Hey Jon, Here is a Quarter, Buy a Clue.

Pat made a couple of posts earlier on the article in a Philadelphia paper profiling Jon Gold. The article wasn't that fascinating, however, the entertainment continues. Jon is now all upset because 911 Blogger, a site that he helped start, won't run the article in a blog post:

Cosmos, the founder of the "Eleventh Day of Every Month Until Justice" action, as well as one of the founders of www.911truthnews.com, posted the CityPaper's article to 911blogger.com. For some reason, the post has not been allowed through. Cosmos sent an email asking why, and has not heard anything from anyone.

It's ironic that an article that made the front page of Philadelphia's largest weekly newspaper, that just happens to mention me, a co-founder of 911blogger.com, is not allowed to be posted on 911blogger.com today.

I think the truth hurts.

Hey Jon, why are you surprised? This is what happens when you have a movement based not on reality, but on a paranoid ideology and emotional fervor. One of my professors once told me that the difference between conspiracy theory and science was that science allowed for good predictions, and guess what, this was entirely predictable. In fact if you want to know how the psychology of such movements go, people have been writing about it for centuries. I suggest reading up on the French Revolution for starters, or you can try one of my favorite books.

David Ray Griffin: Stuck on Stupid

As I have mentioned in the past, Grifter has two new books coming out on 9-11; here's a snippet of the publisher's PR for one of them:

Turning next to debates within the 9/11 Truth Movement, Griffin reinforces his claim that the reported phone calls from the airliners were faked....

As I have pointed out in the past, Grifter knows that once you accept the phone calls as real, much of the conspiracy theory garbage becomes untenable.

Open Thread

Comments allowed. Seen a good story you'd like us to cover? Want to engage in a bickerfest with Brian?

Good News! They Did Have Chain of Custody on the Dust

So says Waterboy Kevin Ryan, and we all know he'd never lie:

Summers and Swann also state that well-sourced samples of World Trade Center dust, collected using completely appropriate chain of custody forms, are not good sources of information yet long-time propagandist, Gerald Posner, and Weekly Standard contributor, Thomas Joscelyn (who recently tried to link Iran to 9/11), are excellent sources.

Woot! They've even got completely appropriate chain of custody forms, no doubt filled out in triplicate and notarized. Just one question, Kevin: Have you got a 27-B Stroke 6?

How 9-11 Could Have Been Caught

Over at Vanity Fair, which has published some excellent articles on 9-11 over the last few years. This one is about how inter-agency squabbling prevented the US from getting the chance to tap every call made from
Afghanistan:

Electronic eavesdropping clearly had potential in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. But in the years before 9/11, when bin Laden’s terror plot was first being discussed, that potential remained limited. The reason was simple: Afghanistan had no cell phones, no Internet, and only a rudimentary landline network, which did not work at all outside the country’s largest cities. This could be remedied, however. Indeed, by the end of 1999, the Taliban government had embraced a full-fledged American scheme to install a modern cell-phone-and-Internet system in Afghanistan. It could have been up and running within months. The Taliban had already granted an exclusive license to a U.S.-owned firm, the Afghan Wireless Communications Company.

More to the point, electronic modifications concealed within the circuitry would have allowed every call and every e-mail emanating from Afghanistan to be relayed without interference to N.S.A. headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. “This project was a dream,” says one former senior F.B.I. counterterrorism specialist who knew about the scheme at the time. “To be able to wire up a country from ground level up—you don’t get too many opportunities like that.” No, you don’t. But at the critical moment, the Clinton administration put the project on hold, while rival U.S. agencies—the F.B.I., the N.S.A., and the C.I.A.—bickered over who should control it.

This highlights one of the central flaws in the Troofer view of the world. To them, the government is some kind of monolithic entity, while in reality it is dozens and dozens of mini-fiefdoms, each with its own chieftain. Indeed, even the individual entities have internal turf-battles:

Thus, while the C.I.A. was seeking overall control of the operation, there was also an inside fight over which of its sections—the Near East Division or the Counterterrorism Center—should take it over.

Kudos to commenter Paul W for pointing this one out.

The Comedy Continues

At the Philly paper that did the write-up on Jon Gold. As usual, the comments section provides the most hilarity. David Chandler puts Jon Gold in the fringe section of the Troof Movement:

Every movement has its fringe elements. We are not a top-down organization. Some bring their expertise to the table. Others bring only their enthusiasm. It is shoddy journalism to poke fun at the fringes and ignore the solid core. (Jon ["f--k science"] Gold is not entirely on the fringe, but his comment that this is a balanced article is pretty far out there.)

