Political Relevancy

An amusing example of the political relevancy of the increasingly misnamed 9/11 Truth movement.  A recent news report showed that the petition on the official White House site to have the US build a Death Star, has reached the 25,000 signatures needed to receive and official government response.

It is a period of civil war. Rebel pranksters, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the forces of Taking White House Petitions Too Seriously. Specifically: They have secured the 25,000 signatures necessary to get a formal response from the White House to their call for America to build a DEATH STAR.
"Those who sign here petition the United States government to secure funding and resources, and begin construction on a Death Star by 2016," the petition reads.

I couldn't even find a truther petition on the White House site for comparison as they have not reached the required numbers, but the AE911 Truth petition has only 16,000 signatures, after 5 years of trying.

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Good News On Cancer

The largest study of its kind finds no clear link between exposure to the pile and cancer:

Over all, there was no increase in the cancer rate of those studied compared with the rate of the general population, researchers concluded after looking at 23 cancers from 2003 to 2008. The prevalence of three cancers — multiple myeloma, prostate and thyroid — was significantly higher, but only in rescue and recovery workers and not in the rest of the exposed population. But since the number of actual cases was small and the subjects of the study may have been screened more frequently for cancer than other people on average, the researchers noted that it was too early to draw any correlation to time spent at ground zero.

 In one of many counterintuitive findings, the incidence of cancer was not higher among those who were exposed more intensely to the toxic substances than among those who were exposed less.

 Needless to say, I expect the Truthers to greet this news with huzzahs of joy.  They're all about the first responders, amIright?  Well, no, they're convinced this is bad news, but they hold out hope:

To make any clear determinations about the cancer-causing impact of the WTC on 9/11, it is still wait and see.
With such a long gestation period for many of the 'expected' cancers, this study needs to be kept current.

And:

 Cancer only. Not looking at respiratory problems? Or association with carbon-nanotubes?

If only they had that kind of skeptical attitude all the time.

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Troofers Gain Mainstream Credibility....

Wait for it, wait for it....

In the Onion.

But today, Santa would like to tell you all about something very naughty, something very, very naughty indeed. Dear children, have you not heard? Why, 9/11 was an inside job! Oh, ho, ho, my, yes it was!

I mean, look at the facts, boys and girls! We already know the Bush administration was itching to go to war in Iraq, now, don't we? Yes, indeed we do, my darling ones! The Downing Street memo proves that beyond a shadow of a doubt. Then you look at the Presidential Daily Briefing of Aug. 6, 2001, the one headlined "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." Ignored! Why, children, they threw that briefing aside like used wrapping paper on Christmas morning, didn't they?

Now, it's a singularly unfunny article repeating many of the usual nutbar talking points--jet fuel can't melt steel, nano-thermite, the BBC reported that Building 7 collapsed before it did, etc. To be honest, I don't know why the Onion posted it, unless, well, maybe it was to see the buffoonish reaction of the Truthers.

what a great christmas present . this should be on the front page

Is this an omen that the "establishment" is ready to face 9/11 truth? We can hope.

BTW, the Onion did a terrific parody of a talk-show debate between a Truther and an Al Qaeda member a few years back.

I love the "talking to you is like talking to a goat" line; talking to Truthers is indeed like talking to a Petgoat.

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Box Boy's Biggest Deal Ever!

If the Truthers think we insult their intelligence (and we do!) check out Gage's latest offer.

AE911truth must grow and change in order to create and handle the realities of the forthcoming critical mass of public awareness.
That’s why we are inviting you to play a key role by becoming a valued Member of AE911Truth today.

 He's created a dozen different levels of membership; from the Student Level at $30 a year to the Diamond Circle of Torchbearers at a whopping $50,000 per annum.  In return, he's giving out lots of goodies, like a Tee shirt, a coffee mug, and a signed copy of one of his posters.  At the higher levels, you also get Plaques of Appreciation, and the privilege of picking up the phone and dialing Richard, or one of the board members.  Such a deal!

I particularly like the neato graphic that Gage included to demonstrate the "tipping point":

You can tell this is a serious organization dedicated to the lives we lost on 9-11.

