Troofer Moron

Look, if you are going to thrill us with your call into the Phil Hendrie show, tape the show off the air, don't do a video of you on the phone where we can barely hear Hendrie's response. And it's the typical lame Trooferism; when caught on one lie, jump to the next without acknowledging your mistake.

Kooks At DNC

Lots of chanting, "Whose streets? Our streets!" Which is pretty obvious, given that they refuse to share it with an ambulance (at about 5:00). One thing's for sure; grunge is back in style.

Sticker Shock

Here's an update on Jason Robo, the Troofer who put several "9-11 Was An Inside Job" stickers inside a plane, and disrupted the flight.

Well known campus activist Jason Robo appeared in Boston court on August 19 in conjunction with three charges stemming from a July 30 arrest at Logan International Airport.

Robo, former Associated Students legislative vice president, was charged with disorderly conduct, interference with aircraft operation and disorderly conduct on a public conveyance. According to a press release issued by the Suffux County District Attorney's office, the charges arose after Robo's behavior on Delta Flight 1165 forced a plane evacuation and a three-hour delay.

He sounds like one of those Philadelphia lawyers the "Truth" Movement is rotten with:

While Robo denies most of the allegations against him, he would not give a direct statement on whether he was responsible for the placement of the stickers on Flight 1165.

"I cannot confirm or deny the stickers' origins," he said. "Nevertheless, in America, speech against the government does not make one into a criminal, thus suggesting that the government had a role in 9/11 does not warrant criminal prosecution."

Robo is currently facing three state charges. The lead charge of interference with aircraft operation carries a maximum sentence of six months and or a fine up to $500. A dismissal hearing has been set for Nov 26. Nevertheless, Robo believes the truth will come out.

Well if Joe Biden Can Get Away With It...

Last week I commented about how Arabesque was discussing the "misinformation" of claiming there were no hijackers on the flight manifests, while simultaneously praising the research of David Ray Griffin and Michael Ruppert, who both use this argument in their work. Now apparently Arabesque was sufficiently embarrassed by this being pointed out to write another post on the subject, all without pointing out where this originated, of course.

In David Ray Griffin’s 9/11: The Myth and the Reality, he repeats the claim that, “[Their] names should be on the flight manifests. But the flight manifests that have been released contain neither the names of the alleged hijackers nor any other Arab names.”[4] As well, Michael C. Ruppert, citing Gary North wrote, “Another easy and non-debatable hole is with the passenger lists and the hijackers. Gary North, Ph.D. - a history professor… relied on lists published by CNN… Official reports state that there were only 19 hijackers. Second, none of listed passenger names are Arabic, Muslim… The government needs to provide an explanation for this glaring discrepancy.”[5]

I know, linking to a debunker blog would immediately lead to claims of "COINTELPRO" and denunciations of treason. I suppose I should at least commend Arabesque for taking the extremely rare step (in the troofer community) of actually looking at their evidence critically. Now just continue that to the rest of their stupid arguments.

Troy's Challenge

There are now at least three versions of the incident; surely somebody should be able to come up with one that backs up old Leatherlungs' claim to have been assaulted by Mrs Malkin or her "bodyguards".

(UK) Times Gives Zero Three Stars?

All I can say is that the reviewer is overly credulous:

The Italian production company Telemaco has collated testimony which suggests that officials are lying about the events surrounding 9/11. The attacks, according to those heavy-weight sages Gore Vidal and Dario Fo, simply cannot be true. The inflammable evidence is this: an orange dropped from the top of the World Trade Centre would have hit the bottom only a second earlier than the top floor – supposedly impossible unless the building was rigged with military-grade plastic explosives.

There's a compound word for that, and the first part is bull. First, although several sources do claim the South Tower fell in about 10 seconds, that is simply a misreading of the seismic data. Debris was pelting the ground enough to measure on the Richter scale for about 10 seconds. My best estimate of the collapse times for each tower is in the 15-20 second range; it's hard to be more precise than that due to the dust obscuring the very end of the collapse.

As for those heavy-weight sages Gore Vidal and Dario Fo, they are out of the fields where they have any claim to sagehood. Fo, in particular, acts like a buffoon throughout the film. I have not spent any real time on this film because it seems like a throwback to Loose Change I; emphasizing the "16-foot" hole in the Pentagon, for example, by showing (over and over again) that picture with the spray from the fire engine obscuring the first floor.

One thing I have noticed. Although in the US, the "Truthers" are composed of about 50% leftists and 25% libertarian/survivalist types like Alex Jones, with a small percentage of paleocons of the Karen Johnson stripe and the rest defying characterization politically, in Europe the movement seems pretty much confined to the loony left. Fo, of course, is way out on the left; one of his most recent plays is Peace Mom, about Cindy Sheehan.

Hat Tip: Emailer Neil C.

Michelle Malkin on the Alex Jones "Confrontation"

Michelle Malkin is interviewed on Pajamas Media regarding Alex Jones chasing her down in Denver. Our humble blog gets a nice endorsement about a quarter of the way in. Ahh, my head is swelling, but my wife is not at all impressed...

Sofia Continues to Branch Out Into Exciting New Areas

Like Holocaust Denial. She is currently marketing on her site the book and movie, The Ernst Zundel story. Reprehensor is appropriately appalled:

What is one of the most popular 9/11 Truth videos on the street right now?

Arguably, Sofia Shafquat's "911 Mysteries".

Sofia Shafquat is currently selling "The Ernst Zundel Story" at her online store.

I repeat; One of the highest profile 9/11 Truth websites is selling an Ernst Zundel documentary. This has been going on for months.

When you consider the attention that the Simon Wiesenthal Center has paid to the 9/11 Truth movement, and AE911Truth.org in particular, you have to seriously consider the intentions of such a move.

Well, you know how it is; Reprehensor thinks Sofia's some kind of agent planted in the 9-11 "Truth" Movement to discredit the serious (heh) researchers out there. After her movie became a big hit with the Troofers she exposes her real agenda and pow, the movement gets another black eye.

Because, you know, who could possibly have had any idea that Sofia had any connection with Holocaust Denial? Other than the fact that Sofia's buddy Brad Waddell cited Eric Hufschmid in the opening monologue as having turned him onto the Troof. But somehow the Hardly Boys didn't catch that raging clue.

Update: Kudos to Jon Gold who doesn't often get them around here, for not showing 9-11 Mysteries at 9-11 Truth Tuesdays, a weekly run of Truther movies in Wayne, PA.

Alex Jones on Georgia

A bit off-topic, but this is just mind bogglingly bizarre. Alex Jones, the conspiracy nutbar who cannot even pronounce Uzbekistan properly, apparently he can't pronounce Abkhazia properly either, is on a TV pretending to be some expert on Central Asian affairs, supporting Russia's defense against the evil Georgians.




Incidentally for a good explanation of the current events, as well as a background, read this excellent post by blogger Michael Totten, writing from Tbilisi.

Still More Jones-Malkin Confrontation

This one shows more of the event, and starts with a humorous lead-in by Stephen Green on the efforts by the antiwar protesters to "levitate" the Denver Mint. Unfortunately Green is too young to remember that this was based on the famed pot-fueled effort by Abby Hoffman and others to levitate the Pentagon back in 1967.

Note that Jones shouts "Infowhores dot com" everytime he suspects that Mrs M is being interviewed on TV or radio; it's only when the cameras are off that he suggests that she proposed internment of Arab Americans (which is not the case; unlike Alex I've actually read In Defense of Internment).