Gold responds with something that I could have written, minus, of course, the profanity:

F*ck science that is sold to us as "peer reviewed," but published in a pay-to-play journal. F*ck science that is sold to us as "peer reviewed," but is partially peer reviewed by someone claiming the 9/11 victims are alive and well and living on a tropical island receiving a Government stipend. F*ck science that is originated by someone advocating man-made earthquakes and perpetual motion machines.

But even better is when Adam Syed fills in a piece of the puzzle. Chandler and Frank Legge have written an article debunking CIT's "North of the Citgo" claims for Flight 77. But they are reportedly having trouble getting it "peer-reviewed". Guess who Waterboy, editor of JONES, sent the paper to:

Kevin Ryan at the Journal of 9/11 Studies submitted the Chandler/Legge paper to the Pilots organization, and retired fighter pilot Lt. Col. Shelton Lankford reviewed the paper. Here is part of his conclusion:

"There is nothing wrong with this paper that a trip through a shredder, and a sincere apology to CIT and the 9/11 Truth community could not cure."

Oh, my, that is too rich for words. Kevin sent the paper to one of Rob Balsamo's rubber roommates at Pilots for 9-11 Troof?

Of course, being a paranoid nutter, Syed goes on:

How could Chandler do such good work on the WTC and such pseudo-scholarship on the Pentagon? Were they gotten to? Were they plants from the beginning whose job was to gain "credibility capital" by doing good work to gain the 9/11 research community's trust, in order to expend that capital later in an assignment to split and slow down the progress of the movement?

Yes, Adam, Chandler and Legge are on the payroll; Cass Sunstein suggested we hire them.

The Reflecting Pool

I was flipping through movies on Netflix the other day and was amused to come across the Truther movie The Reflecting Pool. What can I say? What a piece of crap! Where do these idiots get this? Bad acting and screenplay aside, I could write a better 9/11 conspiracy plot than this. They can't even get even get the most basic truther memes correct, not to mention the actual facts of the story. The most blatant example being regarding the Pentagon crash, where they have flight 77 circling the Pentagon like a Blue Angel on amphetamines.

Anyway, the thing I always find so amusing in these fictional accounts of 9/11 conspiracies (although at their heart, all of their accounts are fictional) is they have the diligent investigator running around doing real investigating, calling up government officials, talking to witnesses to events and such. Now why can't these idiots do this in real life? Aside from the inane antics of the CIT goofballs and Kevin Barrett's vacation in Morocco, none of them have even made the most basic attempt at investigation. Why won't they call up all the firefighters and ask them about explosives? Why haven't any of them talked to these hijackers who are still alive? Why haven't they talked to the soldiers who supposedly trained with the hijackers at DLI or lived next door to them in Pensacola?

Is this too much to expect?

Jon Gold's Excellent Commission

Buried in a long profile of Gold in a Philly "alternative" weekly:

"It has to be away from the government. There has to be subpoena power, people have to be put under oath, which George Bush and Dick Cheney refused to do. I don't know, maybe an international body of some kind. It can't take place in D.C."

Well, now we know why Jon and Brian never answered the question in a recent thread of what sort of new commission would satisfy them. Don't you just love that? Here's a guy who's dedicated 10 years of his life to a movement and when asked what he wants he has only a vague idea. "I don't know, maybe an international body of some kind."

Here's a clue, Jon. Subpoena power and under oath mean the government, because each comes with an explicit "or else" attached: under penalty of arrest and prosecution.

I'll allow comments on this thread.

The Next Mine

According to Allahpundit, this is a teaser for a one-hour documentary featuring Bush's reminiscences about the events of 9-11. Get set for some heavy quote-mining.

Alec Baldwin, Troofer

Not that it's terribly surprising; he fits in well with the Rosie O'Donnell / James Brolin / Ed Asner wing of celebrity fruitcakes. Just surprising that he took so long to come out of the closet.

It would certainly be a boost to the nutbars if Baldwin, as is speculated, runs for mayor of New York. Hizzoner the Truther would certainly be in a position to grant them their wish for a new "investigation".

Caught in Traffic...