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Here's a Good Idea

A Troofer decides to send certified mail letters to the heads of all the insurance companies involved in the WTC claims:

9/11 Truth activist Mark Graham sent a letter to the 12 insurance companies for the airline defendants sued by Larry Silverstein informing them about evidence of controlled demolition of the Twin Towers and Building 7 and offering to put them in touch with building experts who could provide expert testimony.

Why do I approve? Because at least somebody is putting his money where his mouth is. Certified mail letters cost a couple of bucks apiece (at least, the last I priced them). What's more, I can't imagine anything more amusing than Richard Gage trying to pass himself off as an expert witness in high-rise office buildings before a court of law. Not that I think it will ever come to that.

But I do think Graham will get some sort of response to his letters. When I worked for a big insurance company, they had a policy of answering every letter, so it will be interesting to see if there is any followup about the responses.

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And Now for Something Not Completely Different

As it happens, I found myself in the car for a three-hour drive with a close friend who wanted to talk about his personal conspiracy theories.  This is someone whose company I generally enjoy, although at times in the past I have had hints that he was a CTist. 

He knows that I am a CT debunker so he asked me to watch this movie about the Rothschilds:



I was able to download from my local library, the book The Rothschild's: Money's Prophets, by Niall Ferguson from which several quotes in the above video are quite obviously lifted, while (of course) the conclusion (that the Rothschilds were fabulously wealthy in the 1800s, but have suffered the inevitable relative decline, compared to more recent fortunes, of all great wealth over time) is ignored.

Although I did do some debunking of the YT video, at the same time, I approached the matter from a different direction.  I pointed out that in my dealings with CTists in the past, there was always some underlying situation that the CT explained.  My fellow traveler explained that:

1. He is dissatisfied in his life and looking for a reason why it did not turn out as he expected.
2. He suffered a financial decline due to the real estate market crash.
3. He likes watching YT videos after he is done at his workplace as he doesn't have internet at home.
4. He doesn't feel like reading books because they take too much time.

Aside from that, although he is generally a nice guy, I definitely got the feeling that he is ready to believe anything negative about the Jews/Israel.  Let me point out as well, that he is not a fool; he is an engineer by training, runs his own interesting business that has excellent potential for growth and is a solid and improving poker player (how I came to know him).

What is my point?  Well, there are several.  First, not every CTist is an obvious nutcase.  Second, the current economy undoubtedly encourages CT thought even though the election(s) of Obama have somewhat cooled the theories about Bush and 9-11.  Third, even intelligent people can believe very foolish-seeming videos if they reinforce their existing beliefs.

Incidentally, after we talked about the above Rothschild video, he suggested that I look up another one; which is made up of 18 parts.  Here's Part One:



Obvious issues:
1. Easily debunked; for example, the Star of David was in use well before the Rothschilds' ascendance. The idea that the Rothschilds are not Jews is silly; a Jew named Arthur Koestler came up with the idea that the Askenazi are actually Khazars as a way to convince Christians not to blame them for the crucifixion of Jesus. But since then, DNA analysis has revealed that the vast majority of Jews are, in fact, descended from a subset of people who lived in the Middle East in antiquity.

2. My friend does not want to read a book, but that video is nothing but reading (very slowly).

3. Also note the description of the film by the poster:

First in the series of Eighteen.
House of Rothschild
NOT A ANTI-SEMITIC, Jewish folks are @ danger Too.
This Is Strictly a History of a Families Conquest of Ultimate Power, and Wealth. They and Families like them agree "They " know how the People should be controlled (Threw. Media, Wars, Breeding, and Economic Means Food Energy, TO BE PROFITABLE (to them and other families).

Down through History, The Rothschild's plan of Engulfing the Worlds, Money, and People Like a fat blotted Tsunami. Ashkenazi Jew From Khazaria the land between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.
Not from Israel, Zionist have Loyalty only to Their Blood line not the poor Jewish people, but use them as the did in World War II.
Sit back and enjoy the history of the most diabolical Plan ever set forth, if you can stomach it.

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Hillary Goes Truther!

