Amusing 9/11 Blogger Comments of the Day

I cracked up reading this comment in a thread at 911 Blogger on Jesse Ventura's new show.

I think it is obvious that most of us here at blogger have ABOVE average intelligence. If Jesse's Conspiracy Theory reaches those in the middle of the bell curve then I applaud the effort.

Yeah, real bunch of geniuses there....

On a related note. From another post.

Last week’s breakin at Senator Mary Landrieu’s office in the New Orleans Federal
Building was more than it seemed, much more. All of the 4 arrested had been trained by the CIA and, possibly, Israel. One arrested, Stan Dai, is listed as an Operations Officer of the Department of Defense Irregular Warfare Program and a known expert and lecturer on, not only surveillance but explosives training, assassinations and “false flag operations.” If you wanted a plane to crash, an enemy to get sick and die or a building to blow up, Dai would be the man to know how to make it happen. Problem is, his skills were being used as part of a criminal conspiracy inside the United States against members of our own government.

For those of you who have not been following this story, this was the result of a guerilla journalism effort launched by James OKeefe, the guy who embarassed ACORN by getting them to give him advice on his prospective career as a pimp. Apparently we are to believe that this brain trust thinks this guy is an elite CIA operative.

How Are Truthers Like Rubber Duckies?

A fine article by Michael Shermer.

The belief that a handful of unexplained anomalies can undermine a well-established theory lies at the heart of all conspiratorial thinking (that includes, in addition to Holocaust denial, creationism and crank theories of physics), and is easily refuted by noting that beliefs and theories are not built on single facts alone, but on a convergence of evidence from multiple lines of inquiry. All of the “evidence” for a 9/11 conspiracy falls under the rubric of this fallacy.

Indeed. The Truthers are also like the IRA; they believe that the government has to be right about everything, while they only have to be right once.

KSM Trial Moving from NYC

When will the conspiracy theories start?

The Obama administration on Friday gave up on its plan to try the Sept. 11 plotters in Lower Manhattan, bowing to almost unanimous pressure from New York officials and business leaders to move the terrorism trial elsewhere.

One suggested locale: Guantanamo Bay.

The trial of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed won't be held in lower Manhattan and could take place in a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, sources said last night.

Administration officials said that no final decision had been made but that officials of the Department of Justice and the White House were working feverishly to find a venue that would be less expensive and less of a security risk than New York City.

Korey's Response

I'm certainly not going to criticize him for making a $750 donation to the Fealgood Foundation; but it is confirmation that the Avery Foundation is not going to be operating anytime soon despite the "in the process of filing paperwork" claims.

Update: Commenter Patrick from Cincinnati encouraged me to do a little more digging on this, and I noticed that the receipt is addressed to "Third I Records". I did a little investigoogling and noticed that Dylan apparently created this "record label" a few years back.

Third I Records was created by Dylan Avery to showcase alternative musical talent speaking Truth to Power.

The Wayback Machine shows that the domain was last active in 2008.

Just Alex Being Alex

It was a nice, peaceful protest rally before Mr Jones poked his snout in. Note in particular that these people are natural allies of Alex; there's even a bunch of "We Are Changing Diapers" members there.



Some great entertainment value here.



While we're on the topic of Alex, I can add a tidbit of information from Matt Brown. One of the things that always amazed me (and came up in several radio interviews with Dylan) is that while Jones was an executive producer of Loose Change Final Cut, he had no involvement whatsoever with Loose Change 9-11 An American Coup. Dylan refused to explain the circumstances, but apparently Jones failed to include reasonably standard language in the contract giving him a claim on derivative works or sequels. Jones apparently blustered and threatened lawsuits when he found out about AAC, but never followed through.

Hat tip to my poker buddy Shane, who mentioned this to me last night just prior to getting his Aces cracked twice in succession. That was painful to watch, even if it did put me in the money!

Deadbeat Dylan?

