Sunday, March 23, 2014

A Preacher to a Dying Breed

Jonathan Kay, the Canadian journalist who penned Among the Truthers, shares his thoughts after visiting a Richard Gage lecture in Toronto, his third such visit (he is a braver man than I).
Ask Richard Gage how he came to become obsessed with what he calls the “truth” about 9/11, and you hear what sounds an awful lot like a story of religious conversion It was March 2006, and the mild-mannered California architect was driving down the Pacific Coast Highway on his way to a construction meeting. Bored, he flipped on KPFA 94.1 FM, a listener-supported “free-speech” station out of Berkeley — “to hear what the communists were talking about,” as he later told me in a 2009 interview. Up to that point in his life, Gage had been a staunch “Ronald Reagan Republican” (his words) and an Iraq War supporter. But what he heard on KPFA’s airwaves blew his mind. “[The speaker] was talking about the 118 [World Trade Center] first-responders — information that had just come out in 2005 — who said they’d heard explosions and flashes of light, beams dripping with molten metal, all amid the collapse of 80,000 tons of structural steel,” he told me. “It hit me like a two-by-four. How come I’d never heard of any of this? I was shocked. I had to pull my car to the side of the road to absorb it all. I knew I’d be late for the meeting. But I didn’t care.”

22 Comments:

At 24 March, 2014 15:40, Blogger snug.bug said...

Mr. Kay certainly makes a fool of himself in that piece.

His claim that the truth movement has been in a tailspin since 2008 only shows that he hasn't been doing his homework. He seems unaware of current legislation in Congress calling for the declassification of the redacted 28 pages in the original 9/11 investigation. He seems unaware of the formal letter to NIST pointing out major omissions and errors in the WTC7 report. At the time the alleged tailspin began, there were 500 architects and engineers for truth; today they number well over 2000. When Van Jones had his name removed from the 911truth statement in 2009, only two of the 160 signatories joined him in retracting their signatures, even though many of them surely had been greatly embarrassed by the behavior of some of the kooks (the ones "Ian" likes to call "serious researchers") and by the nonsense many of them put forth.

Kay's belief that Barack Obama is a leftist is a real hoot, and shows his political tone-deafness. Obama is clearly a tool of the 1% and the National Security State. His opinion that "the idea of Obama and Bush being in league together is so weird" seems to be based on nothing but his own ignorance and lack of imagination. I guess he doesn't know that the Obama administration interfered in a Spanish judicial investigation of the crimes of the "Bush Six".

His descent in his conclusion to the level of gossip about people's character is hilariously illogical. Obama is no Cheney, correct. So what? Who said he was? Obama is more subtle than Cheney is all. If his point is that Obama has very effectively neutralized the left, so what? Everybody knows that. And if demoralizing the left was what he was supposed to do, doesn't that put him in league with Bush and Cheney?

Mr. Kay is so busy inventing the absurd assumptions to support his ridiculous conclusions, he has no time to find any actual facts.



 
At 24 March, 2014 17:38, Blogger Grandmastershek said...

Yes, a formal letter, not in a peer reviewed journal, where actual science belongs. Hence why truthers will continue to fail.

 
At 24 March, 2014 20:01, Blogger Ian said...

Poor Brian. He's hysterical because the truth movement is dead, the widows have no questions, and Brian is a failed janitor who lives with his parents and can't afford a decent haircut.

 
At 24 March, 2014 20:08, Blogger Ian said...

A major reason why 9/11 truth is dead, of course, is that Bush is no longer in the White House. All 9/11 truth was, after all, was deranged hatred of the Bush administration.

Now with Obama in power, the deranged hatred manifests itself in other ways, like birtherism.

Should Hillary Clinton win the Presidency in 2016, I'm sure Behgazi or Vince Foster lunacy will come to the forefront. If a Republican wins in 2016, it won't take long for some other deranged conspiracy theory to rear its head.

And Brian Good will still be here, babbling about invisible widows with "questions", about 4 grand conspiracy theories behind the current one.

 
At 24 March, 2014 22:02, Blogger M Gregory Ferris said...

"Gage’s audience was the usual mix of graying hippies, student radicals and unclassifiable oddballs. "

...Ouch (because it's true)

 
At 25 March, 2014 08:22, Blogger snug.bug said...

GMS, NIST removed of shear studs from the WTC7 girder, reduced the width of the girder seat, and removed vital stiffener plates from the girder flange. Every one of these changes was necessary to make their girder-walk-off theory have any hope of possibility. Taking the issue up with NIST is quite appropriate.

By framing the issue as a matter of science, you discard it on the basis of non-publication. It is less a matter of science than a matter of law. One needn't be a scientist to evaluate the legitimacy of the observations of NIST's dishonesty. Peer-reviewed journals' refusal to publish this information not make the information untrue, much as you might wish it did. It tells us more about the quality of the journals than it does about the validity of the observations.

 
At 25 March, 2014 08:25, Blogger snug.bug said...

Ian, there was nothing deranged about hatred of the Bush administration, which squandered this country's moral authority.

Your claim that the widows are invisible is a persistent, deliberate lie.

Your claim that they have no questions is a persistent, deliberate lie.

