Grandma Troofer the Terrorist

Far from typical, but certainly a classic nut:

A 46-year-old Indiana grandmother is under investigation for her possible ties to suspected and convicted international terrorists, FoxNews.com has learned.

Trooferism:

In lengthy e-mail exchanges with FoxNews.com, Smith alternatively defended her online postings, denied being anti-American, called the Sept. 11 attacks an inside job, the U.S. a terrorist organization and praised the American-born radical Muslim cleric Anwar al Awlaki -- architect, trainer and inspiration for many of the recent terrorist attacks attempted or committed against the U.S. President Obama last April approved Awlaki's inclusion on the CIA's targeted killing list.

Read More

Truthers Get in Altercation With Police in Hawaii

A group of truthers from We Are Change made the news for getting in an altercation with the police, while they were running around filming the security procedures surrounding President Obama's vacation in Hawaii. Probably not the police's finest moment, even dealing with nutjobs you should treat them properly.

HONOLULU -- A public access television crew complained of police mistreatment Thursday, after trying to get a picture of President Barrack Obama.

Just after dawn Wednesday, the three-woman crew for a Big Island public access program called "We Are Change Hawaii" drove up to the barricade near the president's vacation home in Kailua.

The video from the news report is available at the link.

Read More

What Are the Odds?

Glenn Zarmanov would have a field day with this one. The other day I flew back home. You know how at the beginning of the security checkpoint somebody looks at your boarding pass and driver's license, and makes a notation on the former?

Well the notation on mine was 1-911. No kidding.

Read More

Eggscrutiatingly Stupid

Someone on the 911 Experiments website disproves the paper of Zdenek Bazant, a structural engineering professor at Northwestern University, by, and I kid you not, dropping eggs on top of each other. The fact that only 2 eggs break supposedly proves that the World Trade Center towers should not have collapsed.

In related news I disproved the moon landings using a donut and a cardboard paper towel tube...



Once again, these people are beyond parody.

Read More

The Year In Troof: March Mania

Sean Fitzgerald, the "very sane" Troofer who killed his father, was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

J. Patrick Bedell, another obviously sane person, took out a gun and started shooting people at the Pentagon Metro Station before being shot and killed himself. Bedell is a classic 9-11 Troofer.

The Troofers managed to get propositions on the ballot in six tiny New Hampshire towns, and went 1-5.

In the wake of the Pentagon shooting the media discovered that the Troofers were not just charming crackpots, that they could be homicidal maniacs as well. The Washington Post slammed Japanese Troofer Fujita. Fujita tried to weasel out of it:

'But I clearly said I have never concluded that September 11 was a dark plot and never stated that (the collapse) of the Twin Towers was a controlled demolition.'

A typical bit of prevarication from a Troofer, as Angrysoba proved.

Lots of anti-Israel, anti-Jew, anti-Holocaust stuff going on. Dahlia Wasfi provided the Zionist conspiracy theorizing at Jon Gold's Treason in America Confab. Adam Syed turned out to be a Holocaust denier.

Read More

Charles Lewis

I hadn't heard of this guy until Jesse's Pentagon Circus aired, but apparently he's the Troofer witness from heaven. This LA building inspector has evidence on virtually every aspect of 9-11 Troof. Every aspect that is, except the one you'd think of with his building inspection background.

Standdown? Yeah, he heard about that:

At first, LAX Security was very upset because it seemed to Security that none of the FAA's Air Traffic Controllers (ATCs) tracking the hijacked airliners had notified NORAD as required.

More chatter revealed that ATCs had notified NORAD, but that NORAD had not responded, because it had been "ordered to stand down."

Pentagon hit by a missile? Check:

Another piece of information that I heard, shortly after my arrival, was that the Pentagon had been "hit by a rocket." It's possible that the word was "missile," although I'm quite certain it was "rocket." I was, in any case, quite surprised when I later got home and learned that the media were reporting that an airliner had hit the Pentagon.

Flight 93 shot down? Check:

This station also reported that two fighter jets had been scrambled and had successfully shot down a hijacked airliner over Pennsylvania. The point of deployment of the fighter jets was also mentioned, but I can't remember the name of the military base.

Oddities about the collapse of the two towers? Nope, building inspector Lewis has nothing to report on that score. None of his fellow building inspectors were chattering about that, apparently.

Note as well that his stated reason for heading out to LAX is just a little weird:

I decided that I should go to the APO, because I was one of only a few persons who would know how to fix certain parts of the new security systems if problems developed. Especially crucial were the systems at Guard Post II, for which I had managed the design changes and construction.

He went out there to be available to fix certain parts of a guard shack? And I'm sorry, I don't find his claims of being at the Hilton at 6:30 AM very credible. At the end he provides several ways in which his story could be corroborated, but you can guess the next part. David Ray Griffin (who made the post at 911 truth dot org) made no attempt to confirm the guy's story.

Read More

Troofer Action Figures

Left in the comments section by M. Gregory Ferris, and too good not to promote:

The Troofer Action Figure.:
• Comes in standard black “9/11 Truth” t-shirt and jeans. Additional outfits such as pizza delivery man, McDonald’s fry-cook, and super market bag-boy are also available as their workday disguises.
• Wind it up and it walks into the nearest wall repeatedly.
• Each figure sold with scale replica laptop computer, and investigation kit (which is typically empty).

The Troofer Action Figure does not come with Barbie. Barbie comes with GI Joe, she only fakes it with the Troofer Action figure.

The Richard Gage action figure:
• Comes with stackable boxes to magically recreate any structural failure.
• The figure features a coin-slot in his back where you can donate money (or store dust bunnies)

The Alex Jones action figure features a big mouth.

The Brian Good action figure comes in janitor’s outfit and bag of iron microspheres.

Coming soon, Troofer Jenga, which is much like regular Jenga except that once the tower falls the players are forced to argue for hours about why the tower actually fell and who really knocked down by “pulling it”. Even the winners lose.

Great comment, Greg! May I suggest:

The David Ray Griffin action figure comes with a correctable memory stick, so you can change the evidence he cites to keep up with the latest research. However, every year or two the corrections get erased and he reverts to his original spiel.

Update: See also here for some hilarious Troofer games and action figures.

Read More

Their Own Personal Superhero

I often get asked why I think truthers believe what they do, and one of my answers is ego. Truthers like to believe in some fantasy world where they are the persecuted truth tellers who thankslessly fight against an oppresive regime while enduring the scorn and ridicule of society, sort of Nelson Mandela meets Batman. Nothing typifies this more than this video of a couple of truthers addressing the Portland City Council on how the recent Oregon bomber and last year's underwear bomber were both entrapped by the FBI and CIA. The video itself was rather boring, but this comment on 911 Blogger makes my point so well.

Well done and your courage is appreciated
The physical act of going into a council setting like that while the overseers sit at elevated levels and look bored at you is a tough one to actually commence with. You persevered and read some great stuff for the record. Thanks!

Wow! They went in front of the city council, nevermind that Portland has one of the most far-left whacko city governments this side of Havana anyway, and endured bored bureaucrats sitting on a dais. What an act of superhuman courage!

Read More

The Year in Troof: February Follies

Gage's Gaggle held their 1000th signer press conference and celebration. Steven Jones chose this opportunity to speculate that perhaps the New World Order had caused the Haiti earthquake.

Sibel Edmonds became a 9-11 Truther.

Debra Medina, a Republican candidate for Texas Governor who was registering real support in the polls, crashed and burned when she claimed that there were lots of legitimate questions about controlled demolition at the WTC on the Glenn Beck show.

Don Meserlian, the swimming pool engineer, got slapped down in local court for threatening to beat up the local cops because they weren't interested in his rants about misprision of treason.

Read More

The Year in Troof: January

The 1000th Clown joined Richard Gage's circus, only about 2-1/3rd years after Gage's predicted date. Not having learned his lesson, Box Boy promptly set a goal of having 2,000 members by summertime.

Cindy Sheehan joined the Troof Brigade.

The State Department blew a big hole in the "Osama Ain't Wanted for 9-11" meme.

The Obama Administration gave up on trying KSM in New York City.

Read More

Reactions to Jesse's Pentagon Circus

Finally got the chance to watch it myself. My thoughts:

1. The standdown witness is an LA building inspector? Of course, it makes complete sense to me! And it's no surprise that he tunes in to "the high-level police radio frequency" and learns that a missile hit the Pentagon. Let's put some timeframes on this. Jesse clearly states that Lewis learned this after he learned about the standdown. But what time was the Pentagon hit? Around 9:38 in the morning, right? What time is that in LA? So now we're supposed to believe that an LA building inspector was at work at LAX before 6:30 in the morning?

