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.

What's Worse Than Debating the CIT-Heads?

Debating the CIT-heads and losing. John Bursill takes on Craig Ranke in a 2-1/2 hour slug-fest (in the sense that both debaters are slugs), and admits that he lost.

This is a debate no one else would have, so once again I get left carrying the bag:) By the way Craig will be viewed the winner (congratulations)....but I hope all are benefited by this sometimes painful process. I do not represent any others in this debate, and strongly defend the work of Michael Wolsey and Jim Hoffman et al as important and valid although I accept it could of been done better.

Adam Syed, a CIT-head himself, engages in a little victory dance at 9-11 Flogger, and reveals himself as a pinhead. For instance:

Craig explains his line of reasoning and uses one of Richard Gage's lecture points as an analogy. This lecture point concerns statistics and probability. With the controlled demolition proof: There are 10 (or more) characteristics of the 'collapses' that are characteristic to only controlled demolition. Gage makes the point that: Let's just say that ONE of those characteristics MIGHT have a (generous) 1 in 100 chance of occurring in a "natural" collapse without explosives. Well, for TWO of those characteristics to occur without CD would already be a 1 in 10,000 chance, meaning quite low indeed. But for ALL TEN of these features to occur without CD is 1 in 100^10 (more correctly spelled 1 x 10^20). In other words, zero, for all practical purposes.

Similarly, at the Pentagon we have 13 eyewitnesses who independently corroborate each other in placing the plane on the north side of the gas station. Of these 13, let's say there's a 1/100 chance of one of them being wrong. But the odds of two of them both being wrong about the plane's location w/r to Citgo is 1/10,000, etc. The probably that all 13 witnesses are wrong about the plane being on the north side is, for all practical purposes, zero.

So much nonsense in those two little paragraphs! Gage always ignores that there are many, many characteristics of controlled demolition that were not present at the World Trade Center. For starters, there were no loud explosions.

Second, there is no way that saying there is only a 1 in 100 chance of any individual North of Citgo witness being wrong is generous. Eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable, which is why the essential message of every episode of CSI is that when the physical evidence contradicts the eyewitnesses, go with the physical evidence.

And playing the "what are the odds" game cuts against the CIT-heads anyway, as I pointed out months ago. Let's really be generous and say that the odds are 70% that each witness is right and 30% that he is wrong. Adam and Craig would like us to focus on the idea that the odds of them all being wrong are vanishingly small; 30% to the 14th power, which works out to be about 1 in 20 million.

But let's flip that around and ask, what are the odds that they are all right? That's 70% to the 14th power, which may not be vanishingly small, but it's about 0.6% or about 1 in 150. And that's before we get into questions like whether Edward Paik's flight path is significantly different than the "official story" or whether Officer Legasse was playing games with the Troofers.

Note as well this key point in Bursill's post:

Even though it was my understanding that all 13/14 witnesses CIT site believe a plane hit the Pentagon, Craig also now disputes this but would not be drawn on the number...

Of course Ranke disputes that, because if he admits it, his whole "what are the odds" game can be played against him. What are the odds that the eyewitnesses were wrong about the plane hitting the Pentagon? Obviously an order of magnitude or more lower than whether they're wrong about the plane's position vis-a-vis the Citgo station.

Peter Dale Scott Tries to Rowback His Endorsement of CIT-Heads

Apparently he was taking quite a bit of flak for it:

I must say that I am disappointed by number of ad hominem attacks I have received. I do not believe one incoming letter so far has dealt with the substance of what the Turnpike witnesses claimed and I endorsed.

Here's his claim:

I have not endorsed the flyover theory for Flight 77, and I do not personally believe it. All I endorsed was their assemblage of witnesses who said that Flight 77 approached the Pentagon on the north side of the Pike. I do not draw the conclusions from their testimony that CIT does. But I believe that the testimony needs to be seriously considered by those trying to find out what actually happened.

So the obvious question is what does PDS believe actually happened? That the plane approached from North of the Citgo and flew into the Pentagon? But if that's the case, isn't the light pole damage out of place? Doesn't that mean that the exit hole in the C-Ring is mispositioned?

You see the problem? You can't endorse North of Citgo, and then try to say but you don't believe in the flyover, because if the plane really was NoC, then it could not have caused the physical damage seen. So Peter Dale Scott's attempted rowback on this is yet another massive fail.

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

That thread that I pointed out the other day at Truth Action is like the Energizer Bunny.

The CIT-heads keep asking, "Where was North of the Citgo debunked?" They parrot the CIT line that "All the witnesses we have corroborate each other!" and moan about how nobody will discuss the evidence with them, they just dismiss it.

Enlighten me.

That's all I'm asking.

What is your theory for the witnesses who all place the plane on the North of citgo?

Are they all complicit in the crime? Is this some elaborate conspiracy to throw us all off the mark perhaps?

Why is it I'm supposed to be rejecting this strongly and independently corroborated testimony?

Great fun! My favorite part is when I come up:

But don't worry - he gives a special li'll patronising pat on the head to those "responsible" truthers who took care to successfully distance themselves from this April Gallop nonsense.

As usual by applauding one group over the other, I end up sabotaging the credibility of the former among the latter. If I really wanted to beat the CIT-heads into the ground I should talk about how strong and compelling the North of Citgo evidence is. Which it is; one day Aldo and Craig will be recognized as the "Truthers" who dismantled the entire "official" story.

Update: Still more humor. When John Albanese suggests they check out Arabesque's solid post on the Pentacon, which has an incredible 251 footnotes, one of the CIT-heads replies:

John A, how can I put this; ah yes - that article relies on a lot of padding
Examples: “I saw it clip a light pole.”[38]
[38]Unnamed Navy Admiral.

“The plane flew very low over his car and hit the building and blew his windows out of the vehicle and he’s on interstate 395.”[16]
[16] Unidentified Pentagon Worker.

No kidding, he finds that two of the 251 footnotes are poorly sourced, and from that he deduces that Arabesque's review is "padded"? Look, I think Arabesque's post is a little weaselly (like when he says, "Arabesque’s Hypothesis: A large commercial airliner with American Airlines markings hit the Pentagon (note: this does not necessarily prove it was flight 77, or even a 757. The government has never convincingly proven that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon)."

But for crying out loud, if I debunk 104 of DRG's 115 points there will be Troofers rambling on about the 11 that I didn't cover. What a bunch of fruittards.