I spent an interesting hour on the phone last night with Matthew Brown. Matt was the executive producer of Loose Change 9-11 An American Coup; his name appears in the opening credits in between Korey Rowe and Dylan Avery. Matt shared quite a bit of behind-the-scenes information with me which I will cover in several subsequent posts. But I thought I would start with a discussion of the Avery Foundation. As some of you may recall, this was supposed to be a charitable organization that Dylan claimed would end up donating more to the first responders on 9-11 than Greenglass did with United 93 and Oliver Stone did with World Trade Center.

Well, you know where you can take that pledge; to the bank of broken promises, where Dylan's already overdrawn. But it gets worse. Matt mentioned that he had located a few high net worth individuals who were prepared to donate around $230,000 to Dylan's charity to get it started. That's right, almost a quarter of a million dollars, which could have been helping first responders as we speak. But, as you can probably guess, Dylan and Korey didn't get the paperwork completed to set up the charity, and the proposed donors found other places to give their money.

Up until recently, the Avery Foundation's website had a little note saying that they were in the process of filing the necessary paperwork; hilariously, it doesn't say that any longer. Instead, there's this:


Yep, Dylan and Korey are refusing to pay their executive producer the money he's owed from the sales of the DVDs. Incidentally, Matt mentioned that LC911AC has sold about 15,000 copies, about half of those to the Netflix DVD rental company.

I will have much more information to share over the next few days, but this was too delicious not to post on immediately.

Update: Microcinema Interational writes in the comments:

Please note that neither Microcinema nor writer-director Dylan Avery or producer Korey Rowe are associated in any way to www.theaveryfoundation.org. If you would like to visit the official website for The Avery Foundation, go to: www.theaveryfoundation.com.

Should you be interested in speaking directly to the President of The Avery Foundation, please write to: info@microcinema.com, Attention - Patrick Kwiatkowski.

But of course, if you go to www.theaveryfoundation.com, it redirects to the same page as www.theaveryfoundation.org.

Update II: Well, they fixed that. Of course there going to have some work to do to fix Google, which will show the Avery Foundation here for awhile.

Not All Debunking Is Created Equal

This was apparently created by a "Truther" to "debunk" CIT. But note that he completely blows the part starting about 1:10 where he claims that Flight 77 flew on a "North of Citgo" path. I do like the point that he makes about how CIT showed witnesses the impact point but avoided telling them where the light poles were located later in the video.

More South of Citgo Witnesses Ignored by CIT

I'm shocked, shocked I tell you, to discover that the CIT-heads are full of it with regard to the account of Dawn Vignola.

At the time, there was only vacant land and buildings under construction in between their building and the Pentagon, and these did not obstruct their view of the heliport. Since then, shorter buildings have been built in that area, but they still can still clearly see the upper floors of the Pentagon. In person everything appears much larger and clearer than it does on the accompanying video; when the camera is zoomed in, it actually gives a better idea of how large everything appears in person. Dawn and Tim had a clear view of the impact side and the airspace over the Pentagon, and would have seen the plane fly over- or seen something else hit- if that had happened. In addition, Dan’s office across the Potomac River had a view of the airspace over the Pentagon; he was looking at it while on the phone with Dawn, and saw the black smoke rising, but did not see a plane flying over or away from the Pentagon.

Good job by Erik Larson, who is a "Truther", but is not delusional like the creeps from CIT.

Charges Dropped Against 9/11 Suspects

I am sure some of the truthers will get all excited, until they read the fine print.

Charges against 9/11 suspects were dropped "without prejudice" -- a procedural move that allows federal officials to transfer the men to trial in a civilian court and also leaves the door open to again bringing charges in military commissions.

All charges have been withdrawn in the military commissions against the five suspects in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks being held at Guantanamo Bay.

The charges were dropped "without prejudice," according to the Defense Department -- a procedural move that allows federal officials to transfer the men to trial in a civilian court and also leaves the door open, if necessary, to bring charges again in military commissions.

Although how much do you want to bet that this will lead to truthers claiming years from now, "But members of al Qaeda are not even wanted for 9/11. They dropped the charges. It was in the news."

Profiles in Troofrage

This guy was in that "Troofer gets the girl at the end" video that I posted about a week back. Here's the girl:



Kinda dull, but I thought I'd post them. The tag line, "My name is XXX and I'm a Troofer" sounds like some ad campaign that is slipping my mind. American Express? Something like that.

