was far inferior to asbestos in terms of melting points and the ability to keep fire from spreading. It should be noted that these claims of “fire-proofing” as being responsible for the melting of the steel that led to the collapse of the twin towers has been debunked numerous times by world-renowned physicists such as Steven Jones of BYU (view his website here).


Of course, nobody claims that the steel melted, and the idea that the fireproofing was responsible for the collapse is absurd. The loss of the fireproofing was a major contributing factor to the collapse.

Hat Tip to our longtime buddy and radio host Rob Breakenridge for pointing out this "argument".

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Yet Moron Alex Jones

Our longtime commenter, Edmund Standing, has started a blog on the master of disaster. Here he discusses why Alex amounts to little more than an exceptionally paranoid clipping service:

The problem with the second position is that what truth there actually is in what Jones says is almost entirely drawn from mainstream news sources (the same news outlets he claims are 'totally controlled', i.e. 'Don't believe them, just listen to me - and watch my films!'), and much of that is misrepresented by Jones to support an extreme conspiratorial outlook. In the 3 hours a day people spend listening to Jones ranting and raving on his radio show, they could be looking at both mainstream and alternative news sources for themselves - it's all there online for the taking!


Here he talks about Jones' fearmongering:

So, at the end of three hours what had Jones achieved? Well, he'd basically told us that either we're already in a Police State, or we're moments away from one, that the greatest force of evil in history has either been unleashed, or is just about to be, and that we are teetering on the edge of World War 3. If all of this is true, if the situation has really got this bad, then what is Jones doing putting out daily broadcasts and working on a new film when he should logically be heading for the hills and hiding in a nuclear shelter with his family?


Here he discusses Jones' approach to evidence:

Jones' analysis of John Yoo on torture:

'This guy, John Yoo, right here, been in mainstream newspapers [sic], that the man on your screen, and the memo's public, I've got it in my new film TerrorStorm coming out ... he says we're allowed to torture people - whoever we want, however we want - and we can even torture innocent third parties, bystanders, including children, including small children. And he gave the example, we could put pliers on a five year old's genitalia and crush them'.

From this statement, we could quite logically infer that, in a memo, Yoo specifically referred to torturing children's genitalia, yet this simply isn't the case. The memo Jones is referring to is the August 1, 2002 'Memo from Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo to the White House Counsel on interrogation methods that do not violate prohibitions against torture' (which can be read in full here), and that example isn't mentioned in it. The actual source of the genital torture example is a December 1, 2005 debate featuring Yoo and Notre Dame professor and international human rights scholar Doug Cassel.


Good stuff! There are a couple of other things that bug me about Jones. First, if you listen to him you'll pick up on this pet phrase of his, "It's admitted." Jones uses this phrase to pull his earlier conclusions up to fact level. For example, suppose some evil corporation is having a company picnic. Jones will look at the memo, point out that there's no mention of a company prohibition against engaging the services of underage boy prostitutes, and in the next breath, "It's admitted that they're hiring boys as young as eight years old to service their company executives."

The other thing is Jones' constant griping about the "false left/right paradigm". This is a trope that he appears to have appropriated from Arianna Huffington. Basically, it's admitted (heheh) that the 9-11 Kook Movement is too nutty for even the Left or the Right; it's only fringe characters like Jones who believe it.

It Was the Nukes!

At the recent denial conference in Vancouver Canuckistan, Steven Jones sits down to discuss the mini-nukes hypothesis with William Deagle, who Pat discussed before. It cracks me up how these people will sit down and discuss these inane theories as if it were the most serious and logical issue in the world. I am sorry, but Stephen Hawking is not going to sit down and debate crop circles with every nutjob who comes along.

I haven't watched the whole thing, but the most inane quote of the first 5 minutes is Deagle saying, "I think we have enough evidence for an international tribunal and treason trial". OK, what exactly is the jurisdiction for that? Is international treason even a legal concept?