No, not really. It's a plot development in September Morn, the Truther film featuring Ed Asner, Woody Harrelson and Martin Sheen, which has yet again run into difficulties:

Due to contractual differences - Fleur Des Lis Film Studios will not be producing my feature film screenplay “September Morn” as they announced on October 16th.

To drum up interest, Howard Cohen is making the screenplay available for free download here. Basically, the story is that Hillary holds a hearing in her office, where Truthers like David Ray Griffin and Neils Harrit present their evidence (cellphones don't work in planes, the hole at the Pentagon is too small, tons of nanothermite were used in the towers and Flight 93 was shot down). Hillary is obviously impressed and at the end of the film a newscaster announces that the President (presumably Obama) has authorized a new investigation of 9-11.

I'm thinking Woody would be perfect as Hillary.

Update: Sunjata with September Mourn:

It is with DEEP sadness and great disappointment that I announce #SeptemberMorn has fallen to pieces. If the film ever gets made, it will be no time soon. Internal conflicts above my pay-grade have resulted in the indefinite derailing of the project. It's been Sabotaged. #911 #911Truth.

 Sabotaged?  Does that mean it was an inside job?

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Well At Least They Are Doing Something Productive

The Truthers have been rather boring lately, so this blog has been pretty dead, but I was amused to one of our old Truther friends in an article about the argument over public nudity in San Francisco of all places.

Because clothes are required to enter City Hall itself, demonstrators who try to disrobe at the Board of Supervisors meeting will be escorted out by sheriff's deputies. That is what happened last Monday when Gypsy Taub removed her dress at a committee hearing where the ban had its first public hearing. Taub, a mother of two, said she got her start as a nudist while hosting a local cable program devoted to the theory that the government was behind the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

"I thought if I take my clothes off, I bet they are going to listen," she said.

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Is "Truther" Becoming the Ultimate Insult?

I was amused to see this post over at the American Prospect, where several new species of Truthers have been observed:

It might be easy to believe we're approaching Peak Trutherism, what with good old-fashioned birthers now being supplemented by BLS truthers and poll truthers. But just you wait—should Barack Obama win this election, we'll see an explosion of election trutherism that will be truly unprecedented in scope. In the meantime, we can content ourselves with the newest variant, Nate Silver trutherism, which isn't coming just from conservatives.

 BLS Truthers are those who think the Bureau of Labor Statistics has been cooking the books on the unemployment rate to make Obama look good.  Poll Truthers believe that the pollsters have been doing the same thing for the same reason.  Ditto with Nate Silver Truthers; they think the NY Times blogger has been overstating the odds of an Obama victory next Tuesday.

But note the scorn that the "Truther" term is clearly intended to imply; in the past they might simply have used the word "Morons".

I do think that no matter who wins on Tuesday, there will be an explosion of conspiracy theories from the losing camp.  And the other side will no doubt call them "Election Truthers." :)

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More on the Truther Movie

Some of the media have picked up the most recent announcement on the 9/11 Truther movie project that has been bounced around for the last several years.  Now on its 4th title I believe.

Hollywood is to court controversy with a film that will challenge the official version of the events of 9/11, a previously taboo topic for the industry mainstream. Martin Sheen, Woody Harrelson and Ed Asner, who have all supported conspiracy theories about the terrorist attacks, have signed up to the movie, which is entitled September Morn.

Styling itself as a drama in the tradition of Twelve Angry Men, the film's advance publicity note hints at a cover-up, saying: "We the people demand that the government revisit and initiates a thorough and independent investigation to the tragic events of 911."

Details of the film, which is to be directed by BJ Davis and written by Howard Cohen, are expected to be revealed at an American Film Market conference in Los Angeles next week, Deadline.com reported. 

 Whether this actually gets made or not. Who knows. It appears to be the same bunch of Hollywood crackpots as before. They apparently are still trying to raise money for it. Why don't they just ask the Sheens? Unless Charlie blew it all on drugs and hookers they have got to be worth well north of $100 million by now.

