What’s the 411 on 9/11?

Having only heard Griffin’s U of W speech, and not yet read his book, I can’t comment on what kind of speculations he makes about governmet involvement in 9/11. His evidence is compelling though, and deserves to be viewed on its merits.

Muwakkil’s argument is a simple an ad hominem attack. Griffin was once an admired and respected theologian, but now “what happened to him?” he’s just a “conspiracy theorist.”

This is a crafty dismissal of compelling evidence without actually addressing the points Griffin makes. Sure Terry Allen came to the same conclusion, but what are the “plausible explanations” she came up with for building seven’s collapse - for the demolition of buildings one and two by a couple of jetliners?

I don’t care how Allen or Muwakkil feel about Griffin’s character. Griffin’s evidence and its counterpoints should be discussed. Muwakkil doesn’t “debunk a conspiracy theory” here, he just claims the author’s gone soft and off the deep end. It’s the oldest trick in the book.

If Griffin makes logical leaps in claiming government foreknowledge and involvement then discuss it specifically. Labeling him a conspiracy theorist and dismissing his findings is rude and illogical. Faint praise for his former work can’t hide an ad hominem argument.

Agreed, katiez, in spades. 

Indeed, why the dangling teaser just before Muwakkil’s concluding paragraph? 

So what specifically are Allen’s “plausible explanations”?  Why bother mentioning them without listing them?  Are we supposed to take Allen’s word “on faith” just because Allen did some work for Amnesty International and is now an editor at ITT?  It makes my BS metre red-line!

And that concluding paragraph!  I had to read three times trying to guess what slant Muwakki is actually on.  In the end, i was left wondering if Muwakki’s “is” should have actually been an “are” and whether “debunking” was used as a verb or a adjective.  Did the Muwakki or his esteemed editor really want to “debunking conspiracy theories are unlikely to change that [the Bush admin’s pathological aversion to openness]”?

In the end, i was left wondering if Muwakki is towing some ITT internal line that he couldn’t quite condone himself.  Why did the first two-thirds of the article praise Griffin before it turned on lame generalisations about “the Left” to note two superficial ad-hominem critiques of Griffin’s work?

This kind sophomoric analysis does ITT a disturbing disservice. 

If anyone wants to consider viewpoints alternative to the official Admin line, they might want to check out these:
* “Distinguished University of Minnesota Philosophy Professor Joins 9/11 Fight, Saying the Truth Must Be Uncovered”, at ArcticBeacon, http://tinyurl.com/9kz3b
* “The 9/11 WTC Collapses - Index of What Really Happened”, http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/wtc_9-11_truth.html, or * Pentagon Strike, http://pentagonstrike.co.uk

AD.2005.Dec.22.16:15.ICT (IndoChina Time)

Please pardon the slips:
* “And that concluding paragraph!  I had to read three times...” should read “ And that concluding paragraph!  I had to read it three times...”
* “… really want to “debunking conspiracy theories...” should read “… really want to say “debunking conspiracy theories...”

I have to admit i’m pissed (off). 

I had actually begun to believe ITT was a publication i could put some trust into—in part because of Vonnegut’s presence here. 

But then i was pointed by another discussion here to reading of ITT’s affair with David Lindorff in “R.I.P. In These Times”, by Lindorff at CounterPunch, http://www.counterpunch.com/lindorff11192005.html. 

I withheld judgement at that point, thinking the affair might have been an anomoly. 

But now, after reading Muwakki’s piece, i tiresomely have to accept that ITT’s content must be read with even more skepticism than i’d usually reserve for USA Today because it seems there may be neo-cons behind the Leftists here.

Oops, yet again.  My “Muwakki” should read “Muwakkil”.

In fact, i have to chill.  And i’ll gratefully accept an extension of this article that addresses the points katiez and i have raised, preferrably looking at more than just Griffin’s alternate views, as Griffin is obviously not alone in terms of respected pundits saying similar things about 9/11 and the Bush Admin. 

If that’s done, i’ll openly apologize for the bile i’ve just spewed, but not a nanosecond before.

AD.2005.Dec.22.16:45.35.ICT

Your comments are quite insightful, AD. Muwakkil may simply be repeating the official ITT mantra. It does seem strange that he would praise Griffin in the first part of the article and then suddenly switch to labeling and dismissing him. He makes only vague, incomplete arguments to support his change of view. It doesn’t add up.

Perhaps the article once had a different conclusion and an editor at ITT retooled the end, adding quotes from herself in the process. Or maybe Muwakkil is afraid of being labeled a conspiracist himself, and is engaged in cognitive dissonance.

Do not be concerned about seeming emotional about this issue. The article is so transparent! It really pissed me off too, and I had to edit my comments several times.  It only underscores your points.

An ad hominem attack is a tool of the right. It switches focus and avoids examining the target’s evidence, which runs the risk of highlighting how plausible it actually is. It’s probably the most common logical fallacy, and it tops Sagan’s list: http://www.nobeliefs.com/fallacies.htm

Thanks for linking to Lindorff’s article about his experience writing about DU for ITT. ITT’s response is shameful! They cowtowed to Pentagon-spun rhetoric and repeatedly tried to discount a well researched and referenced story.

At least the site allows unmoderated comments. I would be surprised if the original article and our responses remain up, however. If they don’t, I’ll publish them on my own blog.

In fact, katiez, my ignorance on the subject is only too vast.  I’ve clearly been too focused on basic survival over the last decade in Saigon.  I had no idea the “911 Truth Movement” (911TM) was so well-established and so much research of depth and breadth has already been published.

I’d only stumbled upon the URLs i referenced above just recently and was then quite surprised these issues hadn’t caught my attention earlier.  Yet, if much of what the 911TM is claiming is true, the implications for global geopolitics would be monumental, no?

So what’s the real deal on 9/11 today?  I’m just cracking the surface now.  I can only resort to the Internet for my information, but merely Googling “9-11 truth” quickly reveals a wealth of information on the subject.  (Though, notably in the context of Muwakkil’s piece, nothing relevant by Allen turns up from Googling terry-allen+OR+terry-j-allen+david-griffin+OR+david-ray-griffin.).

Despite my limited resources, it still seems obvious a big part of the 911TM has been focused for a couple years already on simply avoiding the very accusation Muwakkil levels at “the left” in general: Inherently skeptical of official dogma, the left has an [implicitly “irresponsible"] affinity for alternative explanations.

Oh?  See, just as one example, “MAD CONSPIRACY THEORIES”, by Gerard Holmgren, 2003.Feb.12, [http://www.world-action.co.uk/conspiracy.html].  Interestingly, the web-page title of Holmgren’s analysis uses almost the exact phrase Muwakkil used in his closing sentence, ie, “Debunking Conspiracy Theorists”.

Oil Empire’s “Bogus 9/11 truth claims” provides a wide range of overviews of dubious 9/11 claims from the 911TM’s perspective [http://www.oilempire.us/bogus.html].

So where’s the news in ITT’s piece?

Only days ago, Dr James H Fetzer released his “Thinking about ‘Conspiracy Theories’” [http://www.d.umn.edu/~jfetzer/], with the statement “I stand with Steve Jones, Professor of Physics at Brigham Young, David Ray Griffin, Professor Emeritus of Theology at Claremont, and other students and scholars of 9/11, who believe that extraordinary times require extraordinary measures.”

Of the other sources Googling uncovered, a handful seemed promising for neophytes like myself.

Wikipedia’s 9/11 Truth Movement [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_Truth_Movement] for starters.

Global Research Canada’s “9/11 & ‘War on Terrorism’” page [via http://tinyurl.com/8r63h] and it’s “9/11 Truth Movement - Selected Resources for Researchers and Activists” [http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/LEV212A.html] for an in-depth, left-leaning perspective.

Political Research Associates’ “Post 9/11 Conspiracism”, including both “The New Pearl Harbor Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11 by David Ray Griffin - Review by Chip Berlet”, undated [http://www.publiceye.org/conspire/Post911/dubious_claims.html] and “RESPONSE TO CHIP BERLET’S REVIEW OF THE NEW PEARL HARBOR”, David R Griffin, 2004.May.01 [http://www.publiceye.org/conspire/Post911/Griffin1.html].