2. Matt Sullivan, who gets interviewed in the second segment is a "reporter" for the kook newspaper, the Rock Creek Free Press.

3. Dwain Deets, the former NASA engineer, embarrasses himself with his assumption that the "official story" says the nose of the plane must have made the hole in the C ring. Of course, as we have discussed previously, it was the landing gear which made that hole; the nose is (as Deets says) much too fragile to do that. Deets is making a classic strawman argument here.

4. Deets endorses the flyover conspiracy theory! LOL, so much for Deets, he joins the CIT nutbars in Troofer hell.

5. Note that they interview Rob Balsamo at Freeway Airport. Why not interview Marcel Bernard, as Dylan did, or one of the pilots who actually flew with Hani Hanjour the day he was refused rental of a Cessna? Could it be that Bernard's assessment of Hanjour as an average to below average pilot wouldn't support the conspiracy theory?

6. Jesse's gofer proves unable to hit the Pentagon in the flight simulator (with a Troofer as his co-pilot). But why not have a real professional pilot who's not a nutbar try it? The gofer says he's flown "a few times" in small planes; Hanjour had a professional air pilot's license and hundreds of hours in a simulator. It's pretty clear that Jesse's bending over backwards to support the conspiracy theory.

7. Love the dolt who compares the Pentagon crash to the Potomac crash. Let's see should there be any difference in the condition afterwards between a plane that hits a river, and a plane that hits a massive concrete building?

8. Voice-morphed crap, with Dewdney. Note that there is no discussion as to whether the voice-morphing shown today (2010) was that good in 2001. My guess is no, that it wasn't. Also, we aren't shown this being done in real-time, as it would be in a phone conversation where there has to be some back and forth between the participants.

9. The usual nuttery about the missing $2.3 trillion, and how this was all a plot to make sure everybody forgot about that press conference where Rumsfeld announced it. As usual, nobody notes that, gee, maybe if Rumsfeld wanted everybody to forget about it, maybe he could have, oh, I don't know, NOT ANNOUNCED IT IN THE FIRST PLACE?

As James indicated, it does seem like a flashback to 2005, and it's causing some indigestion among the Troofers. At Flogger:

The Pentagon no planers have been straightened out six ways from Sunday for years now. This is an exercise in repetition. You are aware of these challenges as most are. This episode is a circus of ridiculous misinformation. It's incoherent, rambling conspiracy porn of the worst kind, and does extreme injustice to 9/11 Truth. The IDEA that a missile was involved, is something not even CIT accepts as credible. It's utter delusional crackpottery. Dwain Deets?? He got it handed to him in debate on this site. He knows next to nothing about the Pentagon. Rob "Tends towards planes at the WTC" Balsamo??

The guys at the misnamed 9-11 Debunkers site were more enthusiastic:

I was skeptical about this episode, and almost didn't bother watching it. But I'm glad I did, it was so much better than I thought it would be.

They exposed how Norman Mineta's testimony that suggests a standdown was covered up. They interviewed Charles Lewis about what he heard at LAX. They demonstrated the ludicrous difficulty of the official flight path using a flight simulator. They demonstrated the power of voice morphing technology, which was mindblowing even for me. And the exposing of the 9/11 commission at the end was excellent.

And best of all, no CIT!

Yes, no CIT, but the program did manage to endorse CIT's flyover theory, the most controversial part of CIT's entire position.

Troof Action? Crickets over there, but we'll presume given their usual stance on the Pentagon crap that they were not amused.

My take? It's an embarrassing episode, which does no credit to anybody involved. I'd like to support the supposed skeptic on the show, but he was mostly a paper tiger, there to put up minimal resistance to Jesse's kookery. The black British gal (June) was every bit as credulous as she was in last year's episode.

Read More

Jesse "The Moron" Ventura on the Pentagon Conspiracy Theories

Jesse does another episode of his Conspiracy Theories TV show, this time concentrating on the Pentagon. Missiles at the Pentagon, no passenger bodies found, no plane debris, Donald Rumsfeld held a press conference announcing that $2.3 trillion was missing... What, is it 2005 again?

Read More

Coins Explains It All

Some profanity, NSFW, but hilarious. Great stuff!

Read More

How Dumb Can You Get?

Not much dumber than this post over at Flogger:

Hani Hanjour, supposedly on Flight 77, was about 5 feet tall and the other hijackers ranged from 5.5 to 5' 7". They were of slim build.

Captain Charles Burlingame of Flight 77 was over 6 feet, a Navy Captain, weight lifter, and a boxer. The OCT says pilots like him gave up their planes to these puny weaklings with box cutters? The story makes no sense.

How tall is a man strapped in a pilot's seat?

And check out the rest of the post:

here are many ways the 6 foot men on the flights could have overcome them.
1. Take a seat cushion as a shield, and punch the hijackers out.
2. Pour hot tea or coffee in their face, then move in to disarm them.
3. Throw luggage at them, then move in for the tackle
4. Take a scarf or towel and snap them in the face
wrap their hand, then turn the box cutter on them.
5. Two or more passengers could overpower each one of the hijackers
6. Push the snack cart down the middle and ram the hijackers
7. Take a fire extinguisher, spray at the terrorists, then move in.

Any more ideas?

Yeah, I got a couple:

8. Kick sand in their faces.
9. Say, "Boxcutters, haha!" And make it sting.

It's tempting to say, oh, that's just one idiot at Flogger. But look at the post below that by Glenn Zarmanov:

It should be an insult to one's intelligence that a national emergency occurred on 9/11, the date the same as the number for emergency, 911.

Glenn, comparing your intelligence to that of an opossum would be an insult to marsupials.

Meanwhile, over at Troof Action, they are just now coming to the conclusion that David Ray Griffin is either non compos or a fraud.

False dichotomy, people!

Read More

Bentham Comedy Continues

It seems that the storied nanothermite paper is collapsing into to its footprint at freefall speed. A former professor at the University of Ottawa did a critique of the paper and sent it to the supposed current editor. Guess what? The supposed current editor resigned awhile ago. Why?

1) I was not editor of the journal at the time the manuscript you refer to was received and processed. I was not involved in its handling, and in no way do i agree with its conclusions. In fact i do not even know how the paper's peer reviewing was handled - or if it was reviewed at all. The journal never wanted to disclosed this matter to me

2) What may be even worse - noone seems to be at the helm of this Journal. Months ago -simply after becoming acquainted with the article you mention, its possible misshandling, etc- i submitted my immediate resignation as editor to the open chemical physics journal. As you can see from the email below, my letter of resignation was received and acknowledged. However, i still appear as the journal's editor - in fact i'm still receiving manuscripts to handle (which i naturally ignore).

(bolding added for emphasis).

Yep, he resigned over the Harrit/Jones paper. Note in particular that the professor who critiqued the nanothermite paper is sympathetic to the "Truth" Movement.

Hat Tip: grandmastershek at JREF.

Read More

CPT's Coverage of Loose Change

A little more fair and balanced than the last time around; the debunkers get in some pretty good points. Note that Screw Loose Change (the movie) is mentioned at the very end. They do let the Waterboy get away with his claim to be a whistle-blower, and the materials given away to donors are skewed strongly to the crackpot version with only the Popular Mechanics book representing the rational side.

Read More

Ambitious, I Will Give Them That

Being from Seattle and having worked at Microsoft I am pretty familiar with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and I just don't think this is their thing....

From: CICorp
To: info@gatesfoundation.org
Sent: Monday, December 13, 2010 6:05 PM
Subject: Please support a New Investigation of 9/11/2001, AE911Truth.org (501c3 nonprofit)

This is a proposal for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support a New Investigation of the events of September 11, 2001.