Pacifica Troofer Radio Show Inteviews Dr Sunder

Listening to it now, will report on my conclusion. Kudos to Dr Sunder for facing the dragons in their den.

Update: Solid job by Dr Sunder of staying on message. I should have credited Walter with pointing me to this video.

More On Jones at the DNC

Alex Jones screaming in people's faces, pimping his website, causes some unlikely allies.

But soon, the attention was diverted from the peaceful protest by an altercation between a member of the conservative media and a citizen attending the protest. This was the second incident of its kind; on Sunday, protesters took exception to a Fox News reporter trying to question Ward Churchill, controversial former professor at the University of Colorado. Today it was radical Alex Jones, from the group 9/11 Truth, which believes that the September 11 terrorist attacks were planned by the U.S. government, verbally confronting Michelle Malkin, a conservative columnist and Fox News contributor.

“You support torture. Shame on you, you fascist piece of trash," Jones yelled. He also accused Malkin of supporting the U.S. Marines when they drown puppies.

Malkin found an ally in Recreate 68’s Sanchez, who pushed his way into the crowd of TV cameras to yell at Jones: “Michelle Malkin is a true patriot!”Sanchez later said he had no idea why Jones was attending the protest and added that Recreate 68 does not support Jones’ ideas. He added that although they strongly disagree with her views, Recreate 68 supports Malkin’s right to free speech.

Recreate 68 co-founder Glenn Spagnuolo agreed saying “He's the true agent provocateur, he was so busy hating, he missed all the love.”

Video of Jones Versus Malkin

I'll give Luke credit for one thing, he seems to shut up the fruitcake who started the "Kill Michelle Malkin" chant. Maybe he really is a Gandhi disciple (or maybe the chant meant that people couldn't hear Alex speaking Troof to power). Jones, of course, acts like the fruitcake he is; not hard to see why Mrs M wanted a shower after the Profit of Doom raged at her.

Alex Jones Harasses Michelle Malkin

In other news from Denver, Alex Jones fights the New World Order in Denver by chasing down.... blogger and political pundit Michelle Malkin. He also solidifies his lead in the "truther most in need of mood stabilizing medication" category.

Update by Pat: Mrs M's account of the incident is here.

Desperate to salvage the fizzled demonstration, 9/11 nutball Alex Jones started barking at me and attempting to make a scene and incite a riot. I should have brought my spit shield. Ick. Jim Hoft was there, along with my friends from Pajamas Media, and provided volunteer bodyguard services (thanks, guys).

Troofers at the Democratic National Convention

A writer for the National Review comes across a troofer in Denver. You got to like the caption.

Schooled!

Great job by Walter Ego:

Six Theories Debunked by NIST

From the good folks at Popular Mechanics:

Claim: "No combination of debris damage, fuel-tank explosions and fires could inflict the kind of simultaneous damage to all the building's columns required to make the building implode," says WTC7.net, a Web site dedicated to conspiracy theories. "The precision of such damage required to bring Building 7 down into its footprint was especially great, given the ratio of its height to its width and depth."
NIST report and press conference: Fire did indeed inflict enough column damage to destroy the building through a previously undocumented collapse sequence of thermal expansion. "Anyone who has run a tight jar lid under water to help loosen it knows that the metal expands when it gets hot," Sunder said. "Heat also causes steel to lose strength and stiffness. Thermal expansion occurs at temperatures much lower than those required to reduce steel strength and stiffness." The report found that as WTC 7's steel beams expanded in the heat, numerous structural connections throughout the building failed. That weakened the structure even before the collapse of any vertical columns.

Recommended!

Follow Your Own Advice

In a a humorous twist of logic, troofer activist "Arabesque" has done a series of posts imploring others to start even more troofer blogs. Because there is nothing the New World Order fears more than a bunch of self referential cut and paste websites.

I was rather amused by this suggestion though:

Of course, if you use this, you have to evaluate the credibility of any information you come across. A good way to learn how to research is to look at the work of 9/11 researchers like David Ray Griffin, Michael Ruppert, and others.

Because the next tip he gives, one I actually agree with is this:

Fact checking and corroborating sources is essential. Although this may be a tedious process, by being careful you are less likely to promote misinformation. What is misinformation? Misinformation is the unintentional promotion of false, inaccurate, or misleading information.

Here is what I consider to be a classic example of 9/11 misinformation. It is often reported that “no hijacker names” appear on the flight manifests. From the 911 research website, Jim Hoffman writes:

“According to the official story, teams of four and five Islamic hijackers took over Flights 11, 175, 77, and 93. Victims lists for the four planes published by CNN and elsewhere are free of Arab names… This fact has been highlighted as suspicious by some researchers describing the lists as passenger manifests. However, these lists are not passenger manifests, but lists of victims… CNN describes its criteria for including persons in its memorial in a pop-up window labelled ‘About this site’… ‘(Those identified by federal authorities as the hijackers are not included)… In July of 2006 a large collection of documents was published on a website containing prosecution and defense exhibits for the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui… The faxes, reproduced below, include the names of the alleged hijackers.’”

This is a perfect example of misinformation. As you can see, referring to “victim lists” as if they were “passenger lists” is significantly misleading.

Yes, this is completely true. In fact, I would agree with him that anyone who makes this argument is engaging in misinformation. For example, the aforementioned, David Ray Griffin, in his on-line essay The 9/11 Commission Report:A 571-Page Lie:

4. The omission of the fact that the publicly released flight manifests contain no Arab names (23).

If you follow the footnote you get the very same CNN articles that Jim Hoffman was talking about.

So what does Michael Ruppert have to say on this subject?

Another easy and non-debatable hole is with the passenger lists and the hijackers. Gary North, Ph.D. - a history professor - has done a detailed, line-by-line analysis of the passenger lists of the four airliners hijacked on September 11. He relied on lists published by CNN and notes two major discrepancies on all four flights. First, by comparing the number of reported fatalities on each flight - as reported by CNN and AP, he discovers that the list of passenger names - on every one of the flights - between six and twelve names are missing. The total number of all missing names for all four flights is 35. Official reports state that there were only 19 hijackers. Second, none of listed passenger names are Arabic, Muslim or even close. The government needs to provide an explanation for this glaring discrepancy.

So if you are going to accuse people of using this as misinformation, I would suggest that you check and make sure that the authors you recommend, as examples of stellar researchers, don't use this same bit as part of their argument.

Just What the World Needs...

The world needs another David Ray Griffin book about as much as it needs another Police Academy movie, but here comes yet another one of his rehashed collections of poor research. I am not holding my breath waiting for him to acknowledge all the mistakes in his last half a dozen books on the subject though.

Troof Creep

Well, I am back from the Secret European Bilderberg conference. We finally decided who the next president is going to be. I can't tell you of course, but let me just say, Michelle Shouldn't be picking out any new drapes yet...

I was able to follow the blog on my PDA, but I am still trying to catch up to the nutters in general. One thing I was a bit surprised to see was how much attention was being given in the troof movement to the Russian invasion of Georgia, with over a dozen posts on 911 Blogger, and even more on Alex Jones' Prisonplanet.

I have always found it ironic that while the conspiracy theorists constantly claim that they are the victim of some neo-fascist police state trying to eliminate any opposition, they often support countries that actually are like this (paging Hugo Chavez).