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Harrit, Ass, Ass, Harrit

Just in case Neils can't figure out which was his mouth in this terrific debate:

SS: I would like to ask… Niels, you say that Osama bin Laden was not wanted. To begin with, we know that the reward for him was raised immediately after 9/11. Secondly, we know that the Wanted poster states that he was wanted for other crimes as well. The fact is that once a person is wanted, then you do not necessarily issue a new wanted poster. It is not needed. But, I would like to know, because you use FBI as a source: Is FBI a reliable source or not?
NH: Ha-ha. If FBI is not a reliable source then Osama bin Laden is innocent because we just heard Anders saying that Osama bin Laden was guilty.
SS: But is FBI a reliable source to you?
NH: No, not in this case. I definitely do not think so.
SS: Because you quote Rex Tomb as if FBI is in fact a reliable source.

Note in particular that this is an early sequence during the discussion; Harrit is bringing in the Rex Tomb card early like Loose Change and not emphasizing his nanothermite research.  In fact, the words "nanothermite" and "thermite" don't appear in the debate at all!

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"Banned" From Theaters?

That's what the Troofers are claiming about this movie:



Offhand, I'd guess it's being banned for wooden acting and a laughable screenplay. The trailer sets an impressive record for TTFLOM (time to first lie or mistake); the opening words are "An Irreprehensible (sic) Attack on Humanity".

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Steven Jones, Debunker

Of course, all he debunks is the theory that is even more retarded than his:

Regarding the possibility that mini-nukes were used in the WTC Towers to bring them down, I wrote a paper in 2006 which was peer-reviewed and then published in January 2007. I sincerely wish more people would read the peer-reviewed papers I and colleagues have published, as a way of sorting out that which is based on hard evidence and that which is not.

Hey, Steve, don't quit your day job!  (Ooops!)

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PBS Ombudsman Laments Association with Truthers

And the fact that Colorado Public Television keeps dragging their name through the mud.

What actually interests me about this new round of 9/11 conspiracy films is not that CPT12 is showing it. Rather, it is the association with PBS that it generates, and with PBS's unwillingness or inability to separate itself more clearly from the production and distribution of such programs. There have been other such cases, especially involving programming for pledge drives. PBS is among the more widely trusted brand-names in the country, so an association with PBS tends to convey legitimacy to viewers, and some of them feel deceived and get upset, as most of the letters below demonstrate.

He notes that Gage's gaggle uses the PBS logo on their page announcing CPT12's broadcast of Expert's Speak Out.

BTW, he also mentions:

"The evidence is overwhelming," says professor Lynn Margulis, one of the experts.

As most of you probably know, Margulis was an expert in biology, which, if the Truthers believed that nano-termites brought down the towers, might actually be a relevant field.  I checked the Wikipedia entry on Margulis, and it turns out that 9-11 Denialism isn't her only bit of kookery:

Margulis later argued that "there's no evidence that HIV is an infectious virus" and that AIDS symptoms "overlap ... completely" with those of syphilis.

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Keith Olbermann, Truther

Recent Tweet on the Eichenwald OpEd in the Times:

Certainly makes this clip of Olbermann chastising (correctly) Andrew Napolitano for his Trutherism somewhat ironic:

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Toronto Hearings Video

Some Truthers have released a video of last years Toronto Hearings which is edited down to "just" 5 hours.  I am not sure if I have the endurance and self-loathing to get through this entire thing though.  Maybe I can outsource the job to India or something?  If anyone else thinks they can make it through the whole thing, leave some comments.

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The Eichenwald Article on Other PDBs

My feeling is that it's a tad overdramatic; on the other hand it is intended to sell a book. Key paragraph:

The direct warnings to Mr. Bush about the possibility of a Qaeda attack began in the spring of 2001. By May 1, the Central Intelligence Agency told the White House of a report that “a group presently in the United States” was planning a terrorist operation. Weeks later, on June 22, the daily brief reported that Qaeda strikes could be “imminent,” although intelligence suggested the time frame was flexible.