My sister called me an hour ago to report that she was stuck in traffic as a giant motorcycle progression went by. She was kind of annoyed, until she found out it was this group:


We both wondered why they were riding now, and the website has the answer. They ride annually in August so that the families can have the anniversary without being disrupted. Unlike, you know, the Troofers, who feel free to annoy everybody with their presence.

Commenting Closed for Now

Satisfied?

Gage's Latest

Kevin McPadden and Indira Singh make appearances. Love the bit where Ed Asner says that the newsmen recognized it as controlled demolition; apparently he doesn't understand the meaning of "it was almost as if".

You Too Can Be a Peer Reviewer!

Apparently things are so bad over at the mostly defunct Journal of 911 Studies that Frank Legge is now begging for reviewers.

There are two papers in need of review for submission to the Journal of 9/11 Studies.

One is by David Chandler and myself. It provides evidence that the witnesses to the path of the plane approaching the Pentagon, who stated that it passed north of the Citgo service station, must have been mistaken. The paper concludes that the only plausible description of the approach is that the plane did not deviate round the service station but flew virtually straight and hit the Pentagon, as described by the vast majority of eye witnesses.

The other is by John Wyndham. Here is the abstract of his paper:
Abstract: The widespread belief among those who question the official account of 9/11, that a large plane did not hit the Pentagon on 9/11, is unsupported by the evidence. The failure of the 9/11 truth movement to reach consensus on this issue after almost a decade is largely due to a failure to rigorously apply the scientific method to the evidence as a whole. This paper, by so applying the evidence to each proposed theory, shows that a large plane hitting the Pentagon is by far the most plausible theory.

Great, so after 10 years of cutting edge research and truthseeking they finally figured out what the rest of us knew that Tuesday morning. And they wonder why nobody takes them seriously?

A (Clown) Foot In the Door Gets Mashed

As you will recall, last week at this time, Jon Gold was desperately exhorting the troops to forget their petty individual theories and get behind his personal theory and shove that foot through the door.

What he was hoping for was something like this:

How did it go? Not so hot. For starters, there was a great deal of predictable pushback at 9-11 Flogger from dolts like Aiden Monaghan:

If anything, Clarke's allegations seem to absolve the White House, FBI and DoD from liability or complicity in the 9/11 attacks.

Because when your theory is a New Pearl Harbor with remote-controlled planes and nanothermite, you're not likely to rejoice over an admission that perhaps the attacks were allowed to happen because of an incompetent attempt to recruit the terrorists.

Victoria Ashley, whose husband Jim Hoffman has pushed controlled demolition forever, questioned the timing:

Last year it was the nationalist fervor of the Mosque at Ground Zero with images of screaming crowds, and the artificially media boosted event of the burning of the Koran by a preacher with no actual congregation, to keep everyone yelling about nothing on the 9th Anniversary.

This year it's Richard Clark appearing to suddenly decide -- almost exactly 1 month before the 10th Anniversary, despite having years to talk about this -- to throw a bunch of others under the bus about who knew what when about the attacks. Apparently it was decided that something less transparent, emotional, and more connected to reality needed to be dumped on the US public for the penultimate Anniversary.

Of course, Victronix clearly doesn't know the definition of the word "penultimate", which sounds very cool, but simply means "next to last".

There is only one 10th Anniversary.

Yes, and there was only one 5th anniversary, too!

Bofors:

Perhaps you are so naive as to fall for this obvious ruse of misdirection from ringmaster Clarke, but some of us are not.

The arguments for controlled demolition in WTC 7 and the twin towers, which murdered thousands, are trivial and irrefutable.

Well, he's half right anyway. The arguments for CD are trivial.

Without even looking, I am pretty sure that similar arguments are raging around the Troofersphere. Kevin Barrett is unlikely to take kindly to any suggestion that the hijackers weren't Mossad agents, David Ray Griffin's got his speculations about them being alive, and Craig Ranke still thinks they're north of the Citgo somewhere. As I've said all along, the idea that this is a "movement" is inane; it's a bunch of paranoid nutbars with their individual pet theories.

Jon Gold has been busily spamming an article he wrote on Troof News on Facebook; that got him far:

On Monday, August 15, 9/11 Truth News contributor Jon Gold received a message from facebook informing him that his ability to post content to any page other than his own had been disabled.

So overall, what's happened is more like this:

Clarke's Speculation

The Shenon article is here.