Bill has a scientific mind, and surely must see some suspicious things about what happened on that day.
* WTC Building 7 came down at free fall speed, as if by pre-planted explosives.
* WTC Buildings 1 and 2 also came down suspiciously fast, after have stood for nearly an hour.
* Scientists have identified military grade nano-thermite in the WTC dust (www.NielsHarrit.org)
* The Pentagon refuses to release photos of the jet, despite over 100 cameras
* The hole where the jet supposedly went in, is suspiciously small, with no wing marks.
* Eye witness testimonies vary as to the approach of the plane, its size, and type
* Senator Max Cleland, said the 9/11 Commission was a "cover up" and quit it.
* Flight 11 from Boston turned Northwest towards Griffiss AFB then sharply south
* Flight 11 turned off its transponder identifier, and "almost collided with Flight 175
* The Bush Administration used 9/11 as a pretext for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
* America has used "false flag ops" to start wars before, such as the Gulf of Tonkin in VietNam.
* Bush and Cheney refused to testify under oath, nor in public, to the Commission.
* Over 1370 Architects and Engineers say the WTCs fell as if by explosives. (www.AE911Truth.org)
* Hundreds of high level politicians, intelligence and military personnel, and professors as for a New Investigation. (www.PatriotsQuestion911.com)

OK, this is one of the most idiotic things I have ever heard.

Read More

NIST Did Test Explosive Theory

Our fellow debunkers over at Conspiracies R Not Us covers it well:

Rather than vindicating the faith, this archive proves that not only were the NIST and 9/11 Commission reports based on rigorous testing, but that engineers, academics and scientists working for the government explicitly tested conspiratorial claims. We have gigs and gigs of video proof that NIST and its affiliates considered every possible angle of the event, and were able to rule out the kinds of hypotheses that today guide what remains of the faith's holy writ.

Terrific job; read the whole post. Once again the Troofers demonstrate their amazing ability to ignore the evidence that rules against them.

Read More

Assessment of 9-11 Troof in Canada

Although the focus is on the Canadian brand, this summation sounds pretty accurate for the US Troofers as well.

Other newly added material included "United We Fall by Press for Truth" (4) , "9/11 Truth info wars rising" by the Alex Jone's (5) of Infowar and for the first time at a 9/11 civil information event a newsletter was introduced and titled "Global Underground News Network" (6) headlining stories such as "Black Bloc=Police Provocateurs", "Media Blackout Usually Not A Good Indicator" and "Judaism is not Zionism."

All these newly added leaflets came to be with no group discussion under the familiar banner of 9/11 Truth. "How did this happen?" I thought to myself when not too long ago this small productive group of 9/11 truth activists would settle issues and make decisions on material over (7) tea, coffee and friendly conversations after a good days work on the 9/11 civil information lines. Somehow the priorities all change as new blood moved in and replaced this small groups democratic decision making with the Infowar- We are here- Get use to it anarchy rules!

I suspect what is happening is that 9-11 Troof has been largely abandoned by the Left. It was appealing when one could argue that exposing the "inside job" would get rid of Bush and Cheney and end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Of course, nowadays it's harder to make that argument with Obama in power and the wars grinding on with no sign of ending.

I don't think it's so much that right-wingers or libertarians have suddenly signed up en masse. Alex Jones and the Ronulans have been around for years. It's that the rest of the movement has disappeared, leaving only the bitter core. We Are Change and Alex Jones have given the libertarian/survivalist wing a focus, at the same time as Obama's election has sapped the movement of so many of its liberal followers.

It is appropriate that the Troofers are reduced to muttering about microspheres. They are rapidly becoming a micromovement.

Read More

The Conspiracy Theory Detector

Skeptic Magazine's Michael Shermer weighs in on conspiracy theories in Scientific American. For an added bonus, catch Uncle Fetzer's rant in the comments.

This past September 23 a Canadian 9/11 "truther" confronted me after a talk I gave at the University of Lethbridge. He turned out to be a professor there who had one of his students filming the “confrontation.” By early the next morning the video was online, complete with music, graphics, cutaways and edits apparently intended to make me appear deceptive (search YouTube for “Michael Shermer, Anthony J. Hall”). “You, sir, are not skeptical on that subject—you are gullible,” Hall raged. "We can see that the official conspiracy theory is discredited....It is very clear that the official story is a disgrace, and people who go along with it like you and who mix it in with this whole Martian/alien thing is discrediting and a shame and a disgrace to the economy and to the university."

Read More

David Griscom's Latest Hypothesis

You can tell David L. Griscom's a serious scientist, because he's careful to call it a hypothesis and not a theory.

Is he a CIT-head?

I have previously prepared a PowerPoint (available on request) based on eyewitness reports and the officially released Pentagon-security-camera frames that supports a hypothesis proposed by others that the Pentagon was struck on 9/11 by a smallish twin engine aircraft superficially resembling the a Boeing 737, 757, or 767. Most probably the specific aircraft type was Cold-War-era Navy A-3 converted to an unmanned air vehicle (UAV). UAVs are commonly referred to as “drones.” According to eyewitness reports, this second aircraft arrived at the Pentagon simultaneously with American Airlines Flight 77 (AA-77) but from a different quarter, at higher speed, and at lower altitude. Thus, most witnesses caught a glimpse of one or the other of the two planes, but not both. The expanding fireball of the A-3 impact then distracted everyone from noting (or correctly interpreting) the escape of the Boeing 757. In this analysis of the Pentagon attack, the passengers and crew of American Airlines Flight 77 (AA-77) would have escaped unscathed.

Is he a pod person?

So I reasoned that that both UA-175 (#N612UA) and AA-11 (#N334AA) took off on the morning of 11 September 2001 as unmodified Boeing 767s that had been continuously in the possession of their original owners. However, the plane that actually struck WTC2 was captured on film and digital video cameras by many dozens of individuals – and widely-published frames from these films (some even appearing on magazine covers) show the impacting aircraft to have unmistakable external modifications.

Or is he a bumbler?

Returning to the proposed ruse, I asked myself: Would it have been possible to fool the radars into missing two aircraft swapping places? Actually, the answer might have been “No” ...were it not for one thing: AA-11 turned off its transponder at a convenient time to cover up its possible substitution for a drone not possessing a transponder. This switchoff was done at point and time D on Slides 2 and 3, respectively – i.e., just before the two aircraft would have met near point E in my scenario. An aircraft’s transponder sends high-strength signals (so-called “mode C returns”) back the radar installations with encoded data specifically identifying the aircraft in terms of a four-digit number assigned by the air traffic controllers and giving its precise altitude based on an on-board airpressure altimeter. The “primary returns” (small triangles in Slide 3) represent reflections of the radar pulses off the skin of the aircraft, which bounce back to the radar receiver as signals very much weaker than those from the aircraft’s transponder ...and carrying no information about the aircraft’s identity. These weak primary returns are susceptible to large statistical errors when an attempt is made to extract altitude data from them (note scatter in triangles in Slide 3).

Nevertheless, as suggested by the bold arrows that I have added in Slide 3, the NTSB primary-return data appear consistent with actual detection of an unknown aircraft climbing to 30,400 ft and there meeting AA-11, which in turn promptly begins to descend.

Well, actually he's all of the above, and more. Believe it or not, Steven Jones' favorite peer reviewer believes in a CIT-like hypothesis for Flight 175:

Specifically, what I see in this film is a super-fast aircraft much nearer the camera than to the WTC, which pulls out of a steep dive practically simultaneously with the 767 attacker seen striking WTC2, banks sharply to its right, and disappears going away from the camera (in the general direction of the WTC). The object I am describing here has been widely noted but is generally spoken of as being a bird. However, no bird known to man is capable of flying laterally into our field of view and then turning away and disappearing in the distance in a total elapsed time of less than a second! Yet this is exactly what we see in Slide 6! It seems quite possible that this may be the very same “bird” as the one captured flying west to east just north of the World Trade Center just 14 seconds later (see the following video and Slide 7):

Good news for the family members: Griscom no longer believes that all the passengers survived.

In earlier versions of this hypothesis, I supposed that all passengers were co-conspirators, who would have been sent on their separate ways to tropical islands or mountaintop retreats of their choices. Subsequently, it was suggested to me that the head conspirators might not have had complete trust in everyone privy to the conspiracy. Thus, while promising a cushy “witness protection program” to every co-conspirator ordered to board one of these flights on the morning of 9/11/01, it seems very possible that the leaders shunted aside and murdered those they considered less trustworthy. Moreover, on study of the occupations and travel priorities of some of the people on the passenger and cabincrew lists of the 9/11 “hijacked” jetliners, I now believe that a number of innocent people were allowed to board these flights as well ...and that all of these innocents were murdered.

(Italics in original)

Well, as you can see, David Griscom is a very serious and diligent researcher. I can readily believe that his 12 pages of comments and suggestions on the nanothermite paper improved it immeasurably. Note to commenters: Don't talk about the microspheres! I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it.