Griffin’s retort, unmentioned by Muwakkil, partly answers a question Muwakkil throws out but never attempts to answer beyond ad hominem, “What could have transformed this sober, reflective scholar into a conspiracy theorist?”

Why would Muwakkil ignore this retort which even Berlet’s own report links to at its opening?

Fetzer’s “THINKING ABOUT “CONSPIRACY THEORIES”: 9/11 and JFK”, last modified 2005.Dec.09, is reviewed by Greg Szymanski at ArcticBeacon, 2005.Dec.16 [http://www.arcticbeacon.com/articles/article/1518131/39247.htm].  Fetzer agreed to appear the following Monday, two days ago, on Szymanski’s nationwide radio show, the “Investigative Journal” [http://www.rbnlive.com].

In the end, i can only conclude Muwakkil’s piece is titled only too appropriately as it provides about as much balanced information as one might expect from a 411 operator.

AD.2005.Dec.22.23:05.ICT

<b>PLEASE NOTE: Some of the URLs in my previous post have been broken up (extra spaces and full-stops inserted) by ITT’s forum system.

Well what have we here?  A damned nasty little hit piece.  An ignorant Adhominem attack on two eminent and wise, and brave scholars.  Despite an obvious longing to throw dirt, the mean spirited author Muwakkil cannot find anything to denigrate about either Jones or Griffin and so resorts to casting aspersions on their characters on the basis of their support of alternative theories, which have the advantage of not having been disproven and which DO actually agree with witness evidence and science.  Unlike one long since discredited and fast fading Official Theory I can think of.

Since your obvious intention is only to try and shore up the crumbling facade of the official lie, and this is so transparent as to be laughable, one would expect a Joke except this is about the standard of propaganda this administration of Criminals usually feeds us. 

Can anyone say JEFF GANNON?  The Gannon Cannon!  There is the Junta’s idea of propaganda.  Someone who can spoof for them as well as swallow their spoof, literraly.

So Muwakkil, you are another Shoill are you?  You have no reason to attack these men, except to say their support for the 911 truth makes them suspect.  You have no other axe to grind with either of them, you admitted it.  Is Rabbit missing something here?  Did you just write a stock standard hit piece for the official 911 lie or did you actually say anything worthwhile?

Well, if your intention was to start a controversy, this isn’t the staff trying to wind us up now is it?, you will surely have one on your hands in short order. 

Salim Muwwakkil, Rabbit wondered initially if the 411 was a reference to the date of the other false flag terror attack, in Madrid.

Andi

You didn’t read Rabbit’s words to you about TINYURLs did you?  You chose instead to assume, falsely I might add that the rabbit was attacking you.

It is true Rabbit has a rather blunt approach, he tries to wrap his words in soft velvet to take some of the edge off his otherwise VERY Aries tone.  The Forum does muck around with anything which touches the edge of the box.  You need to pick up a few clues which we have garnered and pass along to all who will be readable.  You have so far been wrapped up in a weird thread and there are wacky things going on at ITT now.  Rabbit is here and this is a good sign, or a bad one depending on one’s point of view.  Rabbit usually manages to be on sites around the time they implode, explode etc.  He is like that in life too.  Things often go bang or whoosh or glug glug glug around Rabbit.

Not Rabbit’s fault, he is just drawn by Karma to be an observer of disasters, from a barely safe distance.

Take note that he is watching the USA elvove towards it’s date with destiny, from all the way downunder your toes.  In Oz.  It seems Rabbit’s inimitable Spirit Guides have decided this is the nearest safe distance to watch this one.

This is not a joke......^^.....

By the way Katiez, your words describing exactly how and why this is a crappy piece of writing, and observations about the methods used, are EXACTLY how the rabbit would like to have said it, but you did it best.

Andi

Go here if you want to see just how much Rabbit has been into the 911 stuff recently, it may have attracted something here.  The shill Natalie took it to another thread and was finally abandoned there, Maybe this piece is some sort of “reaction”, .

You might want to stick around if you enjoy fireworks.  Something tells the rabbit we could be in for a show.

Gather round friends, I think this is a call to battle.

It is a good collection of references to good information, and the official shill’s best answers to all of it.  You will notice she did this by ad-himinem attacks on people, and by smoke and mirrors, wasting lots of space debating small details which are meaningless.  All so familiar.

Wow.  I’ve got some reading to do.  Thanks, GR.

PS: Ya, I see what you’re on about with using TinyURL here.  Gad, what a pain though.

In a modest defense of ITT’s editorial reticence to take this issue head-on, some speculation that the Leftist press is skitterish in relation to conspiracy stories dating back to the Christic Institute’s incorrect conclusion to the assassination attempt on Eden Pastora back in the ‘80’s.

“The antidote to conspiracism is Power Structure Research based on some form of institutional, systemic or structural analysis that examines race, ethnicity, gender, sexual identity, class and other factors that are used to create inequality and oppression,”

A formula for making broad general arguments to avoid getting burned on the specifics.  Very sad.  I want to tell them to get some balls, but I’m not under the kind of pressure they must be feeling.

A couple more tips ... for those who don’t already know HTML ... and one for those who use tinyURL in hyperlinks.

Using HTML to make a hyperlink to a reference is easy.

Here is an example of a hyperlink HTML command :

words to become link goes here

The line above is an inactive example.

Replace URL goes here between the “ “ with the URL/address.

Replace words to become link goes here between the > </a> with whatever word or phrase that you want to become the hyperlink to click on.

I have found that using tinyURL is not necessary within the HTML command. After a bit of experimentation with HTML hyperlink I stopped using tinyURL because the URL does not get broken within the HTML command.

Hyperlinks, see above example,
bold
italics

blockquote

are the only HTML formatting commands allowed on ITT.

Click on the HTML link above and take a look at the commands.

The first <*> turns the command on and the second </*> with the backslash turns the command off.

Best to experiment on an old thread to learn the ins and outs.

It is easy to learn. I did and I am basically computer illiterate but slowly learning.

By the way ...

I have asked Natalie to bring the discussion taking place on the Democrats: It’s the War thread to this 9/11 discussion.

I hope she joins the discussion here.

I think this quote from Griffin’s rebuttal to Berlet is very interesting in light of Muwakkil’s blanket acceptance of Berlet’s and PSR’s advisement of ITT. (Andi--thanx for the link)

However, leaving that problem aside, let me move to what seems to be a major misunderstanding of my perspective. Berlet seems to believe that a conspiratorial perspective is necessarily opposed to a “structural, systemic, or institutional analysis.” Indeed, he says that I provide “a centrist or right-wing populist explanation that if deconstructed suggests that an otherwise acceptable political and economic system has been distorted by a conspiracy of secret elites.” Besides the fact that this characterization of my position would make my friends and students hoot, Berlet perhaps missed note 25 of the Introduction to NPH, in which I directly confront the worry that conspiracy theories are diversionary. In pointing out that this worry often involves valid concerns, I said:

One concern is that a focus on exposing conspiratorial crimes of present office-holders may reflect the naive assumption that if only we can replace those individuals with better ones, things will be fine. Underlying that worry is the concern that a focus on conspirators can divert attention from the more important issue of the structural problems in the national and global order that need to be overcome.

Then, after suggesting some reasons why we should “avoid a too strong dichotomy between structural and conspiratorial analysis,” I added another reason:

Finally, and most important, the exposure of a conspiracy may, rather than diverting attention from a society’s problematic structures, turn attention to them. For example, if it became evident that our national political leaders caused or at least allowed the attacks of 9/11 and that they did so partly because they had deeply embodied certain values pervasive of our society, we might finally decide that a society-wide reorientation was in order.

Berlet cannot justly assume, therefore, that if I suspect the attacks of 9/11 were able to succeed only because of official conspiracy, I reject structural analyses of our national and global problems

Can we interrelate a structural analysis of the Security State and how it has possibly enabled a fairly small cohort of conspirators to effectively hi-jack the Government? I don’t see why not. 