 
At 25 March, 2014 08:37, Blogger snug.bug said...

Oh, and where's your buddy Willie Rodriguez, anyway? He ran away screaming and crying after I proved that his hero story was a lie, and he hasn't been back. Not here, not anywhere. He didn't even make an appearance at the Kevin Barrett disinfofest in D.C. last fall.

 
At 25 March, 2014 15:15, Blogger Ian said...

Nobody cares about your delusions about WTC 7, your delusions about "widows", or your homosexual obsession with Wille Rodriguez.

 
At 25 March, 2014 20:25, Blogger Ian said...

Hey Brian, I see in your profile that you follow a blog called "CIT Watch".

Remember that time you were banned from CIT for posting thousands of pages of dumbspam? Then you came back as "Watson" and posted the same dumbspam again until you were banned again?

That was hilarious.

 
At 26 March, 2014 07:36, Blogger Michael Lewis said...

Every one of these changes was necessary to make their girder-walk-off theory have any hope of possibility.

You're confusing correlation with causation. No evidence has come forward to suggest that those differences are even significant, let alone deliberate changes.

 
At 26 March, 2014 09:03, Blogger snug.bug said...

No, Ian, I don't remember being banned by CIT. Did the "serious researcher" Bill Deagle tell you that?

RGT, if you would bother to read the letter to NIST you would see the evidence that the differences are significant.

If you would take the time to understand the nature and purpose of shear studs you would see that their presence would have prevented the subject girder from walking off its seat.

If you would take the time to understand the nature and purpose of stiffener plates, you would see that their removal facilitated the walk-off theory by causing the girder flange to fail, which causes the girder to fall off its seat after fewer inches of walk-off than a stiffened girder would.

If you would take the time to understand the nature and purpose of girder seats, you would see that a narrower seat facilitated the walk-off theory by causing the the girder to fall off its seat after fewer inches of walk-off than a stiffened girder would.

Given these doubts about NIST's honesty in describing the structural environment of the girder that allegedly failed, NIST's refusal to provide their calculation worksheets of the thermal expansion stresses imposed on the girder is quite significant.

I'm not confusing correlation with anything. NIST's walk-off mechanism could not have happened had the shear studs OR the stiffeners OR the proper seat width been included in their analysis.




 
At 26 March, 2014 12:06, Blogger Grandmastershek said...

Again Brian dodges the fact that truthers continually avoid being scrutinized in real academic forums. No surprise on any of those accounts.

 
At 26 March, 2014 15:00, Blogger Ian said...

No, Ian, I don't remember being banned by CIT.

Well, that's because you're a pathetic liar. You also claimed that you're not petgoat because you're a pathetic liar.

Also, it's hilarious that you keep posting spam about WTC 7 and NIST as if anyone cares what you think about these topics. Nobody cares what a lunatic unemployed janitor thinks of these things.

 
At 26 March, 2014 15:02, Blogger Ian said...

Hey Brian, I noticed on your Linkedin profile that you claim to be a "consultant" (which is better to put on a professional profile than "lunatic failed janitor" I guess).

I guess that means you consulted on the "Hunger Games" movies, since your area of expertise is hideous haircuts and modified attack baboons, and that movie features both. I hope you were paid well. Richard Gage's DVDs don't pay for themselves.

 
At 26 March, 2014 18:54, Blogger snug.bug said...

GMS, Richard Gage has presented his program at many college campuses.

Ian, I am not posting what I think about WTC7 and NIST. I am posting facts about WTC7 and NIST. I know the difference between opinions and facts is a mystery to you.

 
At 27 March, 2014 04:55, Blogger Ian said...

GMS, Richard Gage has presented his program at many college campuses.

Nobody cares.

Ian, I am not posting what I think about WTC7 and NIST.

False.

I am posting facts about WTC7 and NIST.

False.

I know the difference between opinions and facts is a mystery to you.

False.

Also, Brian, you didn't answer my questions about what kind of consulting work you do. I told Laurie Van Auken that you won't answer my questions and she burst into tears. Why do you delight in the widows' pain? What's wrong with you?

 
At 27 March, 2014 04:57, Blogger Ian said...

Also, it's hilarious that Brian thinks a "real academic forum" involves giving a presentation. I guess Brian doesn't understand how academia works, given that he failed out of San Jose State.

 
At 28 March, 2014 13:42, Blogger snug.bug said...

"Ian", I am not here to discuss my personal life with anonymous internet posters who substitute libel for knowledge.

Where did you get the idea that I flunked out of SJSU? You must have me confused with MGF.

 
At 29 March, 2014 10:57, Blogger Tartan Blanket said...

Expansion of A36 steel due to heat is accepted science. No need for peer review of that at all. NIST got their analysis horribly wrong and had to overestimate expansion due to heat in the beams to the East of the girder spanning columns 79 and 44. They had to omit 2 stiffener plates and 3 beam stubs to make their supposed initiating event look possible. They released the drawings that reveal these errors. Why would anybody need a peer review of the contents of the structural drawings?

 
At 30 March, 2014 01:12, Blogger snug.bug said...

They also had to omit the shear studs on the girder.

 
At 30 March, 2014 04:35, Blogger Unknown said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

 

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