In the interview for the documentary, Clarke offers an incendiary theory that, if true, would rewrite the history of the 9/11 attacks, suggesting that the CIA intentionally withheld information from the White House and FBI in 2000 and 2001 that two Saudi-born terrorists were on U.S. soil – terrorists who went on to become suicide hijackers on 9/11.

But there is plenty of reason to doubt it. For one thing, Clarke himself admits that it's only a theory:

Clarke speculates – and readily admits he cannot prove -- that the CIA withheld the information because the agency had been trying to recruit the terrorists, while they were living in southern California under their own names, to work as CIA agents inside Al Qaeda.

For another, it's already been investigated, as the theory is nothing new:

The 9/11 Commission investigated widespread rumors in the intelligence community that the CIA tried to recruit the two terrorists—Clarke was not the first to suggest it—but the investigation revealed no evidence to support the rumors. The commission said in its final report that "it appears that no one informed higher levels of management in either the FBI or CIA" about the two terrorists.

Tenet denies it although that is unsurprising.

Also note that the producers of the new documentary (the same guys responsible for the Troofer-Lite 9-11 Press for Truth sat on this "explosive" theory for almost two years:

He did not reply to requests from The Daily Beast to expand on his comments or to explain why he has not repeated them publicly since the 2009 interview. The documentary’s producers, FF4 Films, said they had been in contact with Clarke this month and that he stood by his remarks in the broadcast.

Update: YouTube Video of the interview:

The Big Man Makes a Big Promise

Frequent visitor Jon Gold is all excited about some big Troofer related announcement tomorrow:

This Thursday in Colorado, CPT12 is going to show 9/11: Press For Truth. They are also going to have Director Ray Nowosielski, Co-creator John Duffy, and the creator of the 9/11 Timeline, Paul Thompson, on to discuss the film. During this showing, Ray and John are going to reveal something explosive that they have been working on. When I say “explosive,” I mean it. I believe that it might finally be that “foot in the door.” I believe that it will be something the media will have a hard time ignoring.

On the Truthaction forum Jon adds a little taunt:

I'm waiting for the true believers and debunkers to see their reaction. I'm sure they know "something" is happening, and are waiting to do something diabolical.

Oh, yes, I am in the bunker conferring with Dick Cheney and Queen Elizabeth as we speak.
















I have my doubts about how earthshaking this really is though. A couple of weeks ago Gold made the following post on Truthaction:

Hopefully a nice surprise in the coming weeks...

Did Larry Silverstein turn himself in to the FBI? Was Manny Badillo named the new human rights commissioner for the UN? No, not quite that exciting unfortunately.

Here is part of it...

PAUL THOMPSON IS BACK!!!

Be still my beating heart. A blogger that only truthers care about has resumed blogging. I follow them more than 99% of their own movement, and I didn't even know that he left. I don't know why that didn't push the budget negotiations off the front page...

10th Anniversary Festivities Firming Up

While it will be a somber occasion for most of us, the Troofers are preparing comic events to celebrate a decade of Truthiness.

For starters, there is a convention of dunces in Toronto, cleverly disguised as "hearings". The goofballs love to dress up as adults and pretend that they are serious people. This event will feature a truly stellar lineup of fatheads, errr witnesses, including:

Mike Gravel
Cynthia McKinney
David Ray Grifter
Niels Harrit
Richard Gage
Waterboy Ryan

What exactly they witnessed will be up to the extinguished, err, distinguished panelists, who look like they would have trouble beating George Burns in the 100-yard dash. The Moderators include a professor in public adminstration at the University of Laverne, and a professor of English at the University of Shirley.

In the Bay Area, a Film Festival is planned, featuring such schlockumentaries as: "Psywar: The Real Battlefield Is the Mind," "You, Me & the SPP: Trading Democracy for Corporate Rule," "Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup," "Hypothesis: A Documentary about Prof. Stephen E. Jones," and "9/11: Explosive Evidence -- Experts Speak Out."

Oddly, no word from the New York branch of the Troof; the folks who gave us such comedies as 9-11 Truth: Now or Never (as predicted here, it turned out to be never) and NYC-CANT are strangely silent on their plans. Manny Badillo has been freed on bail, which means he'll probably be combining his two favorite pastimes at Ground Zero (NSFW):


But by far, all eyes will be turned to Seattle, where Troofer firefighter Eric Lawyer is organizing one of the biggest events in history:

ONE: The Event on September 11, 2011 in Seattle, WA, at Memorial Stadium-Seattle Center will include tens of thousands of local and global participants and a goal of 3M via webcast actively engaging a lineup of inspiring top-level speakers, thinkers, and creative game-changers from a diverse cross-section of society and also including a star-marquee of music and theatrical events.