Read More

Moron Bruno Bruhwiler

The folks at the Southern Poverty Law Center have some information about WAC-LA's leader. I know it's nowhere near as fascinating as iron microspheres, but it is amusing nonetheless:

Bruhwiler also appears to be a participant in so-called redemption practices, which are rife in the world of sovereign citizens. Proponents of this bizarre ideology argue that when the U.S. quit the gold standard in 1933, it pledged its citizens as collateral so it could borrow money based on their future earnings. Then, the theory goes, the government funded a secret “Treasury Direct Account” for each individual that it stocks with millions of dollars. Redemptionists have come up with a series of bizarre maneuvers that are meant to liberate this money from the government and have it paid to them personally. For most redemptionists, this involves, among many other incomprehensible steps, filing a “Uniform Commercial Code-1” document.

In February, Bruhwiler filed just such a form with California Secretary of State’s office. His UCC-1 filing says that his “one hundred billion United States silver dollars” have now been transferred to “Bruno Ernst Bruhwiler, a living man, secured party.”

Sounds like he's heading for Leo Wanta territory there. Hey, Bruno, check the flag in the courtroom for your trial. If it's got a gold fringe on it, you can tell the judge that you refuse to be tried in an admiralty court. Also, check to see if your name is in all-caps on the warrant. I hear lots of folks get off that way.

Hat Tip: Dumballover at JREF.

Read More

Ready for a Laugh?

Guess who exposed himself as the peer-reviewer for Steven Jones' Active Thermitic Materials paper?

No, not Snoopy. That would be deserving of some respect. Instead it's that sack of fecal matter inhabiting the hockey jersey, David L. Griscom. Does that seem like a harsh assessment of such a kindly-looking old phart?

Well, Griscom has earned it and more. In a movement not exactly blessed with sensitivity, he came up with the single-most offensive theory put forth by the Truthers: All the passengers on the four doomed flights are alive and living it up in Tahiti.

I envision a similar 9/11 scheme, but one where the passengers boarded under their true names. Indeed, the seat occupancies on all four aircraft allegedly hijacked on 9/11 were very much lower that industry average (averaging 26% of capacity vis-à-vis 71% for all domestic flights in July 2001). So, here I extend my “all passengers survived” postulate to all four 9/11 “hijacked” flights on the notion that this small number of passengers might have been considered by conspirators as the minimum number for public credulity, while at the same time not exceeding the maximum number of “true believers in the cause” willing to accept long separations from their loved ones (sweetened by handsome Swiss bank accounts).

As I have pointed out in the past, the reason these retards believe that somebody could be persuaded to betray their friends, family and country, is because they themselves would jump at the opportunity, provided the Swiss bank account was handsome enough.

So yes, the guy who "peer-reviewed" Jones' paper is a Troofer moron himself. Professor Jones tries to put a smiley face on it:

The reviewer's name is Prof. David L. Griscom. Among his impressive credentials, Prof. Griscom is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a Fellow of the AAAS.

Well, he's certainly an AAAS-hole, Steven. But even the Troofers have their limits, and in the comments, loosenuke points out:

Does his promotion of theories, for which there's no actual evidence, such as 'all passengers survived' and 'the Pentagon was hit by a fighter jet', affect your opinion of his credibility- why or why not?

And JO911S published a letter by Griscom Feb 07; why didn't you mention this?

I think you previously mentioned that Bentam was given suggestions for reviewers; was Griscom one of the people suggested?

Jones does a little shuffle:

I do not think that Prof. Griscom's studies on 9/11 "compromise" him as a reviewer -- he critiqued the paper critically as a scientist, giving (as he said) the authors twelve pages of comments and questions. This scientific thoroughness is unusual in a review (from my experience) -- very unusual.

I do not know how the editors selected the reviewers, and I do not know the name of the other reviewer.

Never mind that he's a nut; his nuttiness wasn't evident in his review of our paper. And the second part is a dodge; loosenuke didn't ask him how the reviewer was chosen, just whether Jones recommended him. Given that Jones used to point out Griscom as an example of another physics professional for 9-11 "Truth", it's not hard for me to guess the answer to that question.

But it gets even better. Jones says he doesn't know who the second peer-reviewer was. Not to worry, the next commenter says:

I do know the name of the second Peer Reviewer, who obviously wants to stay anonymous yet. All I can say is that his reputation is undoubtable, too.

Yeah, I'm sure that if Sitting Bull knows him, he must indubitably be another fruitcake.

Read More

Nutty Napolitano and Goofy Geraldo Raise Eyebrows

CNN, seeing a chance to get a dig in at their fiercest rival, highlights the new new celebrity Troofers:

It's rare that two media watchdogs – one on the left and one on the right – ever agree when it comes to assessing coverage on the cable news outlets.

But both the conservative Newsbusters and liberal Media Matters are aiming fire at Fox News' Geraldo Rivera and Judge Andrew Napolitano for recently suggesting the third building to fall on September 11, 2001 – 7 World Trade Center- may have collapsed for reasons beside the widely held belief that fire from the two World Trade Center towers nearby was the ultimate cause.

Newsbusters:

Both Napolitano and Rivera have, er, raised questions about the "official" (read: commonsensical) explanation for the collapse of the WTC7 building on September 11, 2001. This conspiracy theory has been thoroughly debunked a number of times. Apparently Geraldo and the Judge are not convinced.

Media Matters:

As Media Matters has documented, Napolitano's previous Jones appearances have been marked with conspiracy theories about the government and the "New World Order." For instance, Napolitano and Jones have agreed that Obama will "start a wider global war" to "be a prince," and discussed whether a powerful banking cartel linked to "world government" would "collapse the economy" and use that "as an excuse for martial law." Napolitano also told Jones of Texas secession: "That time has come. That may actually happen" because of the actions of the government.

Newsbusters links our old buddy Alllahpundit from a couple weeks ago on the Gerald conversion:

Why, oh why, oh why would the nefarious neocon junta that’s supposedly responsible for the 9/11 attacks have bothered with Building 7 in the first place? Never mind the huge number of government operatives they would have needed to plant explosives in the various buildings damaged or destroyed that day, or the fact that somehow not a single one of them has leaked anything about the plot more than nine years later despite that information being worth untold millions. Just ask yourself: If they were going to bring down the Towers as a pretext for war in the Middle East, why the hell would they have brought down Building 7 too? The structure’s collapse adds nothing to the already severe trauma of the day, and taking the time and effort to plant explosives would only increase the odds of detection. It would have been a wholly needless risk.

Of course, the real answer to that question is that to conspiracy theorists, nothing just happens. It was always planned to happen. Oh, sure, they've got some nebulous argument about how the SEC's files on Enron were stored in the building and somehow this prevented the government from prosecuting those responsible (which would be news to Jeff Skilling).

The Huffington Post also covered Napolitano's Trooferism:

Fox Business host Andrew Napolitano revealed on Tuesday that he does not believe the government's account of the 9/11 attacks. Napolitano, who hosts "Freedom Watch" on Fox Business and is frequently seen on Fox News as a legal analyst, told radio host Alex Jones — who is a prominent 9/11 conspiracy theorist —that the attacks "couldn't possibly have been done the way the government told us."

The subject came about when Jones noted that Geraldo Rivera had recently raised questions about the collapse of World Trade Center 7 on Napolitano's Fox Business Show. 9/11 conspiracy theorists have centered on that building's collapse, contending that it was blown up by government forces. Jones asked Napolitano what his opinion about the issue was.

That post attracted an astounding 11,347 comments, and revealed that many of the Huffington Posts' moderators (apparently chosen automatically by a computerized set of criteria) are Truthers themselves.

Update: Family members weigh in:

Charles Wolf's wife, Katherine, died in the North Tower on Sept. 11. He calls conspiracies like those Napolitano discussed "ludicrous," and accused him of using the tragedy to seek attention.

"After all the investigations, they are rather ludicrous," he said. "Nine and a half years after, to bring something like this up, what kind of publicity is he looking for for himself? It appears to me to be rather self-serving. He is not worth getting upset about, he is just someone who is looking for publicity."

Rosemary Cain, whose son, firefighter George Cain, died that day, took issue with Napolitano specifically.

"Judge Napolitano? I can't believe that, I really don't believe it," she said when she heard about his comments. "What can they gain by that? I think it is beneath him to come out with a remark like that. He is in a position of respect."

Read More

Bob and Tony and Rosie and Malice

Rosie had Bob McIlvaine and Tony Szamboti on her radio show (MP3 file) a week or so ago. It's the usual bit of nuttery; the program leads in with a lie: "How many buildings collapsed on 9-11 Mom? Three."