In the numerous troofer articles I have seen on this, I have not seen single one, which did not take the side of Russia in this conflict, most of which uncritically accept the word of the Russian side, as portrayed in their press. Ironically, the troofers, who claim that the mainstream media can not be trusted, and that even such benign sources as Popular Mechanics are in fact fronts for the neo-facist state, uncritically accept such Russian media sources as the increasingly inaccurately named Pravda, which has accomplished the amazing feat of actually having a decrease in respectability since the days when it was merely the propaganda mouthpiece of the Soviet Communist Party. In the Reporters Without Frontiers survey of freedom of the press, Russia ranked a less-than-stellar 144 out of 169 countries. Just ask Anna Politkovskaya what happens to Russian reporters who criticize the government.

Also amazing is the complete lack of Russian conspiracy theories. Russia managed to invade Georgia with an army of over 60,000 soldiers, less than 2 days after the onset of conflict. Where are the claims of a Russian "false-flag" operation, which we are told is the cause of every military conflict on the modern era? Where is Alex Jones, claiming that Russia had secretly stationed 40,000 troops in "Uzbeakistan" months before the war started?

The most bizarre troofer post I have seen on this actually is a conspiracy theory, not involving Russia, but the US and the Jews (who else) by none other than the self-styled Tony Stark of the truth movement himself, Karl Schwarz. I found out about this article in an e-mail forward from Kevin "I swear I am not a Holocaust denier" Barrett, ironically.

Uh...here's a hint to President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili ­ do not piss-off a Russian bear if you do not want to end up fighting it. Every other nation in that region of the world, including Armenia, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan have figured out they can trust the New Russia a hell of a lot more than they can trust the US or the Zionist zhids of Israel. Also, none of those nations consider themselves as 'European' nations.

Yeah, this is definitely a Georgie W. Bush plan that failed the moment he dreamed it up. Yet another very nasty, dirty diaper. More dead people, no secure pipeline. In fact, the only pipeline through Georgia and the only oil port and now piles of trash.

As a bit of an aside, Schwarz leaves no question of where he stands in the schema of anti-Semitism with this subsequent article on the subject.

As I explained in a recent article, the Russian word 'zhid' is many times worse than using the 'N' word for a Black in America.

Its literal meaning is along the lines of 'piece of shit Zionist Jew' - and NO the Russians do NOT apply the term to ALL Jews, and neither do I. Russians firmly differentiate between pious Jews of good heart and intent, and murderous lying deceitful Zionist thugs - who were, as we now know, directly responsible for a key role in the WWII suffering of their own alleged brethren. See the writings of the brave WWII Rabbi Michael Dov Weissmandl here:

They started using that word after about 30 million Russians had been slaughtered by Russian Zionist zhid communists and then lost another 20 million in World War II. Imagine that ­ 50 million dead at the hands of Zionist zhids...and yet they rant and whine like psychotic little bitches about 6 million they cannot document and about which they refuse all efforts to scientifically, academically investigate their claims about that number 'lost' in that alleged nightmare during WWII.

Dylan On Dylan

I couldn't get it to play all the way through, but apparently Dylan talks about his next film, which is on death. He does say that he's done with 9-11 and conspiracy theories, at least as a film topic.

I know this will cause some eyebrows to raise and some heads to explode, but I really don't dislike Dylan, Jason or Korey. They seem like nice guys; Pomeroo described them as affable. Wrong, yes, and occasionally insensitive jerks; so was I at their age.

Off-Topic Request

Go to this website and vote for Santisi Brothers under Questions #95 and #96. It's a Best of Phoenix competition sponsored by our friends at the Phoenix New Times, who were kind enough to put my mug on their front cover last August. Santisi Brothers is one of the great sports bars in the United States--great food, a terrific host and knockout waitresses. I play poker over there every weekend and if we get him voted #1 he's promised free pizza for the poker players.

Lots of Kooks Headed Back to College For Engineering Degree

Just kidding. But that doesn't mean they can't play a structural engineer on the internet.

Former Air America and current Nova-M radio host Mike Malloy:

Well, a report by engineers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in suburban Washington was released today and the cause was . . . a fire 400 feet away. Yeah. There you go. A fire up the street a ways. Got it. Wow. So simple. How'd I miss it? I'm embarrassed. According to the New York Times today " . . . investigators determined that debris from the falling twin towers ignited fires on at least 10 floors at 7 World Trade Center, which was about 400 feet north of where the city’s two tallest buildings once stood. The blazes burned out of control for six hours, as the city fire department, devastated by the collapse of the twin towers, abandoned its efforts to extinguish the fire, and the sprinkler system was incapacitated."

Alex Floum:

Because NIST claims that only column 79 was destroyed in the beginning of the collapse sequence, and because the same side of the building in which 79 was located was the bigger, heavier side of the building, two different influences should have ensured that the building tilted toward the bigger end.

Therefore, high school physics shows that - if column 79 had collapsed and explosives did not take out all of the other support columns at once - building 7 should have tipped towards one side.

Well, hey, if high school physics shows it, why not get the physics professor to opine on the topic?

NIST WTC 7 Reactions

Popular Mechanics, who've been at this longer than we have:

World Trade Center 7 Report Puts 9/11 Conspiracy Theory to Rest

I wish! Unfortunately the kooks will find one word in the 1000 pages of discussion and calculations to continue their irrational belief in controlled demolition.

Mike (Tofu)Berger of 911truth.org lives down to my expectations:

"Their explanation simply isn't sufficient. We're being lied to."

Translation: "Nobody will buy my crappy Improbable Collapse video!"

Alex Floum shows that a law degree doesn't necessarily indicate brilliance:

NIST said that WTC 7 fell at 40% slower than freefall speed. But it collapsed alot faster than it would have if the structural supports were not all blown away at the same instant. 40% slower isn't very impressive -- that's like arguing that a rock falling through concrete 40% slower than a rock falling through the air is perfectly normal.

Never mind that for the last seven years, Troofers have been talking about how the building fell faster than freefall speed (sic). Alex even cites nutbar supreme David L. (The Passengers are living it up in Tahiti) Griscom.

A Troofer encoded the press conference and you can watch it all here.

NY Times Covers WTC-7 NIST Conference

Solid article.

The investigators determined that debris from the falling twin towers ignited fires on at least 10 floors at 7 World Trade Center, which was about 400 feet north of where the city’s two tallest buildings once stood. The blazes burned out of control for six hours, as the city fire department, devastated by the collapse of the twin towers, abandoned its efforts to extinguish the fire, and the sprinkler system was incapacitated.

The heat from these fires, the investigators said, caused the beams on the lower floors of the east side of the tower to expand, ultimately causing a girder on the 13th floor to disconnect from a critical interior column that supported the building’s long floor spans. Once the 13th floor gave way, a cascade of floor failures started down to the fifth floor, leading to the overall collapse of the tower.

NIST Presentation On Now

I missed the first five minutes, but watching it now.

Thermal expansion is the culprit. There are some architects and engineers over at JREF and I will see what they say.

Why did it collapse relatively neatly? Because the initial collapse was in the center of the building and then the facade (exterior) of the building collapsed. Transfer trusses were not the culprit, nor were the diesel fuel tanks.

InfoWars.com nut on now. Like every kook he wants to read a book before he asks his question.

Videos located here. I assume the webcast will be archived at some point as well.

Alex Jones Claymation

This one's hilarious:



Not safe for work (profanity):



More by the same guy:



Somebody's got some real talent here. He's also done a couple other videos that I'd take too much crap for linking, but you can find them.

Hat Tip: Walter Ego

It's All Over

We've lost. With a slogan like "Legalize 9-11 Truth" and bike rides along the beach, the "Truthers" have won this round. Curse you, Dylan Avery!