You Can't Parody This

Wow. Just wow.

More from Glenn. "The Stargate of cosmic consciousness"?



How stupid do you have to be to think the Onion piece supports inside jobby-job?

No Payday for Payday

List of performers at Treason in America Conference today:


List yesterday:

Who Is Payday Monsanto?

Or, it just wouldn't be a Troof-fest without Jew-bashing. One of the "acts" scheduled for Jon Gold's upcoming "Treason in America" event is Payday Monsanto. As you can probably guess, his music is the usual paranoid stew that we see from the kooks every day; chemtrails, the New World Order, etc. And yes, the requisite "anti-Zionism". Here's just a sample:

Or this image:

The World Without Zionism was the title of a conference held by that great humanitarian, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.


Payday's friends on MySpace include the trifecta of stupid: Alex Jones, Charlie Sheen and Jesse Ventura:


He's what we could call a crapper:


I wonder if Time Magazine's Person of the Year for 2002 knows the kind of people she's going to be associated with at this confab.

Kudos to our commenter, New Yorker, for pointing this out. Great find!

Truther Confab to Feature Sheehan, Rowley, Shaffer

The latest sign that all three are well-past their sell-by date:

Master of Ceremonies (MC) - Jon Gold
Cindy Sheehan, Mother & Activist
Richard Gage, AIA (Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth)
Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer (Able Danger)
Coleen Rowley, Former FBI Agent & Whistleblower, Time Magazine Person of the Year, 2002
Jack Blood, Radio Host (Deadline Live, American Freedom Radio)
Jon Gold, 9/11 Researcher & Writer
Dylan Avery, Filmmaker (Loose Change series)
Korey Rowe, Filmmaker (Loose Change series)
Daniel Sunjata, Actor (F/X, Rescue Me)
Sander Hicks, Writer & Activist
Jonathan Elinoff, Filmmaker (Core of Corruption series)
Manny Badillo, 9/11 Family Member
Bob McIlvaine, 9/11 Family Member
Kyle Hence - Filmmaker & Activist [TENTATIVE]

Note that Gold mentions himself twice in there; not too much doubt about who's behind this effort. With all the bad-mouthing of Sander Hicks over at Truth Action I'm surprsed he's not persona non grata. I believe, but I'm not certain, that this is the first large-scale confab of Troofers since the disaster in Chandler three years ago.

Let's Go See Cheney's House

Gripping drama here. Oh, no, wait a minute, it's just a couple of minutes of Cindy Sheehan and Jon Gold traipsing along a road.

1000th Clown Joins Gage's Circus

Well, that's it then, they've won. Because 772 dribbling idiots isn't quite critical mass, nor is 999. But there's magic in four digits of buffoons on a petition. Of course, that it took them 2-1/2 years longer than projected is a bit of a disappointment, I suppose, and that they've probably got 100 phony names will no doubt prove embarrassing.

Still, congratulations are in order. Great job, Richard! We look forward to the grand celebration of your 2000th senile architect in 2021!

Well, There Goes the Meme OBL Ain't Wanted for 9-11

Remember how the Troofers always claimed that Osama wasn't wanted for his role in 9-11? They appeared to have some insane notion that the FBI had no evidence connecting him to the attacks.

Well, the State Department has issued an age-progressed photo of OBL on their "Rewards for Justice" website, along with this note:

Usama bin Ladin is wanted in connection with the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and for the August 7, 1998 bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya.

Update: More here:

"There's no mystery here," said FBI spokesman Rex Tomb. "They could add 9/11 on there, but they have not because they don't need to at this point. . . . There is a logic to it."

Hat Tip: Billman in the comments.

Truthers Infiltrated by Gubmint?

This post at Raw Story is attracting a lot of attention.

In a 2008 academic paper, President Barack Obama's appointee to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs advocated "cognitive infiltration" of groups that advocate "conspiracy theories" like the ones surrounding 9/11.