Okay, on May 1, 2001, the CIA warns that a group presently in the US was planning a terror strike. And yet the CIA, which had known since 2000 that Nawaf Al-Hazmi and Khalid Al-Mihdhar were in the US, didn't see fit to tell the FBI about their presence until two weeks before the attacks? Or are we supposed to believe that the CIA had information on another group then-presently in the US? Once again, I find myself wondering how George Tenet gets a pass on this stuff. I guess because it doesn't suit the narrative that Bush was at fault.

Gawker says there's nothing to see here. They also link to a bizarre article about a controversial investigation Eichenwald did of a child pornography business. Reading the latter piece, I can get no clear sense of whether Eichenwald is credible on that prior investigation, and obviously that has some bearing on his current work.

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I'm Not Dead Yet!

This story couldn't help but remind me of Monty Python.  If you haven't noticed, it has been pretty dead around here.  Hard to find anything to write about, but the Truthers insist that they are still winning.

Eleven years after its birth as a strange stepchild of the response to the attacks on 9/11, the 9/11 Truth movement remains firmly confined to the political fringe. But the truthers retain the ability to rile people up, and on Tuesday a half dozen of them took their case to the Lower Manhattan neighborhood in the shadow of the rising Freedom Tower.

There, the truthers absorbed the abuse of passersby. “You want to be on Hitler’s side, go on Hitler’s side!” one man, Ronald Lefranc, yelled at them. “We are not here for you to fuckin’ open your mouth and protest!” shouted a woman who wore red, white and blue and carried an Army camouflage bag.

The truthers in Zucotti Park,the site of the original Occupy Wall Street encampment, were unfazed. They are as certain as ever that the attacks of September 11 were an inside job, despite a total absence of credible evidence for a massive and complex conspiracy involving hundreds of players in the American government, the private sector, and Al Qaeda alike. They’re also by and large convinced that their movement is growing and strong, despite the fact that it’s become a closed loop of groups and characters who have been going over the same theories, producing similar documentaries, and visiting the same websites for years.

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Definitely An Inside Job

The Onion "covers" the unraveling of a 9-11 Truther's life:

“Meanwhile—and this is where it really gets interesting—on four separate occasions in 2002 I recorded my mother saying she thought my research was ‘interesting’ and ‘worth thinking about,’” continued the man, who confirmed he has watched the film series Loose Change seven or eight times in the past week. “How was it, then, that by November of the following year she was calling it ‘crazy’ and ‘sad,’ a complete reversal of her original stance?”

Highly recommended.

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Eleven Years Later

As is becoming a tradition around here, we link to the memorial film featuring Enya's Only Time.

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No, It Wasn't On the PBS Network

Despite the claims of 9-11 Truther Victoria N. Alexander.

"9/11: Explosive Evidence - Experts Speak Out" is getting public attention and casting doubt on the scientific validity of the U.S. government's investigation into the WTC tragedy. PBS is the first major network to air the program.

Just days away from the 11th anniversary of the World Trade Center tragedy and months away from the U.S. presidential election, a game-changing 9/11 documentary is ranking number three among "most watched" documentaries on PBS and number one among "most shared." Available for free online August 18th - September 4th, the documentary could have a significant effect on public opinion. Both the Republicans and Democrats, as equally staunch defenders of the official story, stand to be affected if the public's suspicion of government corruption grows deeper.

In fact, it was broadcast on just one PBS station, the nutbar Colorado one that has previously aired Loose Change, Press for Troof and other paranoid conspiracy films.

Victoria's a longtime kook, belonging to Scholars for 9-11 Truth, Justice and the America Way, Steven Jones' splinter group.  She describes herself as a philosopher of science.

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Fan Mail

I always find these types of e-mails so amusing, if somewhat disturbing that there are so many psychotic people out there.  Do they really think I am going to change my mind and throw up my hands?  "Well that does it, it was Dick Cheney after all!"