I Am the Way, and the Truth and the Life...

Despite all the theologians in the 9-11 "Truth" Movement, we seldom hear any attempt to tie it into religion. Oh, Griffin did put out a book exhorting the faithful to embrace Trooferism, but it fizzled and is currently around #152,000 on Amazon.

Here's a post from a Truther suggesting a "mass" action on January 11, 2009:

I am proposing an international day of action on the 11th of January which will be a Sunday. This day as part of the "Eleventh Day of Every Month" campaign, I propose that we all simply go to church. To be more accurate to the steps of churches all around the world and challenge their congregations coming and going to look into 9/11 for the sake of all our souls.

And hey, quite the coincidence, somebody came up with the Truther Prayer:

The Prayer

Being that we are all intimately connected by our common inheritance of shared life on one planet and that our common shared higher intelligence governs life in both seen and unseen ways, and being that this common ancestry has its roots in cosmic intelligence or mind, and being that we therefore incarnate with this shared higher intelligence, we share its creative power as well. We are imbued with this creativity and its commonality.

As an outlet, voice, individual manifestation and aspiration for this cosmic intelligence, I claim the highest thought of calling forth truth telling on an unprecedented scale in the minds and hearts in high levels of government and other individuals. I call forth the energizing of personal courage where it matters the most to catalyze this movement of truth telling on a grand scale. I know that truth telling is at the foundation of healthy individual as well as a healthy societal life. I know that what has gone astray can be righted by a personal and public, fearless embrace of the truth, with safety for the truth teller.. The deepest space in the heart of all people knows this to be true and wants it revealed without delay. The refined and subtle physics for this is already in place and happening at this moment.

For this I give my deepest and profoundest thanks.

I release this prayer this intention this shared spark of light into the creative mind running through us all and through all of life. Happily, I know the glory of its fulfillment is accomplished already in ways unimaginable and realizable.

And so it is.

Amen.

Follow Up On PentaCon Nimrods

The writer of the OC Weekly piece talks about the reactions:

As I've already told Ranke and Marquis--and their fellow researcher Captain Bob from Pilots for 9/11 Truth--I'm interested in evidence, not innuendo. If they or anybody else reading this blog can provide any actual evidence showing what happened to the American Airlines jet they claim didn't hit the building--like the current whereabouts of the crew and passengers--I'll be the first to report it. Meanwhile, anyone who's interested in rehashing the debate can feel free to comment here.

Yet Another WAC-Job Busted

More evidence for the theory that We Are Change is a criminal organization, and for the "Willie Nelson" theory that most Truthers smoke way too much pot. Perry Shepard, the "organizer" for We Are Change Indiana had a little experience with the "jack-booting" thugs:

On August 13th 2008 Perry Shepard, the head organizer of WeAreChange Indiana, was about to turn in for the night when police suddenly knocked his door from it's hinges with several sharp hits from a ram. 8-10 'Law Enforcement' officers then proceeded push into the residence and to order Shepard to the ground and hold him there under duress and against his Rights. Angie Shepard, his wife and co-organizer, then emerged from a back bedroom and was thrust to the ground at gun point being ordered to stay there.

The officers, who seemed as if high on steroids and jack-booting, acted as if they had a vendetta against Perry as they pointlessly flirted with and made passes at Perry's wife. They even went so far as to relax around the house and make themselves at home, while questioning Angie, who is very attractive, as to why she would wish to live in such squalid means and with such scum as Perry?

Well, Perry certainly describes a Waco-like invasion. Why did it happen? According to the local news:

According to an LPD report, the search of the residence led to the seizure of marijuana, money and firearms.

Preliminary charges against both Shepards include maintaining a common nuisance, a class D felony, and possession of marijuana in an amount over 30 grams, also a class D felony.

Perry was also preliminarily charged with dealing marijuana within 1,000 feet of a school or public park, a class C felony.

Angie was also preliminarily charged with possession of paraphernalia, a class A misdemeanor.

But good news, Perry has worked out his defense:

Perry Shepard is now rigorously preparing his own defense against the 4 charges he currently has. He feels that there is nothing to fear from such fascist tactics, but Perry says that he is not defending himself or his family with his defense. Instead, he is going to utilize this chance to strike a blow against global tyranny and un-Constitutional actions by corrupt officials. He plans to expose the phony War on Drugs and the ensuing terror and corruption that stems directly from it. He further states that hemp has been unlawfully lumped in with the synthetic drugs and is seeking to strike a major blow against prohibition.

I'm sure it will work, especially if he points out the gold fringe on the flag in the courtroom.

Corsi: I Did Not Have Truther Relations With That Man

The obligatory non-denial denial:

"That the Obama campaign has chosen to portray me as a 9/11 Truther just shows how sloppy and inaccurate the research going into their rebuttal was," said Corsi, a senior staff writer for WND. "Let me make clear that I fully accept and endorse the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission that the Islamic hijackers who flew the airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were the sole cause of the attack."

But of course, nobody is accusing him of not believing that. There are many flavors of Trooferism, including the "let it happen but made it worse with controlled demolition," brand, which meshes with Corsi's interview on Alex Jones. And Corsi notes that he did write the article along those lines, but it was rejected for publication:

While Corsi claims in the interview that he intended to publish the story, the WND editorial panel rejected the article, with Corsi's agreement, after reaching a consensus that the research failed to answer several critical questions which left the results inconclusive.

"After the review of my draft article by the WND editorial staff, I agreed the piece should be withdrawn," Corsi affirmed.

"As I explained on the radio, I am typically interested in scientific evidence that lies outside the explanation of conventional hypotheses," he continued. "Science advances by rejecting hypotheses, not by establishing hypotheses. In other words, should somebody find convincing scientific evidence that challenges some aspect of any official report, that evidence will not automatically confirm the truth of an alternative hypothesis."

All of which fits his statements on Alex Jones. Except that he also said lots of stuff that Rosie O'Donnell would nod at, like the old standby that jet fuel fire can't melt steel/produce the microspheres. Remember Rosie? Her trooferism point starts at about 5:50, although you can tell she's building towards it all along:



I've got a hunch Dr Corsi remembers what happened to Rosie.

More Truthers and Conspiracy Kooks on the Cesspool

I mentioned Jerome Corsi's appearance on the Political Cesspool, a white supremacist radio show. Oddly enough, when I listened to it, for the most part it was not about slamming Obama; rather it was about Corsi's rather weird theories about abiotic oil.

But I did some browsing through their guest list (no link because of the objectionable nature of their site), and a few names popped out at me:

Colonel Donn De Grand Pre - Author, Air Force Pilot, Chairman of A.F.P. Readership Council
Charles Goyette - Syndicated Radio Personality
Professor David Ray Griffin - Author, 9/11 Truth Expert
Karen Kwiatowski - Former Pentagon Insider
Dr. Stanley Monteith - Writer, Radio Host
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts - Syndicated Columnist, Former Secretary of the Treasury

All either "Truthers" or those cited by them, including the Great God Griffin himself. And that's in addition to charming folks like Willis Carto, David Duke and Prussian Blue.