Update: Jones does draw the line at the no-planes theory, which Deagle calls "ridiculous". His response is just as ridiculous though, as he replies at the 5:30 mark:

In fact what I was told by my contacts inside US Air Force, the Air Force Academy and so on was those were probably not United Airlines jets but probably E-10s.

Uhh, just one problem with that theory there doc. The US Air Force did not have any E-10s in 2001, in fact the program has still not gone into production. Some contacts you got there.

E-10 Postponed Five Years
As part of the Fiscal 2006 defense budget, DOD directed the Air Force to restructure the service’s E-10A airborne battle management aircraft program, cutting it by more than $600 million over two years.

Consequently, USAF announced in March that it would delay the start of the project until 2010. The E-10 is one of USAF’s emerging top priorities. The service expects it to be the successor to both the E-8 Joint STARS aircraft, which tracks the movement of ground objects, and the E-3 AWACS air battle controller. The new aircraft may also serve as the replacement for the RC-135 Rivet Joint signals intelligence aircraft.

Under a new timeline, USAF has delayed initial operational capability from 2015 to 2018.


Update 2: Geez, could these people have any bigger egos? From the 33:20 mark.

Deagle: I really believe that meetings like these have stopped the death of millions. What I was told in '94 by a special agent, who was actually in a cold sweat telling me this was at that time they already had 22 cities that were pre-wired with nukes, and he even told me the names of the cities and told me the top ones that were targets.

Jones: I have heard some (unintelligible)

Deagle: OK

Jones: One is not far from here actually.

Deagle: Yeah, Seattle

.

Uh oh, I guess I had better think of moving out of town...

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Sunday, June 24, 2007

Profit of Doom

If there is one person poised to make a killing in the 9-11 Denial market, it is Alex Jones. Jones has done a spectacular job of turning one lucky prediction (and ignoring dozens of unlucky ones) into a lifetime career at the top of the multilevel marketing pyramid that is 9-11 Truth.



Jones became famous for his "prediction of 9-11" in July of 2001:



It looks like he did call Bin Laden for a terrorist strike, although he gets no points for the WTC mention because it is in the context of past events (i.e., he is referring to the 1993 WTC bombing).

Update: Perry Logan points out in the comments that Jones did not actually predict an attack; what he did was tell his minions to call the White House and warn them that if there was an attack they knew it wasn't really Osama Bin Laden. This is kind of a "free pass" for Jones because if there is no attack, he can claim his supporters called the White House in sufficient numbers to alert them that they would not get away with it, and if there is an attack, he can claim to have "predicted" it. So, no, Jones did not make a psychic prediction.

Jones is a shrewd self-promoter who is one of the few people to stay atop the 9-11 tiger for years without getting mauled. He has the most influential radio program in the 9-11 Denial movement and more important, he has access to TV and radio hosts upstream who will let him on with a "breaking" news story, like Matt Lepacek's arrest a couple weeks ago, which got him on Coast to Coast AM.

He consolidated his hold on the upper reaches of the movement by bankrolling the Final Maybe Rough Cut of Loose Change, and absorbing We Are Change into his empire. The latter has already paid dividends, but Alex griped about keeping the Looser crew afloat a couple days ago and asked for contributions. The fact that they tried to flog that pathetic story about Barry Jennings as some revelation certainly indicates that the Loosers don't have anything new and breaking in their film.

Jones' worldview is paranoid in the extreme. I have not listened to enough of his shows to get a firm view, but he seems to be manic/depressive. Periodically he will ride the high wave but inevitably he will crash into the slough of despond. As with many Truthers, he believes ridiculous stuff without batting an eyelash while professing himself a "skeptic" of the official story.