Well, three if you don't count WTC-3. And St. Nick's.

Bob McIlvaine talks about the explosions before the planes hit. Never mind that mop-jockey Willie Rodriguez is the only person to claim there were explosions before the plane impacts. Bob's got people from Ladder 10 who told him there were explosions, and Willie who says there was one before the planes, so therefore Bob's got numerous reports of multiple explosions before.

Tony Szamboti chips in (breathlessly--the guy sounds like he's just finished the mile run) to tell us fire can't melt steel. Oh, except for in a few cases. Left unsaid, of course, by this engineer is that fire doesn't have to melt steel for the metal to lose its load-bearing capacity.

The 9-11 Commission didn't even mention Building 7's collapse! (They didn't even mention St. Nick's collapse either, but the dolts never bring that up.)

Sigh. These morons are like a broken record.

Read More

Both Sides Now

Colorado Public TV is broadcasting Loose Change AAC on December 4th. They note that their prior broadcasts of Press for Troof and Blueprint for Troof caused some controversy:

Some of the feedback included complaints about the program breaks and our in-studio guests – that the station was only presenting a one-sided view that supported the alternative theories of the “Truth Movement” or “Truthers.”

So they're going to provide arguments from both sides this time around. I guess:

These program breaks will include multiple viewpoints – both for and against the film's content. Guests will include Kevin Ryan, a 911 Whistleblower, plus a representative for the official story of 9/11. Additionally, we will air a range of comments from people in the community, comments from filmmakers Dylan Avery and Korey Rowe, and others.

Errr, a representative for the official story? Who might that be? The post does include a link to Debunking 9-11, so it may be that Kate is going to be there, in which case I'm satisfied. But is it too much to expect that this representative be named beforehand?

Read More

Taxpayer Funded Truthers?

OK, well I am not a Canadian citizen, but I don't think they are anymore happy about subsidizing Truther "research" than I would be. From Jonathan Kay:

As I can report from my personal encounters with Hall at 9/11 Truth events in Montreal and Walkerton, Ont., the man is very passionate about his Trutherdom. But as long as he keeps it out of the classroom, he’s free to believe in whatever conspiracy theories he likes.

Unfortunately, Hall seems to be using his post at Lethbridge as a training ground for 9/11 Trutherdom. His star pupil in this regard is British graduate student Joshua Blakeney, who can be seen in this 2009 video harassing a female CBC reporter with his dark theories about the CBC’s failure to investigate the 9/11 “cover-up.” Blakeney also wrote this charming article expressing delight that author Christopher Hitchens had been sickened with cancer.

On Wednesday afternoon, Hall proudly announced that the University of Lethbridge has awarded Blakeney a $7,714 Queen Elizabeth II Graduate Scholarship to pursue his research. (The scholarship is listed as being funded through the “ongoing financial commitment of the Province of Alberta.”) Blakeney’s first $3,857 cheque will be available for pick-up on Dec. 1.

Read More

Olbermann is Right

Three words you will probably not hear me say again. But Andrew Napolitano (and Geraldo Rivera, for that matter) have become embarrassments to Fox News and should be kicked to the curb.

For some real hilarity, check out the comments at 9-11 Flogger. As usual, the kooks are deluding themselves into thinking that Keith said this with a wink and a nod:

Olbermann knows the truth
I wonder why he had the little notation "not really" with the photo. He's no dummy. He knows the truth. He's owned. Thank God for those like Olbermann for speaking out on other issues, but it''s so heartbreaking to have to tolerate his compliance with the network. He has been walking on thin ice lately, almost getting fired.

Olbernann said:

"OK. Napolitano is a truther. I don't have to agree with him. You don't have to disagree with him. But according to his employer's code of smear, they've got to fire him."

If said a certain way, one could assume "I don't have to agree with him" is equivalent to "I don't agree with him". But since Roger Ailes was the worst person target and not Napolitano, I would take Oblermann's words as carefully chosen and politically safe but not actually anti-truther. Nevertheless, I bet many will get the impression they are anti-truther.

This should not be misconstrued as Olbermann saying he thinks Napolitano should be fired. In effect, and to our great benefit, he is instigating a controversy at FOX, whether intentionally or not, that could lead to an explosion of discussion about 9/11 and Building 7.

I do think that Olbermann is more using the Truthers as a convenient club against his old nemesis, Fox News. But that doesn't mean that he's pro-Truther; I suspect he finds them just as wacky as we do.

Read More

Another Blogger for Reason

Welcome, Mr Rational! Solid writing style, sensible conclusions, worth a regular visit.

So how can this notion be applied to the 9/11 truth movement? The following is a common example of special pleading (e.g., How can the govt. continue to conceal the conspiracy if literally thousands of people were involved? Special plead: you don’t understand the concept of compartmentalization within the government).

This argument is special pleading because it avoids having to answer the real problem, namely that even with compartmentalization there still remain thousands of people who have to remain silent. Lets take the people who set up the demolition charges for instance. If they were only given instructions to set charges and nothing else, then I find it a little odd that not a single one of them has come forward with this information. The notion of compartmentalization fails when we realize that if one link in the chain fails, then the entire conspiracy fails.

Indeed. No matter how compartmentalized the work was, there would be a hell of a lot of people who would say, "You know, I wonder if those weird ceiling tiles I installed at the WTC had anything to do with the collapse."

Read More

Judge Napolitano Joins the Circus

I've had the feeling that this guy was a clown ever since he introduced "the great Alex Jones" on a Fox program; this just confirms it.

Read More

Geraldo Impressed by 1300 Architects and Engineers

And I can kind of see it from his standpoint. I mean, we've been around since the early days when Gage was claiming that insurance companies raised their premiums 2100 percent and thinking that the box demonstration was impressive, so we know it's just 1300 clowns in the circus, whereas Geraldo has none of that experience. He doesn't know about the swimming pool engineer or the HVAC engineer or the dental engineer who thinks it was done with beam weapons from space.

Read More

Waterboy Turns Detective

Kevin Ryan takes a fruitcake look at the insider trading issue. This part appears reasonable:

This is an example of the circular logic often used by those who created the official explanations for 9/11. The reasoning goes like this: if we assume that we know who the perpetrators were (i.e. the popular version of “al Qaeda”) and those who were involved in the trades did not appear to be connected to those assumed perpetrators, then insider trading did not occur.

Of course, the nutbars have quite a different vision of who was responsible for the 9-11 attacks and thus the world of those connected to the assumed perpetrators is much wider, and US-based.

As is typical with the Troofers, Ryan provides a great deal of dots, and invites the kooks to connect them:

The people ultimately found included an unnamed customer of Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown (DBAB). This involved a trade on United Airlines (UAL) stock consisting of a 2,500-contract order that was, for some reason, split into chunks of 500 contracts each and then directed to multiple exchanges around the country simultaneously.[12] When the 9/11 Commission report pointed to a “single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda,” it was referring to either DBAB or its customer in that questionable trade.

Michael Ruppert has since written about DBAB, noting that the company had previously been a financier of The Carlyle Group and also of Brown Brothers Harriman, both of which are companies closely related to the Bush family. Ruppert also noted that Alex. Brown, the company purchased by Deutsche Bank to become DBAB, was managed by A.B. (Buzzy) Krongard, who left the firm in 1998 to join the CIA as counsel to director George Tenet.[13] Krongard had been a consultant to CIA director James Woolsey in the mid 1990s and, on September 11th, he was the Executive Director of the CIA, the third highest position in the agency.

You know how it is, those dots could be connected in different ways than Ryan intends. Michael Ruppert has written about DBAB which was run by Buzzy Krongard who later worked at the CIA. Therefore Michael Ruppert is a CIA agent! Oh, wait, that's not the way the dots are supposed to be connected?

In 2002, investigator Kyle Hence wrote about the stocks involved in the SEC’s target list. Those that had the highest examples of trade volume over the average were UAL [285 times over average], Marsh & McLennan (Marsh) [93 times over average], American Airlines (AMR) [60 times over average], and Citigroup [45 times over average].[14] Other stocks flagged included financial firms, defense-related companies, and the reinsurance firms Munich Re, Swiss Re and the AXA Group. Put options for these reinsurance firms, or bets that the stock would drop, were placed at double the normal levels in the few days before the attacks. Regulators were concerned about “large block trades” on these stocks because the three firms were liable for billions in insurance payouts due to the damage inflicted on 9/11.[15]

You know what the problem is with all this analysis? We don't know what happened to the unflagged stocks. We don't know if there were lots of flagged stocks that didn't have unusual trading volume. I'd suspect that if you picked at random 100 stocks, 10 of them would have "unusual trading volume" today, just by chance.