Culminating in a GLOBAL SYNCHRONIZED MOMENT OF LOVE on 9/11 at 10:46pm GMT (3:46pm PDT) we will harness our collective intention to shift to love-based, collaborative solutions that will end the age of fear and isolation.

Here's the promo video, which is narrated by Sunjata:


But beyond the video, Lawyer doesn't seem to have synchronized anything, globally or locally. There's no listing of the star-marquee of music or theatrical events, no inspiring top-level speakers, thinkers and game-changers, and the page on the Gathering itself has been viewed 12 times. One: The Event may be the first "gathering" named after the number of participants.

NORAD's "Lies" Explained?

I have been perusing the blog of Miles Kara, a 9-11 Commission staffer. To be honest, it is a humbling experience, because it shows the vast amount of knowledge the Commission accumulated compared to the small amount that even I, who know the subject matter well, have managed to grasp. It's sort of like the difference between going to a movie and being on the set of a movie while it is being filmed.

Miles covers the NORAD "lies" here, and it's eye-opening to say the least.

There was one critical and two other serious mistakes in the timeline. The critical error was the 9:24 time for AA77. The accurate NEADS log information was: “American Airlines No. N334AA hijacked.” N334AA is the tail number for AA11, not AA77, a basic fact apparently never checked by any NORAD, CONR, or NEADS staff officer with either American Airlines or FAA.

The 8:43 time for UA175, was impossible and never explained in any document or during any interview conducted by the Commission staff. It was most likely a NORAD misunderstanding of information from FAA. That is the approximate time that UA175 was hijacked, a fact only known post facto.

So, the 9:24 time for Flight 77 is actually a time for what I call "Phantom Flight 11". For awhile NORAD and the FAA thought that Flight 11 was not the plane that hit the North Tower, and that it was still en route to Washington DC. This error becomes compounded:

On the day after the hearing Colonel Scott sent an e-mail to Colonel Marr, with a copy to the Commission staff, stating that it became easier to explain the Langley fighter scramble in terms of UA93 than AA77. It is clear from that email that neither Scott nor Marr, whose staff supported Scott, took the time to listen to the tapes or look at the actual transcripts. The NEADS staff, and Colonel Scott, had sufficient data available to them to find the rebirth of AA11 misinformation and the real reason for the Langley scramble. If they found it they did lie. If they did not they could not tell the truth. They could not solve their Sudoku puzzle.

Hence the erroneous assertion that the military found out about Flight 93 long before they did.

Robot Helicopters with Airborn Ebola

Alex Jones' latest paranoid fantasy.

World's Greenest Truther Strikes Again

David Ray Griffin recycles the same old crap over and over again. I'd say he's still recycling his poop from 2003, but that isn't precisely true, because it wasn't even his poop back then; he was recycling the work of Nico and the Web Fairy and Eric Hufschmid and Jared Israel.

This year being the tenth anniversary and all, he's outdone himself. He has not one, but two dumps headed for the recycling bin. One is titled 9/11 Ten Years Later, and the other basically recycles the title: 9/11 Ten Years On. I mean, the guy can't even come up with new titles anymore!

Titles, hell, he doesn't even come up with new covers. Here's a non-conspiracy book by Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan, just released two weeks ago:

I'll be reviewing that book in the next week or so. And here's Grifter's latest dropping:

Well, I suppose it saved him the effort of finding someone to design the cover, thus reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Getting bin Laden

This will probably be ignored by the Truthers, but an excellent article in the New Yorker on how the raid went down. NSDQ!

Shortly after eleven o’clock on the night of May 1st, two MH-60 Black Hawk helicopters lifted off from Jalalabad Air Field, in eastern Afghanistan, and embarked on a covert mission into Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden. Inside the aircraft were twenty-three Navy SEALs from Team Six, which is officially known as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or DEVGRU. A Pakistani-American translator, whom I will call Ahmed, and a dog named Cairo—a Belgian Malinois—were also aboard. It was a moonless evening, and the helicopters’ pilots, wearing night-vision goggles, flew without lights over mountains that straddle the border with Pakistan. Radio communications were kept to a minimum, and an eerie calm settled inside the aircraft.