Are you ever in the LA area? If you are, please let me know so I can beat your a** you f***ing delusional p*****. You are a sheep...you are so scared of the dark implications of 9/11 you have rendered yourself senseless. Maybe a good a** kicking will level you out again.
Jay Bernstein

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Some of Jon Gold's Co-Signers

Jon's been flogging his "Statement for 9-11 Justice" petition lately; these folks certainly know how to circulate petitions; submitting them somewhere effective, not so much. Anyway, the signers are pretty much the usual crackpots: Cindy Sheehan, Dahlia Wasfi, Ray McGovern, Daniel Sunjata, etc. But just for fun, I googled some of the names on page 11:

Andrew Coldrick. Andrew has a page on Causes.com of all the causes he's into. Aside from 9-11 Truth, he's opposed to chemtrails, Zionists, RFID chips and aspartame, supports Ron Paul, and believes that cannabis cures cancer. In short, he fits the Truther demo to a T.

James David Childers. Possibly this guy, who certainly has some interests in common with Manny Badillo.

Helen Harris-Scott. Sued Michael Jackson's estate for $50 million.

This isn't the woman's first legal battle with Jackson, either. Nor is it the first one she's likely to lose, or the first she probably concocted after a few too many drinks.

Helen Harris-Scott filed a lawsuit against Michael in 2006, claiming Jackson installed a tracking device in her car, wiretapped her phone and even had "organized criminals watching me inside my house in L.A. and reporting to him."

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Manny Badillo Update: Three Years in the Slammer

Plus twelve years probation.  Given the serious nature of the charges he seems to have gotten off fairly lightly; we'll see whether the other convicts give him additional punishment.

I don't think Manny's going to be cutting any more commercials for the Remember Building 7 Crew.

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Only in Hollywood....

Remember the 9-11 feature film with Ed Asner, Woody Harrelson and Daniel Sunjata that, the last we heard, was going to premiere at Cannes in May?

Well, it's the usual Troofer fustercluck:

Shortly after the January “Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth” newsletter featured a story about our proposed film I was contacted by what I can only call a “Hollywood bottom-feeder” who informed me that he had gotten hold of a copy of our script and “copyrighted our script” without our knowledge and definitely without our permission.

 

He was trying to use that copyright registration to extort money from us. Several attorneys informed me that while this is both illegal and unethical, it’s not the first time this has happened in Hollywood.

 

Faced with lengthy and expensive legal procedures to reverse this illegal copyright, we were advised to close down production of the film based upon the illegally copyrighted script.

But the "good" news is that they wrote yet another script (at least the third) and changed the title again.  The movie was originally called Confessions of a 9-11 Conspirator, then morphed to A Violation of Trust, and is currently called Trickery and Treachery.  Better still, you can still contribute funds to help finance this impotent film.

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The Truther Dream Ticket

Well since the Truthers keep on insisting that 84% of Americans believe that we were lied to about 9/11, these two should be a shoe-in come November.

(CNN) – Exactly one year after announcing her White House bid on "The Tonight Show," actress and comedian Roseanne Barr won the presidential nomination of the Peace and Freedom Party Saturday in Los Angeles.
Barr's vice presidential running-mate is Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq and anti-war activist best known for her protest outside of then-President George W. Bush's Crawford, Texas, ranch.

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Ground Zero Construction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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I Know the Feeling

Truther Dorothy Lorig, on first reading David Ray Griffin:

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

Yep, Grifter made me want to barf as well.

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This is Truther "Science"

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

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

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

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AIA Disowns Gage and His Gaggle

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

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

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

Hat Tip: Dave Thomas at JREF.

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Angels and Demons

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

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

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

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

Grifter's vision for the future?

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

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

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No, They're Not Paranoid

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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More Truther Related Bomb Threats?

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

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Wasn't That Kind of the Point?

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

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

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

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

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New Egyptian President is a Truther

[yt]It4v1EHK-MI[/yt]

As it happens, Morsi's chief rival was also a Truther:

Abdel-Moneim Abolfotoh, formerly a leading figure in the Muslim Brotherhood, led the field of 13 candidates with 32 percent of the vote in a survey released Monday by the Washington-based Brookings Institution.

Mr. Abolfotoh expressed his views on the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in an interview last year with Egypt scholar Eric Trager.

Mr. Trager, now with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, quoted Mr. Abolfotoh as saying:

“It was too big an operation …. They [the United States] didn’t bring this crime before the U.S. justice