Another point of note is that this story is way out of date and Jones, whose expertise is not so easy to discount, is only mentioned in passing.  It indicates to me that this is a story the ITT staff felt the need to at least mention for the sake of it’s readership, but nobody in house is really willing to stick their neck out on.  The fact that political journalists of whatever stripe are notoriously lacking in math and tech knowledge could have some bearing on the matter.

Good discussion.  If you haven’t read David Ray Griffin’s New Pearl Harbor, do.  It’s impeccable.

Karen

Too much light for the Vampire, too many people, she hates crowds you know Dave.

Rabbit also dropped by Democrats to give the Vamp a paddling, and send her over here.  Who knows maybe this thread is a set-up, and Natty is about to lead a “Charge of the Shills” Charge of the Dark Brigade?

Another point of note is that this story is way out of date and Jones, whose expertise is not so easy to discount, is only mentioned in passing.  It indicates to me that this is a story the ITT staff felt the need to at least mention for the sake of it’s readership, but nobody in house is really willing to stick their neck out on.  The fact that political journalists of whatever stripe are notoriously lacking in math and tech knowledge could have some bearing on the matter.

An excellent point.

The whole idea of being an alleged conspiracy theorist reminds me of Sneeches somehow .. (thank you Natalie for reminding us of Sneeches in the not so distant past).

People don’t want to be labelled with a label they don’t like. But not so much racism in this case but something else ... maybe?

Hello again, Rabbit, David, Lumens, Andi.

Nice to meet you katiez and KarenR.

I’m wiley.

WOW!

At first I was excited about the article. My first thought when I opened it, however, was that the length is appropriate for a letter to grandma, and completely inadequate to the task at hand (unless the task was to dismiss a person who contradicted the official version (although there isn’t really an “official” version (there is no transcript of the hearing)---there is just an accusation, impressions, and prepackaged hype that defies Newton’s laws and all manners of sensibility.)

Half way through the article my inner ape wanted to fling feces at it. My frontal cortex was not looking forward to the tedium of parsing this Twinkie.  I was totally relieved to read the posts that followed.

I’m a ‘forest’ person. Thanks for the ‘trees’.

I gotta read the whole thread again then check out Rabbit’s link to catch up.

Ahhh, man---I still gotta wrap some presents and then get to bed, but I can not resist one little post:

O.K. Whatever you think of Micheal Ruppert, I’ve got to tell you that the only question I ever had about 9/11 (aside from how can so many people accept this in your face “trifecta"*) was how did they silence all those FAA air traffic controllers? These people are generally brighter than cows and vigilant, and in the case of something going off course, it’s reasonable to expect them to be hyper-vigilant.  Four aircrafts flying through different parts of the country and all those air traffic controllers and crews at NORAD not catching on? No way.

This is the only <a href"http://www.oilempire.us/wargames.html#coincidence">explanation</a> I have seen.

In brief: At the same time of the so-called hijackings NORAD and the FAA were involved in wargames. Cheney was running the games, and the scenario was....GUESS---
airplanes being hijacked. Finally! That was driving me nuts. All I could surmise before that was death threats or buy-offs to keep ‘em from singing like canaries.

I experienced a false alarm on duty with SAC/NORAD that was caused by someone somewhere in the system inserting a training tape into real-time. (I didn’t find out the actual cause until I had the final flashback, and that was confirmed by research I did on the internet, which I first accessed twenty years after the fact---the first terms I put in a search engine were “NORAD” and “nuclear missiles” and “false alarm”. Boing.)

I have no doubt that Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Cheney were all aware of this. Their buddy Collin Powell sure as hell was.

ANYWAY, they did the reverse, in a way, the controllers thought that the real aircraft were part of the exercise and so they treated them as such.  And the war game tape itself was rigged so that the people who were watching real-time and not playing the game were fooled.

I have not read this link in detail, I read about this event a couple of years ago and just socked it in to a search engine tonight. Don’t take this as gospel.

Andi---do you have a link for that quote? I wanna read it.

* more on that with links later

RATS!!!

explanation

edit: link fixed.

GRRRRRR. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, but it’s worth a copy and paste.

Whew, just coming out of a profoundly dreamy codeine coma…

Anyway, Wiley, did you mean the quote ending with “… all of us experienced air traffic controllers—that it was a military plane”? If so, that’s from “Distinguished University of Minnesota Philosophy Professor Joins 9/11 Fight, Saying the Truth Must Be Uncovered”, 2005.Dec.16, at ArcticBeacon, http://tinyurl.com/9kz3b, which is a review of Fetzer’s paper which is available as a WinWord draft, Dec.15, from his site, http://www.d.umn.edu/~jfetzer/.

The Strange Case Of The 911 Cell Phone Calls

September 2004

Last month, Qualcomm Corporation issued a press release stating that they had developed a new technology that would finally make it possible to make cellular phone calls from commercial airliners. Using a technology called “Pico Cells”, the system will work as a link between the airliner and ground towers. According to the press release, it is currently impossible to connect by cell phone in a plane that is above 4,000 feet.

During the Republican National Convention in New York City last month, Deena Burnett, widow of Flight 93 victim Tom Burnett, spoke of the four telephone calls she received from her husband aboard the doomed airliner on September 11th, all of which were received from his cell phone, one of which lasted 13 minutes.

With the FAA statement that Flight 93 never went below 29,000 feet until its’ sudden fatal plunge, these two stories seem to be mutually exclusive. Either it is possible to make cell phone calls from a commercial jetliner in flight at cruising altitude - or it isn’t.

If it is already possible to use a cell phone on a plane, why is Qualcomm so excited about their Pico chip? If it is not possible to do so, there’s an even bigger problem.

Because there are no survivors of any of the 911 planes, the only “eyewitness” testimony we have is the paraphrased transcripts of phone calls made to family members. This is where we get the descriptions of “Arab looking men” with knives and box cutters, talking about “Allah”. It is from these calls we hear the immortal and heroic “Let’s roll!”.

(for the rest of the story...)

There is much more wrong with the stories of the phone calls, but this is certainly more grill for the mist.  Rabbit has read speculation about how the cell phones worked at the altitudes before, and there are a seriees of descrepancies with the information given on these calls.

I’m pleased to see that these editors @ ITT have taken a stand on the side of what I believe to be common sense and simple reality.

I’m disappointed, however, that their article was somewhat short on specifics, and left both believers in bombs and believers in pancakes frustrated.  I would hope that they might choose to expand on their conclusions in a future article of longer length and depth.  I think it’s important not to allow a false notion like this to take root, especially one that serves to effectively exonerate the true villains of 9/11, and shamefully and without any direct evidence point the finger of blame in the opposite direction.

I guess I can understand the tendency of some to sympathize with and excuse the terrorists, and look for reasons why they felt they had to fly planes into our buildings.  But to jump from there to saying things like “the hijackers are still alive”, and “the U.S. government orchestrated the whole event” is taking a huge leap of logic.

My introduction to the 9/11 “truth” movement came as a result of discovering that Doug Rokke and his fellow traveler Lauren Monet of depleted uranium fame both believed that a missile hit the pentagon on 9/11 instead of, or perhaps in addition to, the Boeing aircraft, which of course raised additional questions in my mind about their judgment, credibility and choice of sources of information.  Although I was aware that there were a few websites promoting this missile theory, I hadn’t at the time heard about the towers and explosives.

But of course it’s hard to miss once you enter the world of “whatreallyhappened”, and all the dozens of other sites promoting and I’m sure profiting greatly from this hoax.

Unfortunately, there’s been precious little effort expended to counter this landslide, one reason being I suspect is that precious few people are even aware it exists.  After all, aside from an appearance on CSPAN by David Griffin, and a short segment featuring Steven E. Jones on “The Situation” with Tucker Carlson on MSNBC, there’s been virtually no mention of bombs in buildings and missiles in pentagons by the old fashioned conventional media.

I think there’s a very simple and good reason for this.  No, not a cover-up, not intimidation, not fear.  The simple fact is that there’s no real evidence.  There’s no conclusive pictures like the ones from Abu Ghraib, there’s no documents, like the Rather memos, and there’s no direct testimony to the plot, like in Watergate, only varying recollections of sounds of bombs.