Remember the bit about how the Commission assumed that al Qaeda was behind 9-11 and so they were only interested in people linked to al Qaeda? Well, look at the connection that Ryan makes:

However, Wirt Walker was connected to people who had connections to al Qaeda. For example, Stratesec director James Abrahamson was the business partner of Mansoor Ijaz, who claimed on several occasions to be able to contact Osama bin Laden.[24]

Interestingly, Ryan does not repeat the oft-made claim that Wirt Walker was a cousin of Bush. But:

Walker ran a number of suspicious companies that went bankrupt, including Stratesec, some of which were underwritten by a company run by a first cousin of former CIA director (and President) George H.W. Bush.

You know how it is, in Ryan's world, if you ran a number of companies that went bankrupt, you must have made lots and lots of money. He must think that Bill Gates has the wrong idea.

As usual, the real hilarity comes out in the comments section:

And let’s not forget the 240 billion dollars worth of bonds (converted to 10 year treasuries) that were coming due on September 12, 2001.
Coincidently, those securities were in the basement of the towers, and although the majority of the international bankers gold was removed before hand (whew, that was close!), the paperwork for those Black Eagle Trust bonds, which funded W’s fathers regime change acts 10 years before, unfortunately were lost.

The Black Eagle Trust is one of those WWII myths about what happened to the Nazi Gold; it just goes to show that old conspiracy theories never die, they just get subsumed into the new conspiracy theory.

Read More

Shermer and the Dolts

Note how excitable the "Truthers" get, particularly Anthony J. Hall (loved him in 16 Candles).

Read More

Who Wouldn't Enjoy This?

Matt Naus reports on the fun one has being a Troofer:

I've been doing these 9/11 Truth Street Actions for close to 5 years now but this one will remain in my memory for quite a while. Having a 9/11 Truth street action at a college university can lead to some crazy interactions. This was a rough one, and not because we had the usual swear words at times. It was because we also got some spit thrown at us and some guy wanted to kick down our sign. Another guy gave me the finger and it seemed he wanted to put it right up my nose he got so close. Some college girl even got nasty with us. We were stationed on the corner of 16th & Wisconsin Ave. (busy corner) near downtown Milwaukee. There is a high- rise college dorm building on this corner. From about the 6th floor of this dorm building we were getting harrassed by young college kids for about an hour screaming out the window of a dorm room calling it propaganda and singing God Bless America.. One college student, who took our information, was getting harrassed by these guys and he gave his fellow students the finger. Then these window yellers decided to come down to the street level and counter our sign with a sign of their own that said "Over 3000 families demand that we support our troops". These college kids also dressed up in red, white and blue with one of them wearing an Uncle Sam outfit and another wrapping himself in a flag. I guess they wanted to celebrate Veterans Day getting cars to beep at them with there sign. Near the end of our 8 hour day of street action you will see a short Asian student and another student in the Youtube that I interviewed. They started acting stupid during the interview so I cut it kind of short. Anyways, this Asian student flew past me and grabbed one of our signs that I just put against a garbage can and he took off. The sign had a picture of the war criminals in the Bush administration. I gave chase for about a block but this 60 year old guy couldn't catch him so I had to stop before I had a heart attack. I called the police and gave a report telling them I had the thief on youtube and waited for about an hour but no police came.

Sounds like fun!

Read More

Turns Out Al Capone's Vault Was A High Point

In Geraldo Rivera's career. Here's the nadir:


Note the bit where he talks to McIlvaine and he says "I don't want to get into the details of how you think he died." Could that possibly be because he doesn't want McIlvaine spoiling his "the family members are not like the nutjobs," conclusion? Let's remember that McIlvaine thinks his son died before either of the planes hit the buildings.

Read More

Ed Asner on the Troof

Ed Asner gives a rather amusing troofer interview. I believe he is founder of "Senile Old Men for 9/11 Truth".

Read More

D'oh!

Who knew that Homer was behind it all! And apparently they intend to do it again. That fat man must be stopped!

Yes, it's true. (Or might be.) For years, fringe types have pointed to amazingly sketchy but entertaining evidence that the attacks of 9/11 were actually foretold by the beloved Fox cartoon. Nearly four years before 9/11, in an episode of the show entitled "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson," there's a curious little scene that some conspiracy lovers and "Simpsons" aficionados have long thought might be a warning....

Read More

Box Boy Rakes in $75,000

Our buddy Joseph Nobles (aka Boloboffin) reports:

$75,450

Richard Gage’s salary in 2009 from Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth. That’s according to the 2009 Form 990-EZ available right now at Guidestar.org, an online organization that helps track non-profits.

That's about $75,450 more than James and I made on SLC last year. I confirmed the information myself at Guidestar. Gage claims to spend 80 hours per week on the Troof; that's about 11.5 hours per day, every day. It sure does not show in his presentations.

Apparently the CFO of AE911Troof is J. Marx Ayres; he's about to celebrate his 88th birthday.

Read More

Chomsky Nibbles At the Apple

Read More

Grifter's Latest

I had heard the title, Cognitive Infiltration, and assumed it was going to be about Cass Sunstein's memo. But it turns out that he's just recycling the same old trash:

cell phone fakery is CENTRAL to the thesis in his current book which claims evidence that there were no hijackings - no muslims on board - the hijackers are still alive - and the calls were faked.

No need to invent new snake oil if the rubes keep buying the old stuff, I suppose.

Read More

A Big Honking Plate of Stupid

It's hard to say what part of this interview between Roseanne Barr and Jon Gold (with Coleen Rowley) is my favorite. Is it when Roseanne says, "Thank God for Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone?", apparently unaware of what Matt wrote about the 9-11 Truthers? Is it when Roseanne's buddy calls in to suggest that the Truth Movement is a CIA plot? Is it when he goes on to suggest that the Truthers should drop their focus on 9-11 and instead concentrate on campaign finance reform and Jon Gold agrees? Or is it when Gold himself suggests that the vote be banned for whites and males for a couple centuries? Correction: Idiot Jon Gold stops by in the comments and says it was not he who suggested banning the vote for whites and males, and listening to it again I can hear it was Roseanne's buddy. My apologies to idiot Jon.

No, for me the best part is that Coleen Rowley sits there contributing to the conversation, and doesn't once seem to realize that she's talking with a bunch of insane people. I've known since her participation in the Treason in American Conference that she was a few slices short of a loaf, but still it's a bit jarring to realize that Time Magazine's co-person of the year for 2002 is so clueless.

Read More

Colorado Democrats Go Nutter

They've included a 9-11 "Truth" plank in their party platform:

“Whereas many disturbing facts were consciously ignored by the 9/11 Commission; Be it resolved, therefore, that the CDP calls for the establishment of a truly independent Grand Jury and public investigation into these and other anomalies in order to find the truth of the September 11, 2001 attacks, so that we have a greater probability of preventing attacks of this nature in the future.”

Note this background:

The citizens who presented arguments for a new investigation at their precinct caucuses are signatories to the Architect and Engineers for 9/11 Truth organization (www.ae911truth.org) which calls for a new investigation into the events of September 11, 2001.

Crackpots with Box Boy Gage's group, in other words.

Read More

There Is No End to the Rabbit Hole

The latest paranoia from the nutbars? 9-11 Blogger is working for the "other" side (presumably the government). It's South Park's parody come to life.

In part because of this decision by 911blogger, to reject Barrie Zwicker’s endorsement of CIT while publishing a childish hit piece from an anonymous source, Southern California 9/11 truth activist and We Are Change LA member Adam Ruff wrote:

“In my view it is now 100% confirmed that 911blogger is an enemy of the truth
movement as a whole and is engaged in an open campaign of attack on good
truthers.”

No, Flogger is not on "our" side. I checked the budget and we don't have a line item for them. But I do find the incident amusing. The "Truthers" bitterly complain about Lefty Gatekeepers like Kos and Democratic Underground not allowing their topic to be discussed, but why do those sites do so? Because they don't want to be associated with a bunch of lunatics. Why does 9-11 Blogger ban promotion of CIT's junk? You guessed it.

As always, the real humor is in the comments.