Cass Sunstein, a Harvard law professor, co-wrote an academic article entitled "Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures," in which he argued that the government should stealthily infiltrate groups that pose alternative theories on historical events via "chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine" those groups.

Of course if you read deeper, the idea is that kooks only get information from kook sources, and that the government's efforts to counter those sources is doomed to failure because kooks will discount any information provided by the government.

The paper itself, or an early draft, can be downloaded here. The problem I see is that Sunstein appears to believe some of the wilder poll results out there are valid, like the claim that 36% of Americans believe the government actually participated in the attacks or at a minimum did nothing to stop them. But of course these questions are loosely worded; did the government do anything to stop the attacks? Not really, but that doesn't mean that they knew about them beforehand.

But yes, I do suspect that the government has infiltrated the Truthers. Let the finger-pointing begin!

Another Prominent Truther Arrested

Former weapons inspector, and truther (here is his profile on PatriotsQuestion911) Scott Ritter was arrested in yet another sting for exposing himself to a federal agent posing as a 15 year-old girl. Geez, at least Charlie Sheen only abuses women over the age of 18.

Former chief United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter was arrested in a Pennsylvania sex sting in November on a litany of charges involving a lewd Internet conversation with a person he thought was a 15-year-old girl.

Ritter, 48, allegedly masturbated in front of a Web camera while he was engaged in conversation in an Internet chat room with an undercover cop posing as the teenage girl. He declined to discuss the charges Thursday when reporters visited his New York residence.

OK, so technically he isn't a full blown truther, he is "just asking questions" but that is what Jon Gold insists is the definition of a truther.

Quick Bits

There's a claim out there that the real identity of Troofer moron Killtown is going to be exposed tomorrow. Although I don't know his name myself, I know that his identity has been revealed to certain people (including Do-Over Dylan). Retards like Jenny Sparks have accused me of association with Killclown and somehow being involved in the WQ2RX crap, but this is silly. BTW, Boron Epstein griped in the last post that my blogger profile is private; this movement sure has some crack (pipe) investigators if there's anybody out there that doesn't know who I am and where I live.

Speaking of identities revealed, there's an absolutely crazy person posting at JREF for the last two and a half years called Galileo. He claims to be the original Galileo, which should give you an idea of the level of insanity we're talking about here. And he mentions quite casually in a post over there that he's Rolf Lindgren, Kevin "the Holocaust is a hideously destructive myth" Barrett's former campaign manager.

Update: This blog claims:

AS PER OUR PROMISE
WE DO NOT POST
CRAIG AKA KILLTOWNS
FULL DOX

/we will not publish his full legal name
we are better than him/

BUT
WELL GIVE IT
TO ANYONE WITH A VALID COMPLAINT

/SEE SIDEBAR FOR CONTACT EMAIL/

Grifter Doubles Down on Phone Calls

I think we have to seriously consider the possibility that David Ray Griffin is senile. He's still insisting that some of the phone calls were faked:

In response to the claim – made in several of my writings and repeated during my Fifth Estate interview – that at least some of the reported phone calls were almost certainly fabricated, one critic wrote: “DRG has no evidence . . . that phone calls were faked.”42 To the contrary, there is considerable evidence for this conclusion.

His "evidence"? Why some of the people receiving the phone calls reported that they came from a cellphone:

As we saw, people on the ground reported receiving cell phone calls from UA 93 flight attendant Sandra Bradshaw; UA 93 passengers Marion Britton, Tom Burnett, Jeremy Glick, and Elizabeth “Honor” Wainio; from UA 175 passengers Peter Hanson and Brian Sweeney; from AA 77 flight attendant Renee May; and, according to the best-known version of Ted Olson’s account, AA 77 passenger Barbara Olson. However, the FBI, in its report to the Moussaoui trial, declared that all of those calls were made from onboard phones. If that is true, how would the FBI explain why so many people reported that they had been called from cell phones?

I don't know, you drooling baboon, maybe they didn't know the difference between Airfones and cellphones? Maybe they thought Airfones are just a different type of cellphone? Maybe unlike idiot Troofers, they weren't suspicious that their loved ones were pulling some sort of elaborate hoax on them?