The above reminds us of the press’s eagerness to jump all over a story that will damage a president, and his efforts in war, even half knowing that documents were fake, in one instance.

What greater story to do such damage than revealing that we in effect manufactured the events of 9/11, and thereby our response?

Well there is one small site that I think does a pretty good job of addressing many of the claims of the “truth” movement one at at time.  One section takes on David Griffin:

Amongst all those who suggest some kind of clandestine US Government involvement in the events of 9/11, none have had quite as much attention as David Ray Griffin.  This respected professor of Philosophy and Theology isn’t an obvious conspiracy theorist, after all.  His second book on this issue, “The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions”, in particular has attracted some glowing reviews:

omit...distort

For every action.....

cell phones

Dear Natalie,

Your reputation proceeds you—well.

Thanks for pointing out a grave mistake i’d made.  In my last long post above i actually chose to omit reference to 9/11 Myth’s page you justly lauded, the Omissions and Distortions (of Griffin’s 2004 year-end book, The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions). 

I’d passed ITT’s 4,000-character post limit and had to cut something.  I chose to cut that one because a skim of it showed it only covers two (classes?) of the O/Ds Griffin discusses in this book and elsewhere:
01. whether the some of the 9/11 executive terrorists claimed dead are still alive or not, and,
02. whether the one who supposed flew a 747 crop-duster style through such a nice little whole in a largely vacant reinforced concrete wing of the Pentagon leaving almost no debris could fly well enough to do that or not.

That choice was largely made because the 9/11 Myths O/D page is so brief and later reports by or about Griffin’s 9/11CommRep O/Ds cover several more these that are more persuasive than the two covered by 9/11 Myths.  And all these later reports are listed at Global Research Canada’s 9/11 pages.

The most relevant of these, to what you just discussed, seem to be these—only parts of which i’ve finished reading:

01. The 9/11 Commission Report: A 571 Page Lie by Dr David Ray Griffin, September 8, 2005, which lists 115 of O/Ds Griffin charges against the 9/11 Comm Rep;

02. The 9/11 Commission’s Incredible Tales - Flights 11, 175, 77, and 93, by David Ray Griffin, December 13, 2005, a lecture summarizing “the second half of the book, which deals with the Commission’s explanation as to why the US military was unable to intercept any of the hijacked airplanes.”

<continued in next post>

AD.2005.Dec.23.23:13.ICT—who’s crossing his fingers over all the URLs embedded herein.

<continued from previous post>

That confessed and clarified, i want to say that, so far, i also have not seen any significant evidence directly implicating the Bush Admin, US security services or anyone else of an “inside job”. 

I do, however, find that the evidence i’ve seen so far, along with other acts of the US government over the last several decades, does incite a very strong suspicion in me that it could well have been an inside job and the 9/11 Commission was a cover-up. 

Given what little i’ve read so far as an admitted neophyte in this controversy, this is a suspicion, a hypothesis, i firmly believe should be widespread and widely, publicly and thoroughly tested. 

But, as you’ve pointed out, “precious few people are even aware it [the 9/11 Truth Movement] exists”, because there’s been “precious little effort” by “the old fashioned conventional media”, because “there’s no real evidence”, “no direct testimony to the plot”.

But the mainstream press should not be waiting for “real evidence” or “direct testimony to the plot” to investigate and air the issues publicly. 

Just as the press should not wait for the completion of either government or peer reviews of dangerous medicines or scientific deceptions before reporting concerns, even from anonymous source, about their potential harm, an effective responsible press cannot wait for legally sufficient evidence before reporting reports of dangerous wrongdoings by the current Admin, even if those reports.

So why is it that precious few folks, especially US folks, are not even aware of the 9/11 Truth Movement or its highly visible, widespread reports and the mainstream media continues to provide precious little coverage?

Griffin himself likely does more justice to the question than i could and anyone interested in his views on as much can be read in 9/11 and the Mainstream Press by Dr. David Ray Griffin, 02 August 2005, Address given at the National Press Club, July 22, 2005, at the website of the Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace.

AD.2005.Dec.23.23:13.ICT

Editing fork-ups as usual:

“Just as the press should not wait for the completion of either government or peer reviews of dangerous medicines or scientific deceptions before reporting concerns, even from anonymous source, about their potential harm, an effective responsible press cannot wait for legally sufficient evidence before reporting reports of dangerous wrongdoings by the current Admin, even if those reports.”

-- should read --

Just as the press should not wait for the completion of either government or peer reviews of dangerous medicines or scientific deceptions before reporting concerns (even from anonymous sources) about their potential harm, an effective responsible press cannot wait for legally sufficient evidence before reporting reports of dangerous wrongdoings by the current Admin.

Rabbit proudly introduces, our in-house spokesperson for the criminal Junta.

Natalie, the sublime.

Come on Natty, tell them how Griffin is an LSD freak.

Tell them how Prof Astenah cannot be trusted because he’s from Berkely.  Oh but of course when you realised Astenah said something you thought you could use, he was reliable again, the rabbit forgot.

Now folks, Rabbit knows Nat the Bat.  She has a couple of rules which you should be aware of.  These rules form a sort of handicap, and as you get to know Natty you will understand why she needs a handicap start. 

First if Natty can find anything, an anonymous report or a government report or something even less credible, it is to be counted as a complete refutation of anything which was said before that.  Henceforth anything you wrote previous to that point vanishes forever.

Secondly, any source you use, which is anti the US admin, or anti-Bush, is null and void by that very fact.  Natalie will not accept any source, any person as a witness unless they are pro-Bush.  Only if they Love and trust Dubya, can anthing they say about anything be trusted.  Of course if they support any part of the official story, that is qualification in itself and their political leanings have obviously got no bearing.

Now it’s true that this does seem a trifle weighted in the Bat’s favour, but as you get to know her, this should become understandable.  She still struggles, especially in the case of Highly Scientific facts like Gravity, which you can forget about talking about unless you are a Physics Professor.  Natty is not an engineer or scientist, and she doesn’t believe you are.  It is not for mere mortals to understand such complex business of how things fall down.

Don’t tell Natty that Kerosene cannot soften Steel, you don’t know that THIS kerosene didn’t soften THIS steel do you?

The FISA report said it did, so that is proof anyway, right Nat?

Natty said:

I’m pleased to see that these editors @ ITT have taken a stand on the side of what I believe to be common sense and simple reality.

It hasn’t escaped anybody’s notice that the editors at ITT have crapped themselves.  This article is the most woefully inadequate piece of Ad hominem rant ITT has ever printed, maybe.  It is sad, it is pathetic and it is desperate.  It is a piece of drivel, there are no facts, nothing about the issues which led to the conclusions that Griffin was wrong about anything, which by the way he isn’t , nobody is refuting the facts which are what Griffin presents.  The facts alone are enough for anyone of moderate educational background to make their own conclusions, as they are doing in droves.

Common sense is normally marked by being logical and rational.  Ad hominen and Innuendo is therefore nether common sense nor reality unless you mean the reality of towing the official line out of fear or ignorance. 

Which is it ITT?  Are you fearful or ignorant?  Or both?

By the way something Natty once said about this site, is nagging at the Rabbit’s memory.  He’ll share it privately for now with any who are interested, you know where.  But it makes this article rather an interesting issue to press home and find out what is going on at this place.  Something is rotten in Rome.

That 911 myths page Nattyy posted is garbage. The issue of the planes’ altitudes is not in doubt Natty.  The official reports said very clearly that the flight 93 Never went below 29,000 feet, until it came down.  Now Natty you can either accept the FAA report or not.  But if you are going to selectively believe the report, then are we not also entitled to doubt the report as we see fit?

Actually Natty, there can be no doubt about the altitudes, there are a number of reasons, not least of which is ground radar and it is recorded, and the Blackboxes, which were recovered.  The above article makes it pretty clear that the cell phones could not have worked.  There has only ever been claims about cellphones so changing the official facts just to fit the criticicism is rather transaprent don’t you think?

A reading of the 911 myths site sjhows it to be rubbish.