Forgotten, But Not Gone

Mike Gravel's name came up again over at 9-11 Blogger and Daily Kos. One of the (UK) Times' reporters on the Sibel Edmonds stories earlier this year is Joe Lauria. Lauria also helped Mike Gravel pen his inevitable memoirs so that he would have something to point to in case people responded "Mike Who?" Hilariously, the book, entitled A Political Oddysey, released in May, is currently, shall we say, not on the best-seller list at Amazon. It's #298,907 in books. It has five five-star reviews, one of which is by Mr Lauria himself, with helpful tidbits like this:

The fear mongering and militarism of the 1950s were back, the cloud under which we still live. The victors in that militarist restoration started with small probes: a landing on Grenada here, an invasion of Panama there, working themselves up to a limited ground campaign in Iraq in 1991. By 2003--just 23 years later--the resurgent militarists, with support from their courtiers in Congress and the press, felt bold enough to try for a Vietnam-sized invasion--in Iraq.

So Lauria's kind of a nut himself, and he connects two other nuts; Sibel Edmonds and Mike Gravel. It makes that Sunday Times piece I linked to months ago make a little more sense; I always wondered how they got suckered into publishing Edmonds' nuttiness.

Lauria's also a blogger at the HuffnPuff, and here's his latest conspiracy theorizing about the Russian invasion of Georgia:

Who benefits most from painting this a revival of Soviet-era aggression?

John McCain.

Ah, cui bono, the favorite of conspiracy kooks everywhere.

Update: Title of post changed by suggestion of longtime friend of the blog, Triterope.

Yet More Corsi Nuttery

Just came across this one a half hour ago. Corsi and Alex Jones from about a month ago, are talking about Obama's rather silly statement in June:

"We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded."

Now most conservative bloggers took one look at that and laughed. We've got what, about a million people in the US military, and a military budget that's probably around $400 billion. The idea that we should add another million civilians, give them lots of sophisticated weaponry, and spend $400 billion a year on it, well, it's just risible. But not Corsi and Jones, who think Obama's deadly serious:



As I've said before, I'm a McCain supporter. But the idea that Obama's seriously proposing ending Posse Comitatus is nutty.

And to show that Corsi is a non-partisan kook, here he is calling for Bush's impeachment over the North American Union crap:



Hat Tip: Sweetness & Light, via LGF.

Sweetness and Light notes something about the good doctor:

Moreover, Mr. Corsi has made a science (and a lot of money) out of scraping together other people’s work and marketing it as his own.

Heheh, sounds like he would fit right in with "Truthers" like Richard Gage, David Ray Griffin and Dylan Avery.

NIST to Release WTC-7 Report on Thursday

Details here; apparently there is going to be a webcast:

Gaithersburg, Md. -- The Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will hold a media briefing and live public webcast on Aug. 21, 2008, in Gaithersburg, Md., on the findings and recommendations from its building and fire safety investigation of the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 (WTC 7). WTC 7 was a 47-story building that fell nearly seven hours after the World Trade Center (WTC) towers collapsed following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The NIST WTC 7 report will present the probable collapse sequence for the building and will provide recommendations for improving building and fire safety in other buildings similar to WTC 7. The draft WTC 7 investigation report released at the briefing will be open for public comment through noon Eastern Daylight Time on Sept. 15, 2008.

When: Thursday, Aug. 21, 2008 11 a.m. - Noon Eastern Daylight Time

Well, this should ensure more conspiracy theorizing, especially when the goofs see this name on the press release:

Credentialed journalists who wish to register for the media briefing should contact Ben Stein....

Ben Stein?

Truther Corsi a No-Show On White People Radio

He backed out of an appearance despite reconfirming:

Jerome Corsi, who had confirmed his appearance on today’s Political Cesspool broadcast even after the recent media firestorm erupted, had his publicist send us an email canceling his appearance, which we received only a few minutes before his segment was scheduled to start. This is the only information we received, in the subject line:

we need to cancel for tonight travel plans have changed

and:

It just goes to show what incredible pressure everyone in public life is under to never have anything to do with anyone who speaks up for the interests of white people.

Not many people can stand up to the pressure. Hopefully, in the future, we’ll continue to be able to book guests who can.

Rachel Maddow lays into Corsi for the errors in his book and his pushing of the North American Union nuttery, but completely neglects to mention his Troofer beliefs:



Could it possibly be because Maddow herself has flirted with Trutherism in the past?

Jamieson Makes It Official; No Ballot Initiative for 2008

These folks are the Marv Throneberrys of citizen activism:

Petitioners for the NYC 9/11 Ballot Initiative have now gathered in excess of 27,000 signatures of NY City registered voters who are in favor of the creation of a new, independent investigation into the 9/11 attacks.

However, since a minimum of 30,000 valid signatures is required plus an extra margin of several thousand is recommended, it appears that time has run out to meet the Sept. 4th deadline for getting this public referendum onto the Nov. 2008 ballot.

Although this is a great disappointment to the dozens of dedicated people working on the Initiative, they have also accepted that it may be a blessing in disguise. The presidential race would have drawn so much media attention as to overshadow this effort to establish a new, independent, and impartial “truth commission”.

The Truthers certainly have had their share of blessings in disguise; I think most of them are hoping that some day a blessing shows up without the mask of failure.

A&E Conference Call

This time I looked up and was startled to realize it was 11:10! Time for a conference call with Richard the Box Boy Gage!

So I dialed the call-in number and added the conference number. There were two others in the conference. I'm chuckling already, but it gets even better. One was Richard Gage and the other was the woman from his group. Yep, 10 minutes into this massive call for help and there are no 9-11 Truth activists on the line. Eventually Blair shows up and one other Truther. In the meantime, they're asking who's on the line, first and last name. I didn't respond, and Gage told his buddy to knock me off the line. DOH!

Another Troofer Book Attacking Obama

Jerome Corsi is apparently not the only truther with a thing against Barrack Obama, with former Larouche and permanent conspiracy nut Webster Tarpley having his own contribution, with the title of Obama - The Postmodern Coup


Obama is bizarrely described in the Amazon blurb as:

Obama's economics are pure Skull & Bones/Chicago school austerity and sacrifice for American working families, all designed to bail out the bankrupt Wall Street elitist financiers who own Obama. Obama's lemming legions and Kool-Aid cult candidacy hearken back to Italy in 1919-1922, and raise the question of postmodern fascism in the United States today.

Huh? The only thing Obama has in common with Alex P. Keaton's favorite economist is geography. Among other examples, Obama has repeatedly said he will raise taxes, regardless of what economists say and that fairness, not economic freedom is the primary concern, a philosophy which could not be farther from that of Milton Friedman and the Chicago School. But as you all know, facts and logic mean nothing to a conspiracy theorist.

Hey, I am no fan of Obama, but I don't want these idiots on my side.

Alex Jones: Corsi's Trutherism Mainstream

Well, the pushback from the Troofers has begun:

Here’s a newsflash for the New York Times and the mindless Obama cult members who think that questioning 9/11 is “controversial” and “undercuts credibility” - skepticism of the official 9/11 story is shared by the majority of Americans - according to the New York Times’ own poll on the subject!

In fact, it undercuts Obama’s credibility, in particular his meaningless sound bite platitude to stand for change, that he and his minions would so aggressively support an establishment position on 9/11 that even the government-appointed 9/11 Commission disbelieved.

An October 2006 CBS/New York Times poll found that a mere 16% of Americans thought the U.S. government was telling the truth about 9/11. A further 53% thought the White House was “hiding something” and 28% said they were “mostly lying”.

Of course what Jones' flunky Paul Watson doesn't mention there is that the 53% cited, thought the government was "mostly telling the truth but hiding something", which I doubt Alex and the rest of the fruitcakes would agree was their position.

Look, this is easy. If Corsi's position on 9-11 is so mainstream, how come he left it out of his preface (essentially a c.v.) in Obama's book? Surely he would fly his Troofer flag proudly? In fact, he didn't even mention his fruitcake position against the imaginary North American Union.