If I ever meet David Ray Griffin, I'm going to have a tough time restraining myself from punching him in the face.

Pilots for 9-11 Troof: No-Planers?

I love how he uses the term "alleged" when referring to the planes. Looks like they're arguing that the flights that hit the WTC weren't 767s. What a bunch of maroons!

Vidal Sasooned

Christopher Hitchens on the Gore Vidal in his dotage:

I have now just finished reading a long interview conducted by Johann Hari of the London Independent (Hari being a fairly consecrated admirer of his) in which Vidal decides to go slumming again and to indulge the lowest in himself and in his followers. He openly says that the Bush administration was “probably” in on the 9/11 attacks, a criminal complicity that would “certainly fit them to a T”; that Timothy McVeigh was “a noble boy,” no more murderous than Generals Patton and Eisenhower; and that “Roosevelt saw to it that we got that war” by inciting the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor. Coming a bit more up-to-date, Vidal says that the whole American experiment can now be described as “a failure”; the country will soon take its place “somewhere between Brazil and Argentina, where it belongs”; President Obama will be buried in the wreckage—broken by “the madhouse”—after the United States has been humiliated in Afghanistan and the Chinese emerge supreme. We shall then be “the Yellow Man’s burden,” and Beijing will “have us running the coolie cars, or whatever it is they have in the way of transport.” Asian subjects never seem to bring out the finest in Vidal: he used to say it was Japan that was dominating the world economy, and that in the face of that other peril “there is now only one way out. The time has come for the United States to make common cause with the Soviet Union.” That was in 1986—not perhaps the ideal year to have proposed an embrace of Moscow, and certainly not as good a year as 1942, when Franklin Roosevelt did join forces with the U.S.S.R., against Japan and Nazi Germany, in a war that Vidal never ceases to say was (a) America’s fault and (b) not worth fighting.

Look, Gore Vidal is a ridiculous writer who got acclaim (like Truman Capote) for writing about homosexuality in an era where that wasn't accepted. The idea that he is a huge literary figure is bizarre; nobody reads him today and nobody will read him tomorrow. There was a brief period when what he wrote was controversial; nowadays most people would say it's pornography well-written.

Don't Tell the Truthers...

Here's a post on the meme that the Christmas Bomber, Abdulmutallab, came to the US on a one-way ticket. Truthers have been pointing to this as evidence of LIHOP.

Of course, expect the latest iteration of the "Truth" about Abdulmutallab to include this information. Why would he buy a round trip ticket if he was going to blow himself up over Detroit?

Applicant for Truthergirl Karen

This Truther Dating thing is more interesting than the infinitely rehashed North of Citgo crap. Above is the video of one of the applicants. Note the creative facial hair; that's one thing that seems constant. His mode of battle against the forces of the New World Order is impressive indeed; a college radio show and a podcast.

However, I do wonder if Karen will be turned off by his response to the "Do you believe in Reptilians?" question. He tries to have it both ways; he doesn't believe in David Icke's version. Let me guess, he does believe in the "V" version?

And the crappy Fats Domino imitation strikes me as a definite turn-off.

They Are All Disinfo!

One of the posters on 911 Blogger comments positively on the newest episode of Jesse Ventura's Conspiracy Theory show, complaining about one of the elements of the show.

So what's the 5% disinfo? Our good ol' friend General Albert Stubblebine, talking about how it's possible to stare at a goat and explode its heart. Jesse asks what is the evidence for this; Stubblebine says "I've been shown a few examples" but then refuses to comment further. (Roll eyes)

Other than that, a very enlightening episode indeed!

So he must be disinfo? Well interestingly enough a search for Stubblebine's name on 911 Blogger comes up with 113 mostly favorable hits in Google, including this hilarious comments:

Time Magazine Doesn't Have The Balls Nor The Permission...

...to print an article-length exposition of the best work by the leading lights of the 911 Truth Movement - Dr. Jones, Dr. David Ray Griffin, Kevin Ryan and a whole host of highly rational people of respected prior accomplishment. Why doesn't Time Magazine interview General Stubblebine?