It is actually quite a funny little site.  It is begging so many questions and making guesses while saying things like this:

But most importantly, all the planes had their own built-in airphone system, which would have no problems working at altitude (that’s what they’re for). If mobiles wouldn’t work, then doesn’t it make sense that passengers would use the phone by their seat instead?  Yes, it does:

The problem with relying on a story like this is we don’t know if the reporter verified it.  Did he really try to find out whether Hanson used a mobile, or an Airfone?  We don’t think so, because it makes no difference to the story he’s telling at all. And a sentence later in the same story confirms this:

The problem with saying this is that it is begging the question, real researchers try to verify facts and not say things like “who knows?” and “Don’t think so” about facts which can be easily looked into.  Actually the article tries to assume as questionable certain facts which were in the offiical report. Anyone who wants to see the paucity of the case against the truth movement should compare sites like those apologist sites Natty uses and the real research sites which abound.

This acceptance of whatever suits them while ignoring anything contra, is familiar.  Actually it is easy to see why Natty thinks Muwwakkil wrote a good article. It is her idea of a well researched and reasoned argument against the torchbearers of truth.

It is alos easy to see why Natty would love such a site as 911 myths.  Unfortunately it doesn’t stand up to any scrutiny.  By copying the format of well researched articles about 911, which show the lies, the 911 myth site tries to give the impression of being a serious research site, but an examination of the content will soon show it is as hollow as the hearts of the scumsuckers who were responsible for 911.

Wiley, you forgot the = sign ....

I fixed it for you : 9/11 wargames - no coincidence

Andi, you learned fast. Great posts by the way.

One thing I noticed about the 9/11 myths page (and Natalie’s arguments) is that well thought out and plausible speculations are countered with over-simplified and merely possible speculations.  For example; the still photo of the initial moments of one tower’s collapse showing debris falling below the destruction zone presented as a rebuttal of the free-fall hypothesis based on measuring and comparing multiple videos of the event.

My intuitive reaction is they really don’t have anything or they aren’t really trying.  Or maybe they just aren’t that smart.

One physical argument that I haven’t seen except obliquely, is this:

Assuming that the collapse wasn’t caused by controlled explosions;

Given that the force imparted to the falling towers was directed equally to both the upper and lower blocks of the buildings in accordance to the rule of conservation of energy;

Given that the upper stories were built lighter and less rigid than the lower stories;

Would not the upper floors have been demolished and all their mg energy consumed in the process well before the collapse proceeded all the way to ground level?

OK, that’s it.  David, et al, there’s a big difference between knowing HTML and what bits of HTML can be plugged into ITT’s web-form interface and how.

Take a look at the front page and/or source code of http://h0lug.sourceforge.net.  That was all coded from scratch, by hand, via <a href="http://vim.org>vim</a>, by yours ever so humbly and true.  Could that be done by someone who’s not very good at HTML/CSS?

Anyone else here know how to code HTML via vim, hmm?

Nyah… <smirk>

But, really, no big deal.  Just got tired of the HTML-howto posts.

is that a foot in my mouth?  forgot a quotation mark.  gad, what a pain…

Natty ofetn says ironic things like she knew nothing about 911 until she found out that Rokke apparently supported the missile hit pentagon theory.  From that point on she has been a completely committed Shill for the official lie, ad never varied from the script once.  She has referred to every one of the (admittedly few) official propaganda sites and she has performed familiar mental contortions to try and make it all hang together.

Fascinating how she goes from a casual contact with a subject for the first time to a complete hell for leather shilling on behalf of the offical line about the subject. 

Recognisable of course.  You see she had never heard of Doug Rokke before sher came into casual contact with Depleted uranium as an issue.  Oh no, Natty knew nothing about this DU stuff, but from her next post on she was shilling at 100 mph, side by side with an outed, proven Pentagon Shill, Lt Col Roger Helbig.

This is designed to show how the evidence for the official story is so strong, that an innocent wide eyed girl like Natty who being previously unknowledgeable about something becomes completely convinced by the inestimable case for the official theories.

Oddly it doesn’t seem to have the same effect on anybody else.  In fact even trolls soon pull away from her, she stinks too bad even for them.

Anybody here a Cabinet Secretary of the US Administration, a US Military Officer with a Rank of Brigadier General or a higher, present or a former Director of the FBI, CIA or NSA, or a US Senator or Congressional Leader?

If so, you’re eligible to win US$50,000,000 for any 9/11 Conspiracy Proof you might have!!!

How so?

December 7, 2005

WhatDoesItMean.Com today announces that we are offering a reward of $50,000,000.00 (fifty-million dollars) to any present or former United States Government Public or Military Official having direct knowledge and verifiable proof that the events of September 11, 2001 were not caused by Islamic Terrorists.

Only those sorts of folks listed above are eligible to claim this reward.

Whaddya think folks?  Credible?  Potentially effective?  Baiting suicidable whistleblowers?  Or what?

LB, one thing Griffin points out: the WTC’s infrastructure included 47 massive steel pylons or towers or something like that.  And according to 3rd party “expert” info, those would have been pretty danged hard to take down with anything less than purpose-built blasts at their bases.

BUT, i am neither a physicist nor an engineer…

Natty

I’m disappointed, however, that their article was somewhat short on specifics

Natty, the rabbit is surprised at you, this article is as specific and well researched as anything you’ve ever presented.  It’s quite typical of the official response as evidenced by your usual postings.  In fact your own posting above is remarkably similar in style and argument as Muwwakkil.  You are being ironic aren’t you?  You think it’s a great piece of work and you’ve already added it to your favorites.  You’ll be quoting it on some other site, as Proof that Griffin and Jones are crazy.

Natty

Unfortunately, there’s been precious little effort expended to counter this landslide, one reason being I suspect is that precious few people are even aware it exists.

Actually the US Junta in power, has spent billions of dollars trying to counter the 911 truth movement, and you are almost certainly being paid out of that expenditure. 

There has also been phenomenal pressure put on various media outlets not to run certain stories, and there is the obvious and telling fact that anybody who stands up and speaks out, is villified unmercifully, as we predicted Jones would be when he naievely stood up and told the truth as if he believed America cares.  We predicted he would be crucified, and he has been. 

Griffin was never questioned as a man of intelligence and principle.  Once he stood up and told the truth as he saw it, he was and is being crucified, and this pissy liitle “Hit Piece”, so typical of the mindlessness which dominates Mainstream American Punditry, is living proof that it is happening.  here another person writing a headless rant and attacking people as being less than honest or intelligent, merely because they don’t believe a story which cannot stand up to theory or historical examination. Here it is an article which says NOTHING, because there is nothing to say, there are no specifics to go into Natty, just like you avoid the specifics, SPECIFICS are what makes your fairytale mythical conspiracy theory fall apart.

The fact that the 911 truth is relatively unknown is relevant, because almost everybody who is aware of it, knows it is so.  Those who believe the offical lie, mostly only do so, because they haven’t heard the alternative views.  When they do hear these, most people see the truth very clearly.  Only this week Rabbit has introduced another dozen or so people to this truth.  A couple of these are so fired up now they are sending rabbit e-mails and becoming quite active.  This is good because one of these people is involved with a Christian Democratic political party which is quite influential in our state.  He is an activist and well connected in a circle not normally frequented by rabbits.  Another of Rabbit’s “scores” this week was a truck driver, who delivers from the depot.  This means he is central to many other long haul drivers.  He gets time to talk to the other drivers all day long, and guess what is his main area of interest now?

Yes Natty the numbers who know yet are minimal, but the simple fact is that most of those who have not yet heard, will eventually, and it is easy to see that eventually most people are going to know the truth. 

Your lies are a spider under a rock, the rock is being lifted, slowly and bit by bit everyone will see the spider.

Just trying to add a little more implausibility to the pancake hypothesis/fantasy.

Hi Andi, Rabbit never doubted your ability, that was obvious, and it was equally apparent that it was the site’s posibilities you were still finding out about.  He was being facetious when he said “You’re not very good at it are you?”

Rabbit hasn’t found any more than the four main ones., i, b, a and blockquote.  I think I got lists and Bullets to work once.  Other than that, Rabbit was only pointing out that the comment boxes mangle the urls at line’s end.