Read More

Roseanne Barr, Troofer

Another former celebrity gets on board with the Troof. She links Jon Gold's just the facts article, and says in the comments:

let's get to the bottom of this whole thing and see if my guess is correct---I say Bush did this, as he was instructed to do by his dad cheney and bill clinton kennedy, and everybody else whose wealth increased after 9-11. It was a red herring to empty the us coffers, to get rid of civil rights and jobs, and the working and middle classes. I know it was a big scam because after we were attacked, they sent our army away from home--instead of keeping them here to defend us. They left us here like they left the people floating away in katrina. They are using the american people as human guinea pigs for medical experiments conducted by psychiatrists. We had it too good for too long. We got lazy and stupid and obese. They are done with us now. They see us as useless eaters.

Well, Roseanne, I certainly see you as a useless eater. I love this part:

They know that the filth of the world is dumped in Haiti, and that children there are dying from dirty water, but the rich don't care about any of that.

The rich? Roseanne, I'm going to hazard a guess that you're in the top 1% of the top 1% of the wealthy in this country.

Roseanne's previous career lowlight:

Read More

South Park Creators on the 9-11 Episode

Hat tip to Edx at JREF.

Read More

Bravely Slaying the Strawmen of His Imagination

Steven Jones tackles two objections to his "research" that I have never heard before:

1. That somebody contaminated the samples with nanothermite. Huh? No, Steven, we don't think there's really nanosupercallifragilisticexpiallythermite in the samples at all.

2. Perhaps the falling buildings just generated the nanothermite. Err, see my response above.

I love that he tested samples of dust from a couple controlled demolitions and found no red-gray chips. One would think this would tell him that the WTC buildings were not brought down by controlled demolition, but Truther logic doesn't work that way.

I do find it interesting that Jones mentions what caused him to go Truther: Some woman was giving a talk on something else and casually mentioned that the Towers were not brought down by the planes, to apparently thunderous applause. And it's interesting to hear that the Waterboy is trying to make nanothermite himself. Perhaps he could get together with Jim Hoffman and manufacture ceiling tiles of the stuff.

Read More

The Waterboy Again

Whatever happened to Kevin Ryan's claims to expertise because he was a water tester who worked for Underwriter's Laboratories? Now he's off on Flight 77:

Exactly how was Flight 77 hijacked, considering, among other things, that the alleged hijackers were said to be identified as security risks (possibly linked to al Qaeda) when they tried to board, and were not physically imposing (all 5 and a half feet tall or less, and slender in build)?[1]

They weren't identified as possibly linked to al Qaeda; they set off metal detectors as Kevin would know if he read his own footnotes:

When they go through, their carry-on bags fail to set off any alarms, but both men set off the alarm when they pass through the first metal detector. They are directed to a second metal detector, where Almihdhar passes, but Moqed fails again. He is subjected to a personal screening with a metal detection hand wand. This time he is cleared and permitted to pass through the checkpoint.

As for the second part of his question, I'll make him a deal. I'll get four men with knifes and box cutters to guard the entrance to a tunnel and if Kevin can get past them and into the tunnel, we'll consider his argument valid. In reality, of course, Kevin's underwear will end up brown and he won't get anywhere near the tunnel.

Why was Dick Cheney tracking Flight 77?[2]

He wasn't; he (or rather a young military man in the PEOC with him) was tracking the possible location of Flight 93, had it not crashed already.

Why did the roof of the Pentagon collapse 30 minutes after impact, giving additional evidence for the use of explosives? Note: The use of explosives at the Pentagon seems to be in agreement with the use of a large plane, which would have had little penetrating power.

Additional evidence? What was the initial evidence? And on what basis do you know that a large plane would have had little penetrating power?

Ryan also goes into the idiotic speculation about Barbara Olsen's phone calls:

Why was the official explanation for alleged phone calls made by Flight 77 passenger Barbara Olsen changed several times, and ultimately how could Ted Olsen’s story make any sense?[7]

Before closing with his real point:

Why are these questions NOT being pursued by independent investigators? That’s because the attention of many potential investigators has been hijacked by the much less useful question of “What hit the Pentagon.” This is certainly the favorite subject of intentional disruptors and official story supporters.

You know, Kevin, I'm sure you think you're helping your cause with these buffoonish posts, but you're not. He relates an anecdote:

A great example was when 9/11 Commission staffer Miles Kara and I exchanged messages a few months ago. He had written to my local group in an inquiry seeking support for his positions. My response was apparently not to his liking, and he therefore sought something in my own work that could be criticized. Despite the fact that the vast majority of my 9/11 work has centered on the World Trade Center, Army intelligence officer Kara searched through my articles and presentations over the last seven years and chose one minor statement I made about the Pentagon, in March 2006.

And so, in response, you do a longer post on the Pentagon? Oh, let's not talk about what hit the Pentagon, because that dishonors the memory of the passengers on Flight 77. Instead, let's talk about Barbara Olsen's phone calls, because that's much less likely to get people pissed off about what a bunch of morons we are.

Really?

But of course the responses are where the usual dingbat nonsense comes up. One dolt even brings up the Clock Lady's evidence of two Pentagon clocks that stopped at 9:32. Inside job!

Read More

West Virginia Senate Candidates Troofers

I like the lede, even though it's only half right:

Republican businessman John Raese pitched himself as a man of the right; Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin put himself forward as a man of the commonsense middle; Mountain Party candidate Jesse Johnson, the candidate of the state's Green Party affiliate, was a man of the left; and Constitution Party candidate Jeff Becker was a man of the loony bin.

And indeed, Becker exposes himself as a crackpot:

Becker's sole standout moment, other than his rambling opening statement about repealing the direct election of Senators, came when he was asked about his position on the war in Afghanistan.

Becker's long and off-topic answer had little to do with Afghanistan itself -- but was a long discussion of 9/11 Truther conspiracy theories, involving the alleged organized demolitions of the Twin Towers and the 7 World Trade Center building, the foreknowledge of this by the BBC, and the buildings' owners taking out special insurance policies for the contrived terrorist attack. "The only way for the official story to make sense is if the laws of physics had changed that day," said Becker.. "And I'm an engineer, I can tell you they did not."

But as it turns out, the "man of the left" is also a man of the nutbars:

Mountain Party nominee Jesse Johnson told The Associated Press that he is also not convinced that hijacked airliners caused the collapse of buildings at the World Trade Center.

Calling 9/11 a crime of the century, Johnson said it has never been investigated. He discounts the work of the bipartisan commission that issued a 585-page report on the attacks in 2004.

Read More

Could Wikileaks Have Prevented 9-11?

Coleen Rowley's take.

There were a lot of us in the run-up to Sept. 11 who had seen warning signs that something devastating might be in the planning stages. But we worked for ossified bureaucracies incapable of acting quickly and decisively. Lately, the two of us have been wondering how things might have been different if there had been a quick, confidential way to get information out.

My guess is no. The problem that would have been faced is the "Where's Waldo?" problem I pointed out years ago:

Here's an analogy that illustrates the problem that the "warnings" wing of the Truthers all have. Remember the "Where's Waldo?" books of the 1990s? Imagine one kid has had the books for years, and he opens one of his favorite pages up and asks a friend to locate Waldo. And sits there fussing because his friend can't see what's so obvious to him, because he knows what to ignore.

The CIA and the FBI and the rest of the government is like that poor friend, but even worse, because in their case they don't even know if there's a Waldo on that page. They receive a blizzard of information, and most of the warnings never amount to anything. It is obvious after the fact which ones mattered, just as it is obvious to that kid where Waldo's hiding.

Read More

Kevin Barrett's Son Debunks His Dad

Didn't notice this before, but kudos to Young Debunka.

Note how he says three buildings, making it clear that he is talking about the Twin Towers as well as Building 7 (which had its core collapse before the outer wall did). The debris we see in the videos are clearly falling faster than the building.

Good, solid, honest thinking. You know how some traits skip a generation? Young Debunka's grandfather was Peter Barrett.

Peter Barrett was competing in a series of seven sailing races in the Summer Olympics in Tokyo. He accidentally hit a mark, grounds for disqualification, but wasn't caught. He nearly finished the race, but at the finish line, in first place, he dropped out, admitting the foul. He ended up winning the silver on the strength of his performance in the other races.

Read More

Yeah, We Noticed

From Dylan Avery's profile on Linked In, we hear of his specialty:

Turning nothing into something.

The 9-11 "Truth" movement in a nutshell.

BTW, Building Wut is still at $88,009. Hasn't budged in about 10 days, and they haven't begged again on Flogger. Wut's up with that?