Just a few ideas to consider in writing a report based on evidence and sworn testimony that would augment the official narrative. A final report would be published. We need someone other than David Ray Griffin publishing books! We need a book of findings and recommendations released by a semi-official Citizens Commission! Which would be endorsed by heavyweight government officials such as Ray McGovern, Paul Craig Roberts, Bob Bowman, General Stubblebine and others... including the Family Steering Committee for the 9/11 Commission.

The article, Twenty-five U.S. Military Officers Challenge Official Account of 9/11 – Official Account of 9/11: “Impossible”, “A Bunch of Hogwash”, “Total B.S.”, “Ludicrous”, “A Well-Organized Cover-up”, “A White-Washed Farce” was published today on OpEdNews. http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_alan_mil_080112_twenty_five_u_s_....

The article details severe criticism of the official account of 9/11 by:

* General Albert Stubblebine, former commander of U.S. Army Intelligence

He is after all, the highest ranking military officer ever to become a truther, and prominently featured as a credible source on sites such as patriotsquestion911.

No Such Thing as a Sane Truther

Paul Craig Roberts, who once was a respected economist and pundit, is now a full fledged nutter. Not much more to add on him, but one thing that always amuses me on this whole "missiles at the Pentagon" thing is how precise they are. They can't just say something vague like, "it is probable that there are some sort of air defenses", which would be the logical thing to say, since their presence is not backed by any evidence of any sort, but a very precise statement (emphasis added):

If we are to believe the U.S. government,Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged al-Qaida "mastermind" behind 9/11, outwitted the CIA, the NSA, indeed all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies as well as those of all U.S. allies including Mossad, the National Security Council, NORAD, Air Traffic Control, Airport Security four times on one morning, and Dick Cheney, and with untrained and inexperienced pilots pulled off skilled piloting feats of crashing hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center towers, and the Pentagon, where a battery of state of the art air defenses somehow failed to function.

Confirmed: Cindy Sheehan is a 9-11 Truther

She's always kind of danced around the edges of the 9-11 Fruitcake brigade, but she can't deny that she's a Truther any more. In a podcast interview here, she says (starts around 21:48):

"I think a new investigation is something that many many people agree with, if people don't start saying, 'It's an inside job.' Because that turns a lot of people off, even though I think it [9-11] was an inside job, I just don't know how far inside it went. But as soon as you say it's an inside job, people start saying, oh, you're accusing Dick Cheney of planning the whole thing, blah blah blah. Well, of course, some people are (laughs) but then people say, we don't know, we need to find out. Was it CIA? Was it whoever? Whoever, um, it had to be an inside job. There's like no way they could have done that, just like the one on December 25th. There's no way that guy could have done it without some kind of help, and we know he got help. Who was (crosstalk) that nice-dressed man that got him through that these people witnessed, got him through security?"

So she believes it was an inside job, she just doesn't recommend it as a slogan.

Another Study on the 9/11 Put Options

Given the utter trash that passes for research in the troofer community, it is always interesting to see research by actual academics on related issues. One of the topics I have always had a personal interest in has been the put options, on which supposedly the New World Order elites made a killing after the attacks drove down the values of airline stocks. Hey, have to justify that class in options theory I took in b-school somehow. Three academics from Switzerland have come out with a paper on detecting "informed trades" in the stock markets, not just around 9/11 but most of the last decade it appears.

I just went through it quickly, and haven't taken the fine tooth comb approach yet, but from what I understand so far, I am not impressed. It involves an interesting methodology, which they describe as:

According to our method, an option trade is identified as informed when it is characterized by a statistically large increment in open interest and volume, induces large returns and gains, and is not hedged in the stock market. Specifically, for each option the increment in open interest is compared to its daily volume to check whether or not this transaction can be classified as unusual. If so, the corresponding return and gain are calculated over various horizons. When the return and gain are statistically important, the probability that the option trade is not delta hedged is calculated. When this probability is sufficiently low, the option trade is identified as informed. This method is applied to each put option contract on 14 companies in various business sectors traded in the Chicago Board Options Exchange from January 1996 to April 2006 analyzing approximately 1.5 million of option contracts. In total 37 transactions are identified as informed trades: 6 occurring in the days leading up to merger and acquisition (M&A) announcements, 14 before quarterly financial/earnings related statements, 13 related to the terrorist attacks of September 11th, and 4 which could not be identified.