Dave is right though it doesn’t if it’s inside the code.

From a NON PROFIT Site:

What if:
The Twin Towers were not hit by commercial airliners?

The World Trade Center was brought down in a controlled demolition?

The Pentagon was not hit by a 757?

Flight 93 was shot down?

What if?

2nd EDITION TRAILERS on the site…

Loose Change 2nd Edition, with updated information and evidence:

Three years after September 11th, the American People are left with more questions than answers. This documentary addresses those questions, as well as providing the evidence necessary to begin answering them. From the phony bin Laden tape to the lack of a 757 at the Pentagon, Loose Change wraps everything up into an hour of solid evidence.

Time to wake up:

CLICK HERE
http://www.tvnewslies.org/cart/view_product.php?product=LOOAAY0J8

The physics involved doesn’t require a degree.  All you need to know is Newton’s Third Law:  for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Andi

The 50,000,000 may be a sly way of discrediting the truth movement? 

Since they have no other sort of case, they need imaginative ideas like this to give some sort of impression that the Lie is the only truth.  Just an idea, Rabbit is suspicious.  It may follow on from that Millionaire dude who was offering a Million dollars to anyone who could prove the buildings collapsed as claimed by the Junta.  This certainly had the effect of discrediting the official lie, and rightly so.

This 50 million won’t be claimed and by standing thus it gives an impression that there is nobody with anything. 

Obviously the specific limitations put on who can apply is suspect.

Who is to say that a low ranking person may not have the crucial evidence?  I’d say that has been worded to only include those people they feel sure they can trust.

yes it does seem like it could be used to flush anyone out.

BTW, Rabbit doesn’t exactly trust WhatDoesitMean, can’t explain why just yet, and it may just be paranoia.

Hi Lume, Natty doesn’t understand Newton’s Laws, she isn’t a lawyer either! 

hee hee.

Rabbit is offering $1, 000,000,000 for any one who can prove that George W Bush lied about anything and who is a three legged Eskimo Dwarf, with a Law degree and a park named after him.

Applications close at 3:00pm, today.

Time is up.  Nobody claimed One Billion dollars, for proof that Dubya lies.  This seems to show there is no proof that GWB lies, so let us hear no more talk of it.

Rabbit is off to the beach for a week.  Happy and safe Christmas to all.  Hope everyone gets what they want for Christmas. 

Especially Natalie.  Rabbit hopes Natty gets some DU from Santa

There is really no particularly special knowledge necessary to see through the bull. Like Rabbit said, they didn’t really try to cover up their tracks and they were sloppy. But this talk sends me skipping down memory lane.

In a hotel in the U.S. midwest, in the early eighties, a set of three bridges collapsed, one on top of the other, killing the couple of hundred people who were mingling on the bridges while attending the gala opening of this hotel. Bam, bam, bam. I heard this story from a fellow worker---we had been swapping when your number is up stories.

Years later it occurred to me to ask my (then) husband who had a master’s in civil engineering if he knew anything about it. He had indeed studied it in a class. In order to save money, the builder ran the bridge cables straight up inside the walls to connect them to the ceiling to save cable instead of weaving the cables back and fourth through every floor until anchoring them into the ceiling.

Is there anyone out there who doesn’t understand why that didn’t work? I was amazed that the bridges held that long. It’s kind of spooky that they did wait for people before collapsing.

continued from 1:17

That builder went to prison. There should be a lot of civil engineers studying 9/11, but the evidence was removed so that there is nothing to study. How convenient.

Does anyone here want to declare that they don’t get this because they aren’t a physicist, a civil engineer, an architect, or a person who once fell off of a swing set?

Too shy to speak up? Try a thought experiment. Imagine that you are standing straight and tall and that your feet are bolted to the floor. Imagine a robotic arm with a hand full of napalm punching through your chest and then igniting. Can you imagine your body, with it’s skeleton, muscles, organs, and flesh dropping straight down into a pile of consistently fine dust, with none of your body so much as spattering a person three feet away?

The only thing you have to do to believe that those planes caused all three buildings to collapse like that is to be in denial and lie to yourself. The only thing you have to know to know that those planes didn’t cause the buildings to collapse like that is to kick a stack of dominoes.

preface: Don’t get me wrong---I think it’s important to examine all evidence (that’s left) and take apart the legend of 9/11 for the sake of truth, history, and prosecution.

I would, however, like to point out that even if you start with the assumption that it was executed by 19 mideastern hijackers with no assistance of any kind (which would include looking the other way, the president---who trumpets his role as commander-in-chief and tries to pass himself off as a pilot--- was completely derelict in his duty as commander in chief before, during, and after 9/11. 

More on that and the trifecta later.

How did it get so late? Have to rest up for celebrating being alive tomorrow with friends.

BTW Lumens, thanks for the egregious-es. It’s still in---seen it five or six times this week. I’ll throw in my dad’s that was an egregious ham and cheese casserole and tie one on tomorrow.

Cheers

Encouraging, if not convincing:

Do you believe President Bush’s actions justify impeachment?  * 142201 responses

Yes, between the secret spying, the deceptions leading to war and more, there is plenty to justify putting him on trial.
85%
No, like any president, he has made a few missteps, but nothing approaching “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
5%
No, the man has done absolutely nothing wrong. Impeachment would just be a political lynching.
8%
I don’t know.
2%

Not a scientifically valid survey

Oops.  Here’s the link: MSN Live Vote: Should Bush be Impeached?

Interestingly, 361 votes were added between my first post on this survey and this one—excluding my second vote. <smirk> That’s about 36 votes per minute.

Other interesting aspects of the MSN poll:
* it’s MSNBC, not CounterPunch, VillageVoice, etc; it’s mainstream
* it’s not easy to find from either the MSNBC front page or the Politics section under which appears
* 545 votes in 45 minutes or 12 votes a minute at AD.2005.Dec.24.20:40.ICT

Hope this makes for a Merrier Xmas for y’all—it does for me.

Oh, and it’s still 85% for impeachment.

911TrueStory.com has the references.

THANK YOU SALIM for your excellent article.  FINALLY someone is bringing the spotlight to bear on these critical questions.

I found a web site that contains a video of David Griffin discussing his latest book, and also his paper that focuses on Building 7.  The paper is titled “The Destruction of the World Trade Center: Why the Official Account Cannot Be True”. The web site also contains the latest scientific analysis of BYU physics professor Dr. Steven Jones, and several excellent videos on this topic.

To see these, go to 911TrueStory.com

Thanks Marty.  That’s one reference i couldn’t get to because their hosting service is blocked by Vietnam’s firewalls.  (I had to go to an overseas BSD shell account to download it.)

There are also several other references, some more recent from Griffin in this extended discussion, above. 

Also, just wondering: did you notice Muwakkil concludes his article arguing against Griffin’s credibility

I’ve given a mis-reference on 9/11 and the mainstream media that i’d like to correct.

I concluded a post above (AD Marshall on Dec 23, 2005 at 11:17 AM) with the question “So why is it that precious few folks, especially US folks, are not even aware of the 9/11 Truth Movement or its highly visible, widespread reports and the mainstream media continues to provide precious little coverage?”

I referred to a lecture by Dr DR Griffin on the issue, 9/11 and the Mainstream Press, as a potential source for answers. 

But that lecture actually does little more than list instances of major 9/11 issues the mainstream media has ignored instead of trying to answer the hows or whys of the issue.

A recent report “Daou Report” at Salon, however, does what i think is an excellent job of answering the hows and whys: The Dynamic of a Bush Scandal: How the Spying Story Will Unfold (and Fade), AD.2005.Dec.20.

Daou proposes an elegantly tongue-in-cheek 10-stage lifecycle of time-tested Bush Admin media management tactics.  Well worth a read.

No. 6: “Left-leaning bloggers and online activists go ballistic, expressing their all-too-familiar combination of outrage at Bush and frustration that nothing ever seems to happen with these scandals. Several newspaper editorials echo these sentiments but quickly move on to other issues.”

Almost makes you want to move in to a pagoda, no? 

AD.2005.Dec.25.01:01.ICT - Santa’s SubVersElf

Season’s Greetings Guy’s & Gals from SaiGon!