Jones is avidly anti-illegal immigrant; it is one of his few mainstream stances. In a startling anecdote from his June 19, 2007 show, he claims that his antipathy to illegals stems from an incident when he was 17 and four Mexicans broke his leg in a fight (44:34):

"I mean I was brought up, my parents taught me about history and everything, but I wasn't brought up to dislike any other group, so it wasn't until years later that I realized that when--I say five, it was really four Mexicans, one of them stood by--broke my leg, that was a racial attack, but do I blame all Mexicans because, for no reason, four Mexicans attacked me when I was 16 years old and broke my leg? Yeah, I beat up about three of them and then they finally all jumped and tackled me and just with boots on purpose, knew how to fight, broke my leg, on purpose and then kicked me in the face and laughed at me...."

Jones also makes wild claims about how illegal aliens are planning to kill us all (40:05):

"The US is under military attack. The illegal aliens that are in this nation many of them see themselves as fighters. They openly write about it. And they have been told that when the word comes down that they are to set fire to every major US city."

Because, you see, the Islamists don't want to kill us all, the Mexicans do!

Alex does his best to let us know how bad the illegal aliens are:

"Don't think that for a moment that--Chinese, here they've got over 5000 front companies that are PLA, don't think for a minute that there aren't thousands of Russian commandos here in the US at any one time, and folks, the point is they can use them and they probably are. The New World Order is going to destroy this country one way or the other, and I know you're thinking oh, it can't happen here; it is happening here. But the greatest threat is these illegal aliens, folks. They cannot wait to burn this country down. Mmmmkay?"

Okay, thousands of front companies owned by the Chicoms, thousands of Roosky Rambos and you want us to focus on the guys with the leaf-blowers? Mmmmkay.

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LTC Guy Razer, USMC

The alleged LTC Guy Razer, who bizarrely has been transferred to the Marine Corps, is interviewed in this clip from the Pilots for 9/11 Truth. Not too much new here. He apparently is a huge Dylan Avery fan and repeatedly praises him. When asked for proof that he is a fighter pilot he claims the military lost his records (big surprise), and oh yeah, he says he is still living in a tent!

Update: A reader points us towards the FAA database, which I was able to download here, which shows the following for Mr. Razer:


UNIQUE NO A1558748
FIRST NAME GUY STEWART
LAST NAME RAZER
STREET 1 GENERAL DELIVERY
CITY LAS VEGAS
STATE NV
ZIP CODE 89125-9999
REGION WP
MED CLASS 1
MED DATE 62005
MED EXP DATE 122005

Hmm, so we have a homeless pilot with bad eyesight and an out-of-date physical.

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Matt Taibbi III

Matt Taibbi, who wrote two terrific articles on the 9-11 Deniers for Rolling Stone, answers readers' questions.

Matt-
You’ve probably already been asked this too many times, but, are you planning to write the third installment of your 9/11 series? If not, why?
- Dallas Redig

Hi Dallas. I’ll eventually publish this written debate I had with the Loose Change guys via email. It was pretty funny stuff. At one point I asked them if they’d made even a single phone call before they ran that stuff about the hijackers still being alive. Their answer was that they had made some calls, but “couldn’t get through” to anyone. Then when I tried to point out that not getting through to anyone in your research is usually a good time not to publish your unverified material, they just ignored me and started babbling about how the original congressional report about 9/11 had 28 pages redacted, etc. etc. etc. It wasn’t really a debate, it was like one angry non sequitur after another. Eventually they dropped the debate in the middle – I haven’t heard from them in a while.


It's the last question, so scroll way down; there's a hilarious paragraph after that one involving electrocuting swingers in a bathtub.

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Saturday, June 23, 2007

Tarpley Delivers Stem-Winder

Heheh, sometimes the Deniers punish themselves. At the Vancouver 9-11 Conference, Webster Tarpley got up to deliver the keynote address, which went on for an hour. Then another hour. Then 30 minutes more.

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Live From New York

The We Are Change crew are going to be broadcasting their "street action" at Ground Zero on their website from 2:00-5:00 PM Eastern.

Update: The Jews crashed We Are Change's laptop!

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Friday, June 22, 2007

What Politician Wants the Screw Loose Change Endorsement?