Hilarious Article on Pentacon Boys

This is quite entertaining.

They showed up with a couple of other people Walter had never spoken with: Craig Ranke, a fast talker with wild eyes, and Aldo Marquis, a heavyset guy who didn’t talk much. The two said they were helping Avery and Pickering with research for their film. Walter chatted casually with the pair, and at one point, he realized that Ranke was surreptitiously tape-recording the conversation.

That was weird, he thought. And increasingly, so was the conversation itself. Although Pickering and Avery seemed relatively normal, Ranke and Marquis appeared to be on a mission to prove that the Pentagon plane crash never happened. They wouldn’t listen to anything that contradicted this notion.

It's a fairly long article, but well worth the read for the paranoia. The writer clearly did some excellent research on this piece; better than 90% of the MSM coverage of the 9-11 Troofers.

Jerome Corsi, Truther, Take Two

Boloboffin's been doing a great job with this:



I am surprised that none of the liberal blogs have been picking up on this situation. Look, I support John McCain; I was among the very first Republican bloggers to endorse his campaign, the day after the 2006 elections. I do not support Barack Obama. But Corsi's toxic, and sooner or later everybody's going to realize that fact.

I can't push this up the line like I could if it was about the author of a book slamming conservatives. So if you're a liberal and have some cred as a commenter at a major liberal blog, I suggest promoting this video.

UPDATE: The New York Times' Caucus blog gets the story:

Among the follow-up efforts to Jerome R. Corsi’s “Unfit for Command,” which inspired the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attacks on Senator John Kerry in 2004, is “Obama Nation.” But the conservative commentator’s book about Senator Barack Obama appears to have distracted him for another project he was planning in January: exposing what he calls the government’s lies about the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

UPDATE II: Turns out Alex Jones' show was one of the more reputable outlets where Corsi appeared:

Perhaps Corsi’s most telling appearance, however, has been on The Political Cesspool, an overtly racist, anti-Semitic radio show hosted by self-avowed white nationalist James Edwards. Corsi was interviewed on the Cesspool on July 20 and is scheduled to appear again this Sunday, August 17, joining a recent guest roster that has included Christian Identity pastor Pete Peters, Holocaust denier Mark Weber and former Klan boss David Duke.

Sounds like he'll fit right in.

Will Judy Woods Become Troofer Mainstream?

I doubt it, but this story is certainly going to make some of the goofs sit up:

Boeing announced today the first ever test firing of a real-life ray gun that could become US special forces' way to carry out covert strikes with "plausible deniability."

In tests earlier this month at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, Boeing's Advanced Tactical Laser -- a modified C-130H aircraft -- "fired its high-energy chemical laser through its beam control system. The beam control system acquired a ground target and guided the laser beam to the target, as directed by ATL's battle management system."

"By firing the laser through the beam control system for the first time, the ATL team has begun to demonstrate the functionality of the entire weapon system integrated aboard the aircraft," Boeing exec Scott Fancher said, in a statement.

Now They Get Coverage...

This is hilarious. Yesterday it was New York Magazine, today, it's the Gothamist, covering Les Jamieson's failed attempt to get a new 9-11 Commission on the ballot. However, true to form, they both fail to report the failure.

They currently have over 25,000 signatures from New York City residents, and volunteers are fanning out around town, with another (rival?) group, We Are Change, staking out the World Trade Center site (pictured above). So are they just a crowd of unhinged conspiracy theorists locked into a reflexive, anti-establishment world view that’s as paranoid as it is adolescent? Or, rather, vigilant citizens with the clarity see through the all jingoistic lies that thinly veil Dick Cheney’s treasonous agenda? Discuss!

Never mind that Jamieson has thrown in the towel on 2008 on his website.

9-11 Truther's Book Debuts at #1 on NY Times Bestseller List

(Welcome, Ace of Spades, Conservative Grapevine and Damien Penny readers!)

But you can probably guess the punchline: It's not a 9-11 Truth book.

In the summer of 2004 the conservative gadfly Jerome R. Corsi shot to the top of the best-seller lists as co-author of “Unfit for Command,” the book attacking Senator John Kerry’s record on a Vietnam War Swift boat that began the larger damaging campaign against Mr. Kerry’s war credentials as he sought the presidency.

(snip)

Significant parts of the book, whose subtitle is “Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality,” have already been challenged as misleading or false in the days since its debut on Aug. 1. Nonetheless, it is to make its first appearance on The New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction hardcovers this Sunday — at No. 1.

Corsi embraced 9-11 Trooferism in January of this year on Alex Jones, citing the microspheres argument of Steven Jones:



Here's Corsi on Corsi, also from the Times. Somehow he neglects to mention his 9-11 nuttery. That's not particularly surprising; he also forgets that he bravely led the charge against the North American Union in 2007.

UPDATE: The NY Times' Caucus Blog runs with the story:

Among the follow-up efforts to Jerome R. Corsi’s “Unfit for Command,” which inspired the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attacks on Senator John Kerry in 2004, is “Obama Nation.” But the conservative commentator’s book about Senator Barack Obama appears to have distracted him from another project he was planning in January: exposing what he calls the government’s inadequate explanations about the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

And it turns out that Alex Jones' show is not the most objectionable outlet where Corsi has appeared:

Perhaps Corsi’s most telling appearance, however, has been on The Political Cesspool, an overtly racist, anti-Semitic radio show hosted by self-avowed white nationalist James Edwards. Corsi was interviewed on the Cesspool on July 20 and is scheduled to appear again this Sunday, August 17, joining a recent guest roster that has included Christian Identity pastor Pete Peters, Holocaust denier Mark Weber and former Klan boss David Duke.

Jamieson: Epic Failure

Well, as predicted here, the NYC Ballot Initiative failed to gather the needed signatures, so Les is bravely fighting onward:

Although we hoped to be ready for the Nov. 4th, 2008 general election, we would have needed at least 2-4 weeks longer in order to submit everything to New York City Council. Therefore, we will continue to gather petition signatures into the next year with the goal of reaching 100,000 signatures and establish a powerful mandate showing the voters of New York City are calling for the creation of a new Commission that will conduct an authentic and comprehensive investigation of 9/11.

Update: Ed Asner's participation in this commission is the subject of a New York Magazine brief:

The group must collect 30,000 signatures by September 4 to get the Council to consider their measure; they say they have around 25,000.

Not Why We Do It, But....

Nice to hear about nonetheless:

I was sucked in by this 911 conspiracy crap for over two years of my life. It nearly destroyed my sanity. I watched loose change and it really disturbed me. After that I watched everything I could on the subject, except what contradicted it. I didn't know there was so much stuff out there that does. It was at a very vulnerable time in my life when first saw loose change, and I think that's what gave it the impact it did in my mind. Anyway, I am so relieved to be free of this madness at last. I owe it to Screw 911 Mysteries for this. 911 ' truth ' really is like a cult. It was hard to break out of it.

More at the link. Kudos to the Doc and Kate.

Like I always say, we don't look at our function as deprogramming. We're here as a resource for those who might be on the fence, who've just seen Loose Change or 9-11 Mysteries and thinks that there might be something wrong with it, but that it seemed pretty convincing.

And kudos to the anonymous letter-writer, who's gotten his life back!