My Xmas gift to ITT and y’all:

AD.2005.Dec.25.01:01.ICT - Of 144,682 votes at MSN, 85% (still) want Bush impeached (an average 7.8 votes per minute since 19:55.ICT).

Nitol(tm)

Then again, Google’s 2005 Year-end Zeitgeist probably also goes a long way to explaining how the mass media and masses could be so uninformative and ill-informed:

Google.com - Top Gainers of 2005
1. Myspace
2. Ares
3. Baidu
4. wikipedia
5. orkut
6. iTunes
7. Sky News
8. World of Warcraft
9. Green Day
10. Leonardo da Vinci

Google News - Top Searches in 2005
1. Janet Jackson
2. Hurricane Katrina
3. tsunami
4. xbox 360
5. Brad Pitt
6. Michael Jackson
7. American Idol
8. Britney Spears
9. Angelina Jolie
10. Harry Potter

Hey, hey, hey!  There’s the ticket, folks! 

9/11 TYPHOON TSUNAMI TRUTH D.C.

An anti-conspiratorial musical spectacular starring Brad Pitt and Angela Jolie in a Potteresque portrayal of God’s mercurial surfers as they ride the pipelines of a typhoon-powered tsunami to deliver the Truth of 9/11 onto Capital Hill, boogy-woogyin’ all the way to the beat of Janet and Jacko, feat Britney Spears!!!

Shooka-shooka do-wop dee-wop… Miss it at your peril.

An <a href="http://infinitum-nihil.com>Infinitum Nihil</a> AD.2006 Production
Get the XBox Gamer Edition, too!

forkin quotes…

something busyin you folks? mighty quiet here.
<smirk>

watch the stress, ladies and gent’s.  it’s only xmas after all....

Hi Ad,

It usually gets quiet on weekends. Christmas Eve and all, I would expect it will be very quiet here for a couple days.

No stress here :) I just got back from visiting my parents for breakfast and taking the dog for a walk. Settling in for a quiet afternoon now, expecting a couple friends to visit.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Merry Christmas, Andi! I’m waiting for my friends to wake up and gear up for celebrating. Missed a celebration yesterday because another friend was coughing madly-badly. We’re hoping for a not-raining Christmas.

To show the poll questions:

Yes, between the secret spying, the deceptions leading to war and more, there is plenty to justify putting him on trial.
85%

No, like any president, he has made a few missteps, but nothing approaching “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
5%

No, the man has done absolutely nothing wrong. Impeachment would just be a political lynching.
8%

I don’t know.
2%

I will have to chew on the phrasing here for a while. At first glance it I’d say that it is slyly attitudinal, and would be more representative if it had simply asked for ‘yea’ and ‘nay’ and ‘I don’t know’. Still I like the 85%.

As far as the top searches goes, remember that it’s Google and that children and teens use the web, though there are certainly a lot of celebrity worshipping semi-literate adults in U.S. culture. Maybe they’re mostly looking at the pictures.

Take heart, news sites on the web are getting more customers and television news crowds are dropping like flies.

I use AlltheWeb.com. It has a couple of paid sites listed at the top, and the rest are ranked according to hits.

I did what was probably the wise thing and went to bed. 

Thanks for the notes, David, Wiley.  Sounds healthy and nice.  Here, the Xmas celebrations peak on the Eve with hoards of young folks crusing the streets on motorbikes.  (VietNam is 80% under 40 years of age.)

Wiley, the only number that’s changed on the MSN poll since my first post has been the total votes.  It may well be the MSN polling system is busted.

But you’re probably right, David, about it being justly vacant here for a couples days.  And it may well make sense to pack this thread in, if only as a sign of goodwill to the christian crew.

Being homebound, i’ll probably check in here, but i’m not expecting much. 

All the very best to you and yours, folks, for the holiday season and all the rest of the days of each year.

Hmm, just checked out alltheweb.com on “9-11 wtc”.  It did indeed provide a good set of alternate initial hits compared to Google. I’ll have to try both for while.  Thx, Wiley.

Barron’s: Congress Should Consider Impeacment…, THOMAS G. DONLAN | December 24, 2005 at 11:33 AM.

Is the ground swelling?

Does the official version of the World Trade Center collapse make sense? Was it due to a controlled demolition?

The official version of events, and alternatives are available at
911TrueStory.com

From The Destruction of the World Trade Center:Why the Official Account Cannot Be True
By David Ray Griffin -

No Prior Collapse Induced by Fire.
The official theory is rendered implausible by two major problems. The first is the simple fact that fire has never---prior to or after 9/11---caused steel-frame high-rise buildings to collapse. Defenders of the official story seldom if ever mention this simple fact. Indeed, the supposedly definitive report put out by NIST---the National Institute for Standards and Technology (2005)---even implies that fire-induced collapses of large steel-frame buildings are normal events (Hoffman, 2005). [4] Far from being normal, however, such collapses have never occurred, except for the alleged cases of 9/11.
Defenders of the official theory, of course, say that the collapses were caused not simply by the fire but the fire combined with the damage caused by the airliners. The towers, however, were designed to withstand the impact of airliners about the same size as Boeing 767s. [5] Hyman Brown, the construction manager of the Twin Towers, said: “They were over-designed to withstand almost anything, including hurricanes, . . . bombings and an airplane hitting [them]” (Bollyn, 2001). And even Thomas Eagar, an MIT professor of materials engineering who supports the official theory, says that the impact of the airplanes would not have been significant, because “the number of columns lost on the initial impact was not large and the loads were shifted to remaining columns in this highly redundant structure” (Eagar and Musso, 2001, pp. 8-11). Likewise, the NIST Report, in discussing how the impact of the planes contributed to the collapse, focuses primarily on the claim that the planes dislodged a lot of the fire-proofing from the steel. [6]
The official theory of the collapse, therefore, is essentially a fire theory, so it cannot be emphasized too much that fire has never caused large steel-frame buildings to collapse---never, whether before 9/11, or after 9/11, or anywhere in the world on 9/11 except allegedly New York City---never.
One might say, of course, that there is a first time for everything, and that a truly extraordinary fire might induce a collapse. Let us examine this idea. What would count as an extraordinary fire? Given the properties of steel, a fire would need to be very hot, very big, and very long-lasting. But the fires in the towers did not have even one of these characteristics, let alone all three. 

For more, and to see the videos, go to

911TrueStory.com

Ashamed to admit that I’m starting to doubt the official 9/11 explanations if indeed the government has this kind of ability and obviously it wasn’t utilized that day.  Why not?  And why no mention of it in the commission report, or the NIST report for that matter?

It all starts with the NORAD radar system called the North Warning System. This powerful radar system has 47 installations strung across......

Reason for doubt

Welcome back Natalie.  Glad you didn’t let one animal’s excesses put you off.  It’s also awfully big of you to make such a post. 

Though have to admit i’ve yet to clearly understand the details of NORAD’s role in the affair, i do remember reading somewhere something to the effect that the US (if not North Am’) radar and air-traffic systems were distracted on 9/11 by a pre-planned war game and that Cheney (or Rumsfield, always mix them up) was presiding over the games. 

The games were actually said to be simulating planes being hijacked and used to hit buildings.  And though he (Cheney or Rumsfield) claimed to have arrived too late to do anything, other witnesses said he was there and in command well before the WTC and Pentagon hits took place.

I’ll try look up specific sources, later. 

Cheers,
Andi

Boxing Day Rhubarb?

David in Canadada, et al, what do you think?  Are Canux like Zwicker OTT or still in the pale? 

rhubarb, def’n 3, argument; OTT, over the top; pale, def’n 1.3+, range of acceptable acts.

In America: The Fourth Reich, Global Outlook, Issue No. 6, Winter 2004, Barry Zwicker compares the Hitler and Bush Admins against the Collins English Dictionary’s 6 attributes defining fascism, plus 2.  The comparison, as you might expect, is not flattering.

Full yarn: http://www.newsgateway.ca/America_The_Fourth_Reich.htm

AD.2005.Dec.25.20:33:45.ICT

PS: This Canuk goes for “still in the pale” and ringing eerily true.