While this makes a certain amount of sense, there is one problem, one which way too many people in finance and economics make, that of randomness in the market. This is another subject which I have always had an interest in, and there is actually a bit of a minor industry in publishing now on the subject. As a short aside I recommend Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan as well as Benoit Mandelbrot's The Misbehavior of Markets, and Malkiel's classic A Random Walk Down Wall Street.

In any case, the problem here is the authors come up with 37 transactions which they identify as anomalies, and call those "informed trades". But they come up with this out of a population of 1.5 million option contracts. With that large of a population, there is no practical way to distinguish what is an actual sign of insider trading, and what is random noise. With that much data there should be a huge number of purely random coincidences, no matter how many standard deviations you go out. Yes, some of those 37 trades may actually be actual cases of insider trading, but just by chance most of them should not be.

Another factor in this lies in whether their methodology is even legitimate. They base this on the assumption that put options which are not hedged against a long position in the stock are speculative, and therefore informed. There are, however, numerous ways of hedging a stock position. As the 9/11 Commission famously pointed out:

A U.S-based investment advisor registered with the SEC purchased 2,000 UAL puts on September 6, constituting 96% of the volume. The SEC's Eric Ribelin and Andrew Snowden interviewed both the CEO of the advisor and the trader who executed the transaction. They received the innocuous explanation for the trade which is set forth in the SEC report. [See Report at 9 (explaining the advisor manages hedge funds with $5.3 billion under management, was pursuing a bearish strategy with respect to most airlines stocks in response to recent bad news announcements, and had actually purchased 115,000 shares of AMR on September 10, believing the negative information on AMR was already reflected in the price).]

They hedged a short option position, not with a long equity position in the same stock, but in a different industry stock. There are even more ways than this, for example you can hedge a position in airline stocks (a major consumer of oil) with a position in energy companies (a major producer). Even this is aside from the question of whether it is a valid assumption to say that any options which are not hedged must be "informed trades".

Regardless, the one thing I can guarantee is truthers will use this paper to claim it is now proven that the elites knew of the attack ahead of time.

Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

Okay, so the A&E 9-11 Fruitcakes are about to celebrate their 1000th "professional" architect or engineer to sign onto their cruddy petition. Of course, it's coming almost 2-1/2 years later than Richard Gage originally predicted (remember 9-11-07 was the original target date), and each anniversary after that Gage also established as a a goal. And while we can laugh and point out that the average age of the 9-11 Truth Architect and Engineers member is "emeritus", at the same time, 1000 is a significant number in our culture, and you can understand why they would consider this a milestone.

But what about this bit of bar-setting in an info posting over there:

We would like to double this accomplishment into 2000 signers before summer of 2010 and with your help we can do it. If each and every one of you will talk to ten friends or colleagues and sign up just two of them, then we will succeed.

I'm going to predict here and now that they will fall about 950 signers short of that goal by the summer of 2010. Way to go, Richard!

More Gatekeeping

The Los Angeles fruitcakes try to censor Nico and another No-Planer. "Their job is to make the 9-11 Truth Movement look crazy." My irony meter just exploded!

Hat Tip: Patrick in Cincinnati (in the comments).

The Latest Recruitment Video

Yes, indeed, the Truther gets the girl in the end. Should do wonders for attracting more young men with creative facial hair to the cause.

Second Prize is Two Dates?

She's pretty, but would you want to date a woman whose second question of prospective beaus is whether they believe in reptilians?

Scott Fenstermaker on Hardfire: Part II

I posted the first part last week, here is the second hour. I still can't figure this guy out. Rather bizarre. He claims to have no knowledge of things he should know, and then changes his story just minutes later.

Moussaoui: Still Guilty

His appeal has been denied.