Fabled Enemas

Here's what Jason and Korey have been working on this year:



First error? At 11 seconds in:



It's Springmann, who, by the way, was the guy who rubber-stamped the visas for 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9-11. But he's a hero. Correction: Several commenters have stated that Springmann was not in Jeddah in 2000-2001, that his service in Jeddah ended in the late 1980s. I got my impression from Springmann himself, who writes:

After airplanes flew into the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon, The Los Angeles Times reported that 15 of the 19 alleged hijackers got their U.S. visas from the American Consulate General at Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, a consulate where I had served as chief of the Visa Section.

But here Springmann clarifies:

My experience as Chief of the Visa Section in Jeddah (1987-88) persuaded me that until all CIA personnel have been removed from diplomatic cover, the State Department will be incapable of fulfilling its responsibilities.

So Springmann's related experience ended 13 years before 9-11? Heheh, well Robin Horden's ended 20 years earlier, so by comparison Springmann is right up to date.

Substantively, this looks like stuff that the Troofers were talking about in 2003. Tim Osman? Seriously?

More On the Paranoid Schizophrenic

The guy who acknowledged on the Richard Gage teleconference that he had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic is Michael Cook. The story rang a bell in my mind and so I went digging for it this afternoon. The best detailed summary of the story is here.

Basically, the guy was a 9-11 Troofer and special education teacher. Like all Troofers, he was convinced he was taking a big risk, and so he got himself a concealed-carry permit. But he felt he had to let his teaching assistant know about the danger they were in:

I had been giving my aide, and sometimes her daughter, a ride home after school and I knew that to discontinue this would be a considerable inconvenience for her. I was very willing to continue giving her a ride, but I felt apprehensive that she was not aware of the circumstance she was in while riding with me so I tried to inform her somewhat and showed her my pistol to emphasize that I was serious about this, that this was reality. She "freaked out" and took this information to my boss, who took it to the police.

So the guy gets taken to the flight deck, which means he no longer qualifies for his weapons permit. But he's eventually released, and might have not gotten into further trouble had he not made a silly mistake:

I made a mistake, a poor choice of words, in an email on 5/18. What I should have said was something like, "Eventually, President Bush will be charged with Treason, be found guilty by a jury of his peers, and be shot by a firing squad." What I did say was, "Eventually, he will be shot for treason." So, the Secret Service came to see me.

Hey, it could happen to anybody. Cook was eventually charged with a weapons violation. Then he made another mistake:

I was less than enthusiastic about this lawyer's performance and fired him, following the advice of a 9/11 Truth aware lawyer I was connected with thanks to Dr. Jim Fetzer, just prior to a pretrial hearing on 10/6/06. This lawyer very promptly contacted me and I allowed him to remain in my service.

Hoo-boy, you can see the fly heading rapidly for the ointment there, right? So his 9-11 Truth lawyer suggested a competency hearing. Cook went back to the rubber rooms, where he was found incompetent to stand trial. So he stayed in involuntary incarceration at the loony bin until September 2007.

But apparently the prosecutor wanted to restore him to competency by getting the shrinks to medicate him with anti-psychotic drugs. A judge refused to issue the order, and eventually Cook was released.

Let me say here that Cooks account sounds reasonable, and he does not write like an insane person. However, qualified medical personnel obviously disagreed.

The Greatest Chart Ever, Ever

(Click to enlarge). If that's not big enough, here's the original.

That's a special brand of wack.

Another Handy Chart

These guys are pretty good at charts. Everything else, not so much.

First Part of Conference Call

Notes from the Real World

Time for some Euro-blogging. While I enjoy writting for the blog, it is also nice to get away from it for a while, away from the surreal world that is trutherism. I was having a couple of pints of the local brew the other night with a Russian economics professor and an American, both of whom identified themselves as libertarians (group consensus Ayn Rand good, Ron Paul idiot), but neither of them bought into any of the NWO theories, I was too embarassed to get into the subject any more.

So once again I still can't find any nutjobs in the real world, it is still just an Internet phenomenon, like Paris Hilton sex videos or e-mail spam.

Incidently, the Russians I have run into all seem to think that invading Georgia was a really bad idea. Call Alex Jones.

AE 9-11 Troofer Conference Call

I logged on precisely at 11:00 and found myself hearing that I was the only person on the call. WTF? So I redialed to make sure I hadn't got it wrong and this time I heard that there was one other person in the room. There was a boop, and another Troofer came on from Vegas, the two of them started talking about how much they loved being Troofers. The guy from Vegas claimed he was a Troofer as soon as the second plane hit, but another guy topped it by saying that he was a Troofer from the moment the explosions went off in the basement.

Gage didn't get on for like 10 minutes, and so the lines were open for general conversation. Troy was on and a couple other debunkers were on as well. Troy led with "How many of the hijackers are still alive", and one of the lunatics said that he thought they all were; after all, he's never seen a flight manifest with them on it. Troy or another one asked why they haven't taken their evidence to the cops, and it really got hilarious. One guy said he had, but he got put away for a year, and was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. I remarked dryly, "Imagine that!" and it got even funnier as the Troofers all commiserated with the guy, seemingly indicating that such diagnoses are not uncommon.

Gage got on, and Troy or a guy in Chicago started shouting over him. (Correction, it was the guy in Chicago, not Troy). Gage suggested to a gal that she get on as a moderator and mute all the other callers. Then he realized that would mute him as well, and that he would have to be the moderator. This took some time and there was general chatter.

So we're a good 15 minutes or so into this fiasco, and I decided to call back and see what the current number of people was on this "massive" conference call. There were 23 participants at that point, of which at least four were not sympathetic to Gage and his kooks, and two were Gage and the gal working with him. So out of the entire country, 17 Troofers had called in to lend their support.

Gage claimed to have over 100 architects and engineers "in queue", waiting to have their credentials checked. After that he started launching into his spiel and it got old pretty quickly.

Nico & Luke At Ground Zero

It's amusing to see Luke getting his own tactics shoved in his face and seeing him whining and moaning about it to the po-lice.

I believe this video was created by Walter Ego.

2001: A Spaced Idiocy

Wow, how did I miss this one? I know, I know, probably because I forgot to clear my email box out.

The 9-11 Truthers done as Sci-Fi (PG-rated):



Very funny in parts.

Blast From The Past

One of my favorite moments in 9-11 Truthiness ever. Note that the final demonstration is not substantively different from Box Boy Richard Gage's famed experiment:

Conference Call for Troof

Box Boy Richard Gage is having a little conference call tomorrow:

Action Steps:

1. Join us on the Massive A&E Outreach Conference Call

this Saturday, August 9th at 11:00 am (PDT).

712-432-3900 Access Code is: 9524173#

It would definitely be a shame if a bunch of disruptors were to call in and ask questions like "Should I include a link to this video?"



This is in pursuit of his desperate attempt to get 580 more Architects and Engineers to sign up with the A&E fruitcakes. By September 11, 2008.

Here's what I expect Richard to be doing on September 12th:



(the lyrics, not the video).

Luke Rudkowski's Greatest Hits

Of course, excepting the ones that came out of the bong. There is something very hypnotic about these mashups.

NYC Petition Update: Jamieson Claims 25,000 Signatures

And he has a great idea as to how to get 15,000-20,000 in the next seven days. Just get 15-20 signatures in the next couple of days (assuming you're a New York City resident). Oh, and get 1,000 of your friends to do the same thing. Incidentally, the ballot initiative site claims they're at 25,000 now, but a current post over at 9-11 Blogger was apparently more honest:

WAC-Job Truther Jason Gerhard Sentenced to 20 Years in Brown Case

That's gotta hurt! His lawyer had requested a sentence of 7 years.