“Not a scientifically valid survey”—not even an intuitively valid one. 

The voting shares haven’t changed, even once, since my first post on this survey.

From http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10562904:

Do you believe President Bush’s actions justify impeachment?  * 150110 responses

Yes, between the secret spying, the deceptions leading to war and more, there is plenty to justify putting him on trial.
85%

No, like any president, he has made a few missteps, but nothing approaching “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
5%

No, the man has done absolutely nothing wrong. Impeachment would just be a political lynching.
8%

I don’t know.
2%

AD.2005.Dec.25.20:48:45.ICT

Nat, I had forgotten about NORAD’s Santa tracking capability. The Russians were surely behind on that one.

I believe it started in the late fifties. It was a public relations manuever, primarily aimed (doesn’t matter whether or not the pun was intended) at people in proximity to Cheyenne Mountain.  ‘We track Santa is warm and fuzzy.  ‘we are a primary target for multiple nuclear strikes’ is not.

Oh. Santa gets a jet escort. Hijackers don’t.

Just FYI, Nat, NORAD beefed up to infrared satellites in the seventies. The radar system was saved as a back up. Don’t know if the phased array radar system is still in place.

Don’t care.

But Santa tracking requires radar. Rudolph’s nose is not bright enough to register with an infrared satellite, and there is no plume of fire behind Santa’s sleigh like there is behind rockets being launched or heat in the wake of any explosion.

Isn’t that funny?  Really, what’s more funny than utter failure to protect the homeland?  Those people jumping from the WTC? Your little joke was a real knee slapper, Nat.  I just can’t stop laughing. Your joke was sooooooo funny, I forgot to laugh.

Later I’ll post one of our president’s jokes that’s almost as funny as you are.

I’ll leave y’all to feud away.  Have fun.

No, i’ll leave y’all with a final reference i just discovered.

The Five Unanswered Questions About 9/11
James Ridgeway, 2005.Sep, Seven Stories Press

Description (from link above):

The 9/11 Commission Report is widely declared to be the definitive account of the most devastating attack ever to take place on American soil, but in truth the most vital questions about 9/11 have not been asked:

*Why wasn’t a decade of warnings and hundreds of previous deaths enough to improve airline security? Whose interests does the FAA really protect?

*Why was Dick Cheney running the country from a secret bunker on 9/11? Where was Donald Rumsfeld? And how did the Bush administration plot to use the attacks to advance their policy goals?

*With al-Qaeda firmly on the radar for years, why were the FBI and CIA, the world’s premier intelligence services, unable to see this coming?

What did ISI, the Pakistani intelligence organization, know, when did they know it, and whom did they tell? How did U.S. allies in the region help pave the way for these attacks?

*Why didn’t this “independent” commission find anyone accountable for more than 2,700 civilian deaths? Why are so many of their findings still classified?Which questions did they ask-and which did they ignore?

An ever-growing number of facts casts clouds of suspicion over the actions and motivations of many key government officials and agencies. The 5 Unanswered Questions cuts through the official accounts and political “spin” to the questions that lie at the heart of this American tragedy.

Currently the Washington correspondent for the Village Voice, James Ridgeway has authored over fifteen books and co-directed the films Blood in the Face and Feed. He has also written for Harper’s, The Economist, New York Times Magazine, The Nation, The New Republic, Parade, Ramparts, and The Wall Street Journal.

AD.2005.Dec.26.09:17.ICT

comic genius of George W. Bush

Andi wrote:

The games were actually said to be simulating planes being hijacked and used to hit buildings.  And though he (Cheney or Rumsfield) claimed to have arrived too late to do anything, other witnesses said he was there and in command well before the WTC and Pentagon hits took place.  I’ll try look up specific sources, later.

I don’t think this is accurate, Andi.  From reading two rather detailed accounts of the events on 9/11 at two NORAD facilities, it doesn’t appear that anything nefarious is going on within our ranks, but it is apparent that NORAD, and the country for that matter, was not on a footing that anticipated air-related attacks coming from within our borders.

Rome, NY

Colorado Springs

I think the confusion about the games involving hijackers hitting buildings comes from the fact that NORAD had in the past conducted exercises involving a similar scenario involving aircraft entering from outside the country—not necessarily because it was something they thought likely to happen, but as a device to test their responses and communications between agencies under an unusual situation.

past exercises

No, wiley, I don’t find it funny that people were murdered on 9/11.  I do find it a little funny that people seem to think that our defensive agencies can magically pick out an aircraft with its transponder off amidst a busy matrix of early morning east coast traffic, and in the case of Flt. 11, that they’d instantly and intuitively know it was destined to become a weapon of war.  It seems not far removed from believing in the ability of reindeer to fly.

Thanks Natalie.  If time permits, i’ll check out those links. 

For now, i’m putting ITT discussions on the back-burner, largely because of the feuding apparently inherited from earlier threads.

That said, i’ll still watch out for constructive stories and posts.

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/searchResults.jsp?searchtext=norad&eve ents=on&entities=on&articles=on&topics=on&timelines=on&proje ects=on&titles=on&descriptions=on&dosearch=on&search;=+Go+

Yes, Nat. Been looking this up. Wasn’t aware that NORAD does have an active air traffic control/ radar set up in the Northeast. That makes them even more responsible, IMO.

Cut the “nobody imagined” crap. It doesn’t matter what they thought. All that mattered is what they did or did not do.

If handling traffic was too much for them then they didn’t make a very good career choice. Air traffic control has always been intense.

And nobody had to magically pick out an aircraft---a blip without information from a transponder should stick out like a sore thumb.

Can you follow this, Nat:

There were aircraft in the air.

There were air traffic controllers who are always responsible for tracking aircraft that radar bounces off, leaving a “blip” or “paint” on radar screens.

Air traffic controllers are responsible for all the blips.

Always have been.

Always will be.

Nothing has to be conceived as a “weapon of war”, it only needs to show up on the screen with or without identification.

The aircraft did not have a cloaking device. An aircraft without the transponder on is a big, fat clue.

Do you think a Russian MIG would fly into our airspace with a transponder for easy identification?

The only thing complicated about this, is the excuses people are making. Last I heard, cluelessnes does not absolve any organization from responsibility for operational failure that results in death. If they can’t tell the difference between real-time and a scenario, then their sorry asses should have been sacked and someone somewhere in the chain of command (preferably high up) should have been charged with criminal negligence. A lack of imagination and vigilance is no defense.  Literally.

And why do you think it’s funny, Nat. What do you know about air traffic control?

Perhaps I’ve been unclear, wiley.  I didn’t necessarily mean to say that NORAD or the ATCers are beyond criticism and couldn’t have acted faster even operating under the mindset of that time.  There were some agonizingly long delays in calling NORAD, for reasons unclear to me.

However, I believe it’s unreasonable to expect anyone, even the good folks at NORAD and the fine ATCers to perform flawlessly in the face of an unprecedented attack by unknown forces, both in terms of what they aimed specifically to do with the aircraft, and the extent to which the attack might involve other aircraft as yet not hijacked or known to have been hijacked.  NORAD was also smack dab in the middle of a war game, which obviously blurred their ability to distinguish fantasy from reality that morning.  It certainly seems possible to me that al Qaeda had knowledge of these games and might have purposely planned the attacks based on the cover it could provide.  On the other hand, they might have thought NORAD would be on high alert that day, and it wouldn’t be to their advantage, so perhaps they had no idea.  Hard to say what goes on in the mind of someone who thinks that 70 virgins await them in heaven, post-Jihad.

No, obviously I’m not an expert in Air Traffic Control, other than what I read.  Are you?  What I have been able to get a feel for after reading several accounts of that terrifying and confusing morning, and seeing people in the field interviewed subsequent to 9/11, is that there were a lot of sincere professional people doing their level best to deal with an incredibly terrifying and unanticipated event.  I don’t think necessarily that herds of heads should be rolling down the halls given these factors.  There may have been some disciplinary action taken against certain people that may have been grossly negligent.  I doubt it’s mandatory to announce every firing of every Govt. employee to the press, but I could be wrong.

As to the specifics of aircraft location, from the record it doesn