Ground Zero Construction

The financially illiterate Truthers keep on making this bizarre argument that Larry Silverstein was involved in blowing up his own building and made off with a fortune in insurance payments, missing the fact that those insurance payments are compensating him for the fact that he is paying rent on buildings which don't exist anymore.

Unfortunately trying to get the World Trade Center complex rebuilt is continuing to be a nightmare, but that won't stop the idiotic conspiracy theories.

For years, rebuilding of the World Trade Center site was held up by construction delays and fights between government agencies, insurers and a developer.

Now the problem is a lack of tenants. While two office buildings are well underway at Ground Zero, construction of a third tower, 3 World Trade Center, is stalled at eight stories, well shy of the 80 floors planned. The reason: its developer, Silverstein Properties Inc, the company run by Larry Silverstein, hasn't been able to find a tenant, and he can't build any higher without one, based on a two-year-old deal with government agencies.

When Mr. Silverstein started construction in mid-2010 on the building, then-expected to have 2.5 million square feet of space, he had hoped he would be able to find a tenant by now and keep building to the tower's top. But cement stopped pouring at the 8th floor in the past few weeks.

The stunted growth of 3 World Trade Center reflects the stagnation that has taken hold in the nation's largest office market and the struggles Lower Manhattan faces in rebuilding the more than 11 million square feet of space lost in the 2001 terrorist attacks.

I Know the Feeling

Truther Dorothy Lorig, on first reading David Ray Griffin:

“I was in my office at the time. I sat there and felt my stomach churning. I thought maybe I was going to be sick."

Yep, Grifter made me want to barf as well.

This is Truther "Science"

Previously Steven Jones, in addition to his 9/11 quackery, has promoted perpetual motion machines, man made weather and earthquakes, and bogus archaeology, so I suppose it shouldn't be too big of a surprise that he is into "alternative medicine".  From 911 Flogger.

A friend and fellow 9/11 researcher recently wrote to me that he has cancer. I wrote to him regarding alternative treatments, with summaries of articles by Dr. Mercola, MD, an advocate of alternative health approaches. As my friend replied, "Once having seen the truth about 9/11 it becomes easier to see that other authorities may be concealing important truth. I have been suspicious of "big pharma"... for some time. "

Well I guess if you believe in supermagiconanothermite, homeopathy isn't much of a stretch.

AIA Disowns Gage and His Gaggle

Although they're happy to take his money, they make it quite clear that they consider him a nutcase:

The AIA itself, however, is firm about its relationship with Gage. “We don’t have any relationship with his organization whatsoever,” Scott Frank, head of media relations for the AIA, told me.

The former employee of the Walnut Creek, Calif.-based architectural firm Akol & Yoshii is a full-time 9/11 conspiracy theorist, but Gage tries to maintain a façade of being a scientist asking scientific questions. He does his best to avoid the murkier political questions of who could have orchestrated a conspiracy theory and cover-up of the size and scope that the 9/11 conspiracy movement alleges, but his technical views are actually quite mainstream within the Truth movement.

Hat Tip: Dave Thomas at JREF.

Angels and Demons

Long article on David Ray Grifter and his overarching conspiracy theory:

What does Griffin perceive as demonic behavior? US refusal to abolish nuclear weapons despite the knowledge that use of them could eliminate the human population, and resistance to transitioning from a carbon-based energy system to a sustainable one — that, to Griffin, is demonic.

Demonic power harnessed by humans, in Griffin’s view, came about through competition between tribes, especially in recent millennia. He writes that “perhaps the first great increase in demonic power” occurred in the Bronze Age 6,000 years ago, spiking “near the outset of the Iron Age 3,000 years ago.” Modern civilization has taken the demonic achievements of the past to almost inconceivable heights, with the emergence of “computerized weapons and the drive for an all-inclusive empire.”

It’s not just the weapons for Griffin, it’s all around us in the United States, appearing to radiate from some all-pervasive demonic spirit, infiltrating every aspect of our lives and penetrating every dimension of our psyches. For Griffin, we’re talking about the “demonic soul of a culture.”

Grifter's vision for the future?

These proposals are mere build-up to Griffin's very ambitious purpose for the Christian church — global democracy. Griffin is quick to try to distinguish his idea from the goal of the neocons, but he also acknowledges that he’s treading on the same ground that his Loose Change collaborator Alex Jones has spent years denouncing on his radio show: “The idea of creating a global government, to be sure, a huge and extremely controversial idea.”

Yes, that part certainly conflicts with Alex Jones. But the earlier part, about demonic power, is perfectly aligned with Jones' wacky beliefs about the New World Order and its plans.

No, They're Not Paranoid

One of the things that annoys me about truthers, admittedly it is a pretty long list, is how they think they are some sort of mix between Andrei Sakharov and Nelson Mandela because they burned a DVD of Loose Change once when they were in high school. In the wake of the alleged bomb threats against Uncle Fetzer, Alex Jones' Infowars site runs with this theme. My favorite bit:

David Ray Griffin, the world’s leading voice of 9/11 truth, suffered a partially-disabling stroke in the summer of 2010. While he has recovered sufficiently to continue to write and research, the stroke left him with a slight aphasia that has ended his career as a prolific public speaker.

Dr. Bob Bowman, the former head of Star Wars under two US presidents, has had his 9/11 truth efforts slowed by his struggle with cancer.

Even more tragically, the most prestigious scientist ever to take up the cause of 9/11 truth, Lynn Margulis, died of a stroke November 22, 2011. When I last spoke to Lynn, less than a year before her death, she told me she did not want to speak publicly about 9/11 any more, because “politics is too dangerous.” She sounded scared – like someone had warned or threatened her.

Steven Jones, the physics professor who was forced out of Brigham Young University for researching the demolition of the World Trade Center, was warned to stop by a “connected” colleague. Jones did the right thing: he immediately went public about the apparent threat.

Richard Gage, the founder of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, may have been attacked by the type of EMF or microwave weapon described by Ruppert and Belitsos. In the summer of 2009, in Washington, DC, Gage suddenly suffered vertigo and hearing loss. Activist colleagues who were present suspect some kind of covert attack. Today, Gage still suffers from the after-effects: partial loss of hearing in one ear.

Uhh, yeah, David Ray Griffin is over 70, while Robert Bowman is pushing 80.  Lynn Margulis passed away at the age of 73. What are the odds that they might have some health problems.  Geez, is the CIA so incompetent that it takes them over a decade to knock off a couple of old men?  And Richard Gage, supposedly the leader of this movement of architects and engineers who are going to bring down the New World Order, does he get hit by a bus?  No, he loses his hearing, slightly.

If these people want to know what happens to actual dissidents or people who try and expose the truth for real, look up Aung San Suu Kyi or  Anna Politkosvkaya

More Truther Related Bomb Threats?

This time in Vancouver BC.  I will let this speak for itself.

Wasn't That Kind of the Point?

You can always count on David Ray Griffin to say something really stupid.  This time from the New Strait Times:

He also alleged that the hijackers had minimal competence to fly single-engine aircraft, let alone be able to handle commercial jets.

"Experienced pilots have told me that Hani Hanjour the person alleged to have hit wedge one of the Pentagon could not possibly have executed the amazing (AA 77) trajectory as even experienced airline pilots would have had trouble negotiating, and never would have tried, fearing they'd crash and burn." 

Uhh yeah, I can pretty much guarantee that if you executed the trajectory of Hani Hanjour, you would crash and burn.