A federal appeals court on Monday upheld the conviction and life prison term of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person convicted in a U.S. court in connection with the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

CIT Continues As Most Controversial In Fruitcake Movement

I have to confess, I'm enjoying the continued in-fighting among the Troofers on the North of Citgo flyover theory espoused by Craig Ranke and Aldo Marquis. I almost get to the point where I'm feeling sympathetic to the supposedly responsible kooks. And then something like this happens.

They're discussing the details of Roosevelt Roberts' (the supposed flyover witness) claim that he heard an explosion shortly before he ran out to see the plane, Rancho Truth, one of the CIT-debunkers suggests an alternative explanation:

Seems to me the most likely explanation is that Roberts heard a bomb going off just before AA 77's impact, ran outside and saw AA 77.

Update: More of the CIT nonsense here. My personal favorite bit:

Because it seems to me that if this man could feel the heat from this plane, then he could NOT have been wrong about the flight path. Which leaves only one possibility. That he was wrong about impact.

Screw Lew

Lew Rockwell's site publishes a masterpiece of conspiracy theorizing about the Christmas bomber, written by a fruitcake named William Norman Grigg.

We get the familiar claims from the Haskells that the bomber was helped on the plain by an "Indian" man. This leads to speculation that the Indian CIA may have been involved. And maybe our CIA. It's called a false-flag attack:

Those of a cynical cast of mind might wonder if RAW (the Research and Analysis Wing, India's CIA) helped Abdumutallab hitch a ride on Flight 253 in order to send a message to Langley. Those whose cynicism is a bit riper might wonder if the boys at Langley had become aware of the plot involving Abdumutallab and permitted it to go forward in the service of Washington's agenda – which includes escalating a previously covert military campaign in Yemen, the country where the jockstrap bomber reportedly was tutored in terrorism by al-Qaeda.

And at that point, the kookery gets ladled on with a trowel. We get the familiar claims that the FBI was involved in the initial bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. Operation Northwoods gets wheeled out. And:

Many serious and sober people believe that the accepted narrative of the 9/11 atrocities is entirely fictitious. But in light of the role played by veteran U.S. asset Ali Mohammed, it's incontestable that the attack was, in some sense, an "inside job" even if one accepts the standard "nineteen Muslims armed with boxcutters" version of the event.

Many serious and sober people believe that? Or is is many seriously deranged people? At any rate, Grigg sounds like he belongs in a rubber room with the rest of the 9-11 nutbars. Boos to Lew Rockwell for publishing this trash on his website.

We Need Adam Sandler

To tell us who's a Jew and who's not in the 9-11 fruitcake movement.

Does Dylan Avery light the menorah?
What about Jason Bermas and the idiot Pauly Shore-Ah!

Jon Gold, no longer a Jew:

For years, I have had to deal with individuals making up narratives about me using my religion of birth which is Judaism.

But you know who is? Hall of Famer Rod Carew! (He converted!)

Alex Jones, never mentions the Mossad.
Is it because he wears a skullcap, while praying to his God?

Is Steven Jones, still a Latter Day Saint?
Even if he's wrong, about thermite in the paint?

Willie Rodriguez, doesn't reads from the Torah
Could be why his site is such a bore-ah!

Les Jamieson, is a big fan of Urantia,
Maybe that's how it became NY-CANTia!

Update: Maybe some of you have never heard of this song?

The Friends of Kevin Barrett

You would think by now I could no longer be surprised by anything this guy says.

A foreign friend of mine, who must remain nameless here, recently contacted me to wish me a happy New Year and to celebrate the martyrdom operation in Afghanistan that claimed the lives of eight CIA agents. "This is wonderful!" he enthused. "Eight CIA agents at once! They must have had excellent intelligence and pulled everything off perfectly."

I said I found it hard to get excited about a bunch of people getting killed, regardless of what they may have done to deserve it.

"That is the problem with you Americans," he said. "Half of you are too stupid to resist your oppressors, and the other half reject violence even when it is justified and necessary."

I told him I was flattered to be considered part of the non-stupid segment of the American public, but that even as a non-stupid non-pacifist I often find it hard to know when violence is justified or necessary.