Okay, after wincing at that John McCain video that James linked a couple of posts ago, I have decided it is time for Screw Loose Change to offer its endorsement for President of the United States of America. And we do mean offer! Screw Loose Change is prepared to endorse as a blog (and not James or me personally) the first major party political candidate that calls out these creeps on one of their videos. John McCain is our natural candidate; after all, he wrote the introduction to the Popular Mechanics book.

But when presented with a chance to nail it down, McCain instead opted for humor. Thus far, the only candidate who has even quibbled with the kooks mildly is Barack Obama. So our endorsement is up for grabs.

There is a way to battle these kooks without knowing the arcana that they bring up, and my suggested response to these people is along these lines:

"I know you think you're noble patriots, but you're wrong. What you claim is not only mistaken, but it's damaging to the country, damaging to our image both abroad and at home. If you had any real evidence against the Bush Administration, the press would have covered it; instead you have grainy videos and carefully selected and misleading quotes. I'm not going to get into the details of what you claim because it's been refuted time after time."

There is no significant downside to a Republican candidate taking on these kooks and denouncing them for what they are. For the right Democrat, this could be a Sister Soljah moment.

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Gutfeld: Truthers Must Die!

I'm not sure I'm doing him any favors, but I've always enjoyed Greg Gutfeld's sense of humor and today he took on our favorite set of nutbars (you may have to scroll down a bit; I can't seem to find real permalinks over there):

The truth about conspiracies is that they aren't any. If you can't prevent office gossip, how can you assume a a government can keep a secret? Human beings are natural blabbermouths. By the way, Harry Potter dies.

The best way to crush a theorist is to tell them that the real conspiracy is the plan to make people LIKE THEM fall for conspiracies. So when someone says that 9/11 was an inside job, I reply, "well, that's what the Jews want you to think," and walk away. But, truthers are as scummy as Holocaust deniers. People who embrace conspiracies are inherently destructive, because it prevents them from focusing on stuff that really matters: like terrorism or my birthday party (which is coming up by the way).


Happy Birthday, Greg!

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Michelle Malkin and John Gibson on the Purdue Simulation



Pleased to see this getting a good deal of play. John Gibson is moving up rapidly on my list of favorite TV personalities because he doesn't mince words; I've long been a fan of Mrs M.

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No 757 Hit the Pentagon!

We haven't heard much from Uncle Fetzer lately, what with the fact that 911 Blogger spends more time attacking him than we do (shills, all of them) so I was amused to read this "press release" from him supporting the "Pilots for 9/11 Truth".

Don't be taken in by photos showing damage to the second floor or those taken after the upper floors collapsed, which happened 20-30 minutes later," Fetzer said. "In fact, debris begins to show up on the completely clean lawn in short order, which might have been dropped from a C-130 that was circling above the Pentagon or placed there by men in suits who were photographed carrying debris with them." The most striking is a piece from the fuselage of a commercial airliner, which is frequently adduced as evidence.

James Hanson, a newspaper reporter who earned his law degree from the University of Michigan College of Law, has traced that debris to an American Airlines 757 that crashed in a rain forest above Cali, Columbia in 1995. "It was the kind of slow-speed crash that would have torn off paneling in this fashion, with no fires, leaving them largely intact." Fetzer has been so impressed with his research he has invited Hanson to submit his study to Scholars for consideration for publication on its web site, 911scholars.org.

The Pentagon has become a kind of litmus test for rationality in the study of 9/11," Fetzer said. "Those who persist in maintaining that a Boeing 757 hit the building are either unfamiliar with the evidence or cognitively impaired. Unless," he added, "they want to mislead the American people. The evidence is beyond clear and compelling. It places this issue 'beyond a reasonable doubt'. No Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon."

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Troofers Stalk McCain

The troofers have taken to following around all the major presidential candidates. In this case they (all 3 of them) wait for John McCain getting out of a car, and he rather humorously runs over to pose for pictures with them.

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Thursday, June 21, 2007

Rallying the Troops

With a pathetic letter to the leader of the Purdue University simulation team. That this letter is not intended for him is quite obvious; it's intended for the 9-11 Denial Movement.

Mr. Ayhan Irfanoglu:

Thank you so much for your recent interjections into the "research" about September 11, 2001 as such relates to the events in my hometown of New York City. I can assure you with certainty that your work will prove VERY useful to the ongoing research efforts by those of us not paid to do so; doing so ONLY for the purposes of exposing the truth. Alternatively, your interjections are completely expected in the context of Purdue's inclusion in the Michael Chertoff Department of Homeland Security "Center of Excellence," and the multi-million-dollar taxpayer-funded programs associated with that inclusion.


First, note the words spelled with "all capitals"; "VERY" and "ONLY". These are the written equivalents of shouting, and as we all know, folks with good arguments don't have to shout. Then we get into the "we know you're only doing it for the Homeland Security bucks," a raging clue that this letter is aimed at the Deniers and not Mr Irfanoglu.

1) In the following link: http://www.wkrn.com/nashville/news/ap-simulation-finds-911-fireproofing-... you are quoted:

"We design structures with some extra capacity to cover some uncertainties, but we never anticipate such heavy demand coming from an aircraft impact. If the columns were distributed, maybe, the fire could not take them out so easily."

Given the fact that you did not design ANY aspect of the WTC building complex, I am confused by your choice of words.


Did he say that he designed those buildings? And another all-caps; certainly a sign that this is a weak writer making a poor argument.

But just so we are clear, you are stating, as a member of the civil engineering professorial staff at a DHS "Center of Excellence" university, that skyscrapers designed in the 1970's for locations such as New York City where not-one not-two but-THREE major airports are within SIGHT of the building location; these skyscraper structural designs did NOT consider "an aircraft impact." Is that your true and accurate assessment of civil engineering design status for the World Trade Center sir? In case I am not being clear, let me qualify this present inquiry by saying that this is a yes-or-no question, and I would appreciate just a simple 'yes' or a simple 'no' response.


Note again the mention of Homeland Security (DHS); he's mugging for the camera. Note that Sheridan is wrong about when the buildings were designed; it was in 1964. Three more "shouts", and the hostile yes-or-no is right out of the Luke Rudkowski reportage playbook.

Of course the building was designed to withstand the impact of a plane. Flying low, lost in the fog, and traveling at a much slower rate of speed than the planes on 9-11.

To assist in your response to my first question please note the quotes below:

"The building was designed to have a fully-loaded 707 crash into it; that was the largest plane at that time. I believe that that building could sustain multiple impacts."
Mr. Frank A. DeMartina, WTC Construction Project Manager

"The airplane we were envisioning was the largest airplane of its time. We designed the buildings to take the impact of the Boeing 707 hitting the building at any location.
Mr. Les Robertson, Head of WTC Structural Engineering Group.


It's DeMartini. First, the NIST report was unable to locate any calculations proving that the building could take that kind of impact in the first place. Second, the Purdue simulation added two specific elements to our understanding of the WTC collapses: the impact of the added weight to the building from the plane and its associated contents especially the fuel, and the effect of the fuel itself, traveling at five hundred miles an hour impacting the fireproofing on the trusses. If you've ever used a pressure washer, you'll know that a jet of water moving at a high rate of speed will strip the dirt right off a building.

(2) Pasted below are video stills of a woman standing in, as alleged in reports such as yours, a hole made by American Airlines Flight 11 which allegedly used a standard Boeing 767 passenger jet. [GW's comment: the photos referred to can be viewed here]


Note the sudden use of the words "alleged" and "allegedly". These idiots actually think they have to say "alleged" when it comes to the planes and the flights. It's easy to forget because the focus here is on "controlled demolition" that the kooks think American Airlines Flight 11 didn't hit the North Tower.



This woman has been identified as Ms. Edna Cintron. In the context of the "raging inferno" that you have alleged, and you have alleged to have melted thousands-of-tons of structural steel at the WTC, what portion of the computer simulation, that you and your colleagues recently interjected into the public domain, considers and explains in-detail the fact that not even Ms. Cintron's long beautiful hair was cinged? I ask this question of you in the very specific context of your statements regarding "fire proofing" since it is clear that Ms. Cintron's hair was not "fireproofed." Hair will begin to cinge at roughly 600 degrees; well within the range of jet fuel. Alternatively, if your inputs to the computer simulation did not consider the survival of Ms. Cintron please review/revise that portion of the algorithym that would address this well-known EVIDENCE of very LOW temperatures present at WTC-1 post impact, etc. This is important since WTC-1 collapsed symmetrically (and at free-fall speed) approximately 15 minutes after this Cintron video was recorded. Regarding that latter point, does the time-temperature curves of your simulation accurately portray this VERY brief heat transfer time?


Wow, lots of meat on that bone! First, note the obvious straw man of "melted thousands of tons of steel". Second, the jet fuel was going south at a tremendous rate of speed; Edna Cintron appeared at the north side of the tower, where the initial impact had occurred, and where there was little fire. It's "singe", and Sheridan has no way of knowing whether Edna's hair was singed; he just assumes it.

As for the "very LOW" temperatures, here's a pretty good picture of the fires:



Note as well that this is the third time that Sheridan has bitched about Purdue "interjecting" themselves into the discussion. Considering that these guys spend most of their time agitating for a new investigation, it seems a bit much when they gripe about somebody actually doing one. Could it be any more obvious that they are only looking for an investigation that comes to a particular outcome?

And the third question is just complete nutbar time:

(3) The final question area involves the attached NOAA satellite photograph of September 23, 2001. What portion of your computer simulation was able to account for the startling fact that ONLY the buildings owned/leased by Mr. Larry Silverstein and as-such only those buildings covered by a "terrorist acts" insurance clause collapsed? I ask this in the context of your allegation that lack of fireproofing was the key input to your simulation.


Because of course a structural engineer is the best person to ask why Silverstein's properties were covered by terrorism insurance. Note, as usual, that St. Nick's Cathedral, which presumably was not covered by terrorism insurance, gets forgotten as usual, as do two buildings which will eventually be torn down--Fiterman Hall and Deutsche Bank.

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Kooks Make SF News



Kudos to newsman Manny Ramos for contacting Professor Astaneh, who points out that he inspected steel from WTC 7 and saw no evidence of explosives, just an intense fire.

Get this comment from Chris Rose at 9-11 Blogger:

Way to go SFTruth Action! Interesting Mr. Ramos would quote this Professor Hassan (whom I've never heard of), yet ignore Professor Steven Jones (whom we've all heard of).


Sigh. You've never heard of Professor Astaneh because he's a structural engineer.

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Supposed Osama Charter Update

Lotta commenting going on regarding the Judicial Watch press release:

Rick Moran:

DID THE FBI ALLOW OSAMA TO ESCAPE THE US AFTER 9/11?


No. :)

Gun-Toting Liberal:

Judicial Watch, the self professed “conservative, non-partisan educational foundation” devoted to political ethics, has just released documents (*pdf) they received via the Freedom of Information Act which imply that the FBI knew that Osama bin Laden personally chartered a 727 flight to pick his family members up from four major major cities and then take them out of the country out within days of 9/11.

A flight, I might add, that took place while commercial traffic in the United States was under shoot-to-kill lockdown…


No. This particular flight left LA on the 19th, well after most air traffic resumed on the 13th and 14th. Snopes has covered this well. Quoting from the 9-11 Commission Report:

First, we found no evidence that any flights of Saudi nationals, domestic or international, took place before the reopening of national airspace on the morning of September 13, 2001.


Corrected by GTL.

Michael P.F. van der Galiën:

The incompetence leading up to 9/11 and right after it is almost unbelievable. It is common knowledge that there are some members of the Royal Family of Saudi Arabia, who (not so) secretly sympathize with Osama Bin Laden, let alone Bin Laden’s own relatives. They should have been interrogated for hours, even days, at a time: they might have possessed valuable knowledge. Instead, they were allowed to leave the United States, without being hindered.


Fair enough, although there is no real indication they did know anything, and if they had, they were very foolish indeed to stay in the USA past 9/10.

The Wonked-Out Wankers at Wonkette treat it as a given that OBL did charter the plane, despite the obvious fact that the FBI memo in question just mentions it as a possibility:

So guess who chartered the jets that got all the Bin Ladens and Saudi royals out of America right after 9/11? According to the FBI, it was Osama bin Laden himself! Or the Saudi Royal Family — the FBI doesn’t really know, or apparently care, although it did fight for many years to conceal its paperwork on the mysterious flights cleared by the White House. Oh, and an earlier version of the released documents had Osama’s name blacked out, to protect his privacy.


Reasonable point about the name being blacked out; I suspect the FBI was doing a little face-saving there.

Raw Story actually checks with the FBI:

Asked about the documents' assertion that either bin Laden or the Saudi royals ordered the flight, an FBI spokesman said the information was inaccurate.

"There is no new information here. Osama bin Laden did not charter a flight out of the US," FBI special agent Richard Kolko said.

"This is just an inflammatory headline by Judicial Watch to catch people's attention. This was thoroughly investigated by the FBI."

Kolko pointed to the 9-11 Commission Report, which was the book-length result of an official probe into the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people.


Of course, Larissa Alexandrovna, editor of Raw Story can't just let it go there. Over at the HuffPo:

At least this might finally explain a nagging problem I have had with the FBI's most wanted poster of OBL, which makes no mention of September 11, 2001 among the crimes OBL is wanted for.


How does it explain that, Larissa? Raw Story has dipped its toes into 9-11 Denial a few times, so I'm not inclined to cut her any slack. In fact, Osama's wanted poster does not mention 9-11 because he has not yet been indicted for that crime. He's already wanted for murder in connection with the embassy bombings, which gives them adequate reason to arrest and extradite him to the US in the unlikely event he is ever captured alive. At that point, he would certainly be charged for his involvement in 9-11. This is another one of those idiotic pieces of "evidence" that reveal the 9-11 Denial Movement as intentionally fraudulent. Do they really believe that the Feds would not indict him for 9-11 if they caught him?

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Yet Another Fruitloop

I haven't paid all that much attention to the upcoming Vancouver 9-11 crackpot conference, but Nico Haupt has. He points out that some of the people who are going to be featured at that conference have ties to the US government and to UFO quackery.

One of the conference speakers is Dr. Bill Deagle. Deagle apparently has a show on GCN called the "Nutrimedical Report", where he is described as "a profile physician who dissects the lies behind the current push to cultural acceptance of designer babies, embryo harvesting and animal - human hybrids, euthanasia - on demand from the state or corporations, transhuman cyborg technology, implantable mind control chips, the National and Global ID plans with specific documented technical details."

As if that wasn't loopy enough, check out this wackery from Deagle:

On Saturday, April 24, 1999, I had a supernatural visitation with the angel Gabriel last night. Before I settled in bed to sleep last night, I was in prayer. I prayed in tongues privately, and as always, heard the immediate translation in English of the audible Voice of God.

He said, "If you are obedient and seek wisdom in prayer tonight, I will reveal to you a great revelation. Go to your vitamin cabinet and take two specific nutrient capsules and pray until you are sound asleep, and I will send forth the angel Gabriel from the Throne Room to show you what you must tell My people!!"

In the middle of the night, in the spirit, Gabriel came to me in a dream-vision. He said, "Arise, and come with me to Kosovo. I must show you a Great Revelation, so the people will believe that the Father has sent you to warn his people of many things, for the time is short and judgment is coming as swiftly as eagle's wings."

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Purdue University Simulation Hits MSM

Sometimes we get too far ahead of the MSM so that when they finally catch up to us we look at it as old hat. CBS covers the Purdue University computer simulation that we've blogged about three weeks ago.

The report concludes that the weight of the aircraft's fuel, when ignited, produced "a flash flood of flaming liquid" that knocked out a number of structural columns within the building and removed the fireproofing insulation from other support structures, Hoffmann said.

The simulation also found that the airplane's metal skin peeled away shortly after impact and shows how the titanium jet engine shafts flew through the building like bullets.

Architects and Idiots for 9/11 Truth

One of the characteristics of conspiracy theorists is they are able to hold two or more contrary viewpoints on the same subject, at the same time without noticing any problem with their logic. One example of this is how Loose Change manages to suggest that the Pentagon was hit by a cruise missile, an A-3 Skywarrior, and shoulder launched anti-tank weapon, all in the same movie. It is sort of a quantum mechanics of kookery, where any argument can occupy multiple points in space without any sort of connection between them.

Another example of this is in the supposed demolition of the twin towers. When they need there to have been explosives located there, in order to support their theories, there were explosives. When it needs to be thermite, suddenly it was thermite, not explosives that caused the collapse. Listening to Richard Gage founder of the group Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, being interviewed on Kevin Barrett's radio show, I came across a stunningly stupid explanation of this logic at the 15 minute mark.

Gage: We have direct evidence of thermite to cut the steel beams, because these steel beams were cut first, and then explosively ejected out of the building.

Uhh, yeah, OK. So the thermite cut through the beams, but apparently that didn't affect the structural stability of the building, which just stood there, so they needed explosives to blow the steal beams out, thereby negating the need for thermite to cut the beams in the first place? OK, I need to stop this, it is making my head hurt.

At first I thought he just misspoke, but he repeated this theory only a few minutes later.

Earlier in the interview he actually claimed there were "no macroscopic pieces of concrete at ground zero"
















Large pieces of debris, likened to meteorites by preservationists, are actually several floors of the towers compressed together as the buildings collapsed. Furniture, twisted metal, pipes, cords and even papers with legible type are visible. The pieces are kept in a humidity-controlled tent in Hangar 17 of Kennedy International Airport.

Yeah, OK. I am glad we got these elite architects on the case.

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Judicial Watch: Did Osama Charter Plane For Family Members In US?

Holy smoke, this should cause something of a sensation:

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released new documents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) related to the “expeditious departure” of Saudi nationals, including members of the bin Laden family, from the United States following the 9/11 attacks. According to one of the formerly confidential documents, dated 9/21/2001, terrorist Osama bin Laden may have chartered one of the Saudi flights.

The document states: “ON 9/19/01, A 727 PLANE LEFT LAX, RYAN FLT #441 TO ORLANDO, FL W/ETA (estimated time of arrival) OF 4-5PM. THE PLANE WAS CHARTERED EITHER BY THE SAUDI ARABIAN ROYAL FAMILY OR OSAMA BIN LADEN…THE LA FBI SEARCHED THE PLANE [REDACTED] LUGGAGE, OF WHICH NOTHING UNUSUAL WAS FOUND.” The plane was allowed to depart the United States after making four stops to pick up passengers, ultimately landing in Paris where all passengers disembarked on 9/20/01, according to the document.
(bold added for emphasis).

It will be interesting to see how the "Truthers" incorporate this into their theories, given that most of them don't believe Osama pulled off 9-11. I suppose it will be added to "The FBI doesn't want Osama for 9-11" evidence.

Hat tip to our buddy Rob Breakenridge for pointing this out.

Update: I should have indicated in my original post my skepticism of the possibility that the plane was actually chartered by OBL. Sometimes I forget that the first rule of blogging is the same as the rule to get onto Jim Rome's radio show: Have a take and don't suck. My take is that it is extremely unlikely that OBL chartered that plane, and far more likely that it was the Saudi Royal Family.

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Denis Leary on the Truthers and WTC-7



Don't know how I missed this last week, but kudos to our buddy Rob Breakenridge for pointing it out! Rob also did a fine post on the article by Geoff Olsen that we linked to earlier in the week.