Discussion ongoing over at Quatloos.

More coverage here. Sounds like Gerhard got more time than sentencing guidelines recommended because he couldn't keep his dumbass mouth shut:

“This is a kangaroo court,” Gerhard said, when he was offered an opportunity to speak on his own behalf. “How could anyone with half a brain think of imprisoning me for exercising my constitutional rights?”

Kangaroo Court? I got a hunch Jason's cellmate is going to be bouncing up and down on him like a kangaroo.

Gerhart is a 9-11 Troofer and nutjob whose MySpace buddies include Alex Jones, We Are Change, and Luke Rudkowski. He participated and aided the Browns in their attempted standoff against the feds for income tax evasion.

Hat Tip to an emailer whose email I accidentally deleted. Sorry I can't give you credit, but thanks!

Arabesque Admits Truthers Have Nothing

Update: The post is no longer at 9-11 Blogger. Embarrassment at the overall effort or just a correction of the point about Myers? You can read the post here.

My god, what a mess. Arabesque starts out reiterating a Mark Roberts challenge:

"The 9/11 "Truth" movement has made a few hundred significant claims in the past few years, none of which have been true. Don't believe me? Then name a significant claim that you get right, and prove it."

Of course, I always borrow Deb Burlingame's joke here; they seem to get the date of the attacks right and nothing else.

But that's not where Arabesque is going:

I'd like to take up this challenge. While it is true that 9/11 activists have not always promoted credible information, it is also true that the official story is obviously problematic. I could sit here all day poking holes in the official "conspiracy theory" as many have done, but I will just ask Mr. Roberts three easy questions:

Errr, I thought you were going to come up with a claim, which my dictionary defines in part as:

7.an assertion of something as a fact

He brings up the fact that NORAD offered three different explanations for what happened on 9-11, and that Richard Myers was promoted three days after the attacks. How could they promote Myers three days after the attacks when he came up with three different explanations?

Answer: Because he did not offer three different explanations in the first three days. It only emerged that NORAD had lied after Kean and Hamilton released their book on the 9-11 Commission, after Myers had retired. Correction: A commenter points out that Mark Dayton, a Senator from Minnesota, caught the lies in 2004, only three years after Myers was promoted. The point stands, and Arabesque completely blew the detail that Myers was in charge of NORAD; in fact General Ralph Eberhart was in charge on 9-11.

And of course, Arabesque implies that the planes should have been intercepted, which is ridiculous. Once again, the most warning that NORAD had that any of the planes had been hijacked was for Flight 11, in which instance they were warned only 9 minutes before the plane crashed.

This song sounds like it was written by the Troofers:

A Change from Our Nuts

Rachel Lucas encounters a few different ones. Chemtrail evidence in a water sprinkler? Is there a light behind the moon? Hat Tip: Longtime Commenter N O'Brain.

More Troofer Science

Egad, this is an atrocious article on a silly paper by Ryan and Jones.

The standard way to demolish a steel-framed building is to apply cutter charges to the supporting beams. The cutter charges consist of finely-powdered aluminum mixed with iron oxide, with added sulfur. This mixture contains both fuel and oxidant – it needs no air – and it burns hot enough to melt steel. The trade name for this product is “Thermate.”

This is the standard way? Where did he come up with that claim?

Another anomaly in the WTC collapse was the violent explosions. Firemen reported earthshaking blasts from the basement before collapse, and the impact areas in the upper floorss of the buildings exploded just at the onset of collapse. Jet fuel burns but cannot explode.

Here's a picture of jet fuel not exploding:



Hilarious.

Police Blotter

The Troofers are in for a rough month in court. German (Gary) Talis' court date for assaulting a girl in a wheelchair is August 13. Bruno from the LA WAC-jobs is scheduled for trial on charges of trespassing on August 14. Jason Robo, the goofball who disrupted a flight from Boston to Salt Lake City, will have a pretrial hearing on August 19.

Troofer Calls Troy

I think this was the guy who came up with the "Attention K-Mart Shoppers, 9-11 was an inside job!" idea. As you can see, he's got nothing; that idiotic claim about the FBI not having any evidence... how freaking stupid are these people?

John Lear: The Martians Will Be Holograms

Good lord, he makes Paula look sensible!

Hat Tip: Walter Ego

Another Pathetic Attempt by Jones and Ryan

Their latest paper has been published in, of all things, an environmentalist journal.

Get this bit:

EPA’s Erik Swartz stated that 1,3-DPP was present at levels “that dwarfed all others.” Swartz went on to say—“We’ve never observed it in any sampling we’ve ever done” (Garrett 2003).

Ooooh, very mysterious! But when you click the link to the original source, you find:

One molecule, described by the EPA's Erik Swartz, was present at levels "that dwarfed all others": 1,3-diphenylpropane. "We've never observed it in any sampling we've ever done," Swartz said. He said it was most likely produced by the plastic of tens of thousands of burning computers.

Bolding added for emphasis. So there is no big mystery at all. Nice little quote mine, there, Dr Jones!

Over at JREF, there is discussion of whether the paper was peer-reviewed (there is no evidence of that), and it is noted that the editorial staff is heavy with professors from the University of Guelph, which is a noted hotbed of 9-11 Troof, with two members of Jones' Scholars for 9-11 Truth and Justice coming from that University and two others cited on the Patriots Question 9-11 professors page.

Co-Editors-in-Chief:
Peter G. Kevan
Depts. of Environmental Biology & Botany, University of Guelph, ON, Canada
Jack T. Trevors
Dept. of Environmental Biology, University of Guelph, ON, Canada

Associate Editorial and Advisory Board:

Ernesto I. Badano, Puebla, Mexico; F.J. Egea González, Almeria, Spain; Marc Habash, Guelph, ON, Canada; M. Kassas, Giza, Egypt; Jonathan Knight, Berkshire, UK; M. Lisowski, Charleston, IL, USA; J.W.S. Longhurst, Bristol, UK; H.F. Ludwig, Bangkok, Thailand; J.F. Potter, Guildford, UK; G. Rees, Farnborough, UK; P. Sibley, Guelph, ON, Canada; U.E. Simonis, Berlin, Germany; M. Pugh Thomas, Liverpool, UK; V.G. Thomas, Guelph, ON, Canada; D. Waite, Regina, SK, Canada

Another Troy Phone Call Prank

Better than anything the Truthers are doing these days. Some very funny moments in here. I think Troy is finding his metier!

Local and Loco

Blair Gadsby, on his 16th minute:

Numbers Watch

Just a couple brief bits that didn't seem worthy of their own posts:

1. 9-11 Flogger's traffic continues its collapse at freefall speed. July 2007 traffic was 231,100; last month they did 169,260, a 30% decline.

2. After our post last weekend about the pathetic ($22.22) fundraising for the 9-11-08 festivities from the We Are Change (budget $20,000), somebody (my guess is with the initials A.J.) went over there and plopped down another $500. Six more days have passed and the current total is $522.22.

3. Box Boy Gage claims to be at 419 licensed architecture and engineering professionals in his clown posse. That's up 24 since May and 8 in the last 11 days, a substantial improvement. It should leave him only 550 members short of his goal of 1000 by September 11, 2008.



4. Les Jamieson's latest deadline for signatures for the NYC 9-11 Ballot Initiative has come and gone with no word from Les on how many signatures they actually garnered. However, we know they were only at about 20% of their target of 100,000 signatures last month. Yet another failure by the Troofers, their 37th consecutive fiasco.