Read More

Just Another Truther Psycho

Check this story out:

Byron Williams, a 45-year-old ex-felon, exploded onto the national stage in the early morning hours of July 18.

According to a police investigation, Williams opened fire on California Highway Patrol officers who had stopped him on an Oakland freeway for driving erratically. For 12 frantic minutes, Williams traded shots with the police, employing three firearms and a small arsenal of ammunition, including armor-piercing rounds fired from a .308-caliber rifle.

When the smoke cleared, Williams surrendered; the ballistic body armor he was wearing had saved his life. Miraculously, only two of the 10 CHP officers involved in the shootout were injured.

Williams "credited" several people with waking him up, including Glenn Beck:

Williams also points to other media figures -- right-wing propagandist David Horowitz, and Internet conspiracist and repeated Fox News guest Alex Jones -- as key sources of information to inspire his "revolution."

And yes, he's a troofer:

Referring again to the "sabotage" of the Deepwater Horizon, Byron says: "This is what he won't do, Beck will not say it was a contracted hit. But he'll give you every ounce of evidence you can possibly need to make that assumption yourself." "You see what I mean?" Byron says, "That's why he downplays the 9-11 truthers. He talks bad about them."

It's clear that there are some theories Byron subscribes to that Beck does not. For example, Byron endorses the claim that "the U.S. government contracted its own destruction of the twin towers." On this issue, Byron cites Alex Jones and other websites.

Read More

Craig's European Vacation

BTW, who's going on vacation with the Building Wut donations?

Read More

Your New World Order Is Ready for Delivery

This was posted in the comments section by M. Gregory Ferris and it's good enough to pop up to the top page. Posting on the news that Jason Bermas is back at the pizza parlor in Oneonta, he notes:

See if he had any brains at all he would capitalize on his Loose Change fame and open his own pizza parlor/restaurant.

He could have a Monday Night Football special called "The New World Order" with a large pizza, chicken wings and a 2-liter delivered for $25.

He could serve bran muffins called "Inside Jobs".

He could serve fried cheese balls called "Iron Spheres".

Triterope expanded on the idea:

A 9-11 conspiracy themed restaurant? I love it.

APPETIZER
Cheese Microspheres
A mixture of artisan New York cheeses, deep-fried in vegetable oil until molten and served with a savory dipping sauce. And just like the real thing, they're high in iron! $8

MAIN COURSE
Pullets
A young chicken, slow-cooked to rich, juicy flavor. We're so sure you'll love this dish, we've insured it for $3 billion! And with such terrible loss of trans fat, the smartest thing to eat is pullet!$14

SIDE COURSE
Light Pole Pasta
Bucatini pasta cooked to perfection, and arranged in vertical rows. Just like Lloyd England, you'll knock these down! $7

DESSERT
Hunt-The-Boeing King Cake
An authentic New Orleans-style King Cake in the shape of the Pentagon, and a tiny plastic model of Flight 77 instead of a baby... which we don't put in the cake. Learn the truth about 9/11 as you enjoy this delicious pastry. Where's the Boeing? Can't find it, can you? $11

SATISFACTION GUARANTEE: If you're not completely satisfied that 9/11 was an inside job, we'll remake your meal up to six times. However, we reserve the right to make substitutions.

I love the "Hunt-The-Boeing" cake idea; that made me laugh out loud. Billman added the drink selection:

Alex Jones Kool-Aid
This fatty drink will have you screaming aloud about the elite zionist flavors from which it is concocted!

All orders delivered to your door by Israeli Art Students.

Read More

What is Old is New Again?

I got a tip this morning from a reader, and have been able to confirm some of it, but am still looking into more. Apparently Jason Bermas, from the increasingly inaccurately titled Loose Change trilogy, has now given up his career as an Alex Jones lackey and moved back home to Oneonta, New York, where it all started. Supposedly he is back working at a pizza place, like when his whole New World Order crushing fantasy began, which I have not been able to entirely confirm, but his Facebook page does mention "flipping pies" as his status a couple of times.

Apparently fighting the power has not been good for him financially because he is now begging for money to get some equipment to start his own Internet radio station. Didn't know it cost $5,000. I thought you just needed some broadband and a couple of good microphones.

Read More

Quick Hits

From the "I'll never pitch in the major leagues again" department, David Ray Griffin talks about his recent medical problems, and closes with this:

And so I am recovering. Whether I will do much intellectual work in the near future remains uncertain at this time.

Why would anybody think otherwise?

Building Wut appears to have stalled out. There's been no news from that quarter for almost a month now, and checking the website reveals that contributions have been stuck on $88,000 for about a week. When this whole thing started I wrote that it was the latest fiasco waiting to happen; nothing recently has changed my mind on that score.

Read More

Clowns to the Left of Me

Jokers to the right. Taking the latter first, Fox News resuscitates the Able Danger story with a NEW DOCUMENT that proves... well, let's get into that later. First, let me say that I'm not entirely certain that the Able Danger claims are a bunch of hooey, just about 99%. Here's the res of the claim:

At least five witnesses questioned by the Defense Department's Inspector General told Fox News that their statements were distorted by investigators in the final IG's report -- or it left out key information, backing up assertions that lead hijacker Mohammed Atta was identified a year before 9/11.

Able Danger, of course, was a huge computerized data mining operation that hoped to discover links that might not be apparent to humans. So far so good. But the problem I have always had with the claim that Able Danger identified Atta, is that nobody to date has come up with the datum that says that Atta was somebody to be interested. Remember, the claim is that Atta was identified as so important that he was included on a wall chart that was printed out, with maybe 30 or so other people on the chart.

But why? Atta was just an engineering student in Hamburg at the time. He was supposedly identified as part of the "Brooklyn cell"; okay, what was his tie to Brooklyn, or anybody located dere, err, there?

As for the earth-shattering document:

Separately, Fox News has obtained a letter that challenges the Defense Department's claim. In October 2006, then Rep. Christopher Shays, chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations, wrote to Shaffer's supervisor, Maj. Gen. Elbert Perkins, about the revocation of his clearance..

"Based on investigation of security clearance retaliation, it appears the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) used the security clearance system in an improper manner against LTC Shaffer and did not follow DOD security clearance guidelines," Shays, R-Conn., wrote.

Okay, so a congressman wrote the Defense Department to claim that Shaffer's security clearance was improperly taken away. In other words, this document does nothing to bolster the Able Danger claims, it just indicates that some of the military officials involved might--might I say--have reacted in a vindictive manner to the circus that Shaffer and Curt Weldon created with the Able Danger claims. Note in particular that Shaffer is somewhat less forceful than he used to be about the Atta ID:

"The big picture was not Atta, not so much the chart," Shaffer said. "The fact is this: That we had a pre-9/11 Department of Defense operation focused on taking action against Al Qaeda globally."

Of course, that is not exactly news, as the USS Cole incident and the embassy bombings were both pre-9/11 events.

On the left, the Huffington Post mentions a recent poll that found 9-11 kookery especially prevalent in the Middle East, and the nuts came out to play. Over 1600 comments on the article, many of them mentioning kooks like Box Boy Gage, or "facts" like OBL isn't wanted for 9-11.

Read More

If We've Lost Cleveland...

I gather that this is a spin-off of Family Guy. Going after the much-coveted "living in Mom's basement" demographic?

Read More

Cow-Killer Kent Knudson Takes Own Life

Obviously sad news here.

It is with great sadness that I must report to you the news of the passing of my great friend and hero, Kent Knudson. Kent had been suffering from depression over yet another traumatic legal difficulty and facing two felony charges, on top of his "Cowcrap" conviction. The pressures of this latest legal action taken against him, the possibility of 3 years of jail time, and other factors lead him into a depression from which Kent had decided to take matters into his own control, ending his life.

Knudson headed up the local branch of the knucklehead Troofers. He's better known locally for having killed a cow or two that wandered onto his property in Northern Arizona, although of course the Truthers try to make it sound like some brave defense of his family:

During the years that Kent spent caring for his beloved mother who was developing Alzheimer's disease, Kent fell into legal trouble as a result of attempting to safeguard his mother against an invading herd of cattle on their 40 acre ranch near Snowflake, AZ.

Yes, he was trying to save his mother from some killer cows, a courageous act that won him a Best of Phoenix Award: Best Local Nutbar.

My condolences to his family and friends. It is a shame that he wasted several of the last years of his life pursuing the great nothing that is 9-11 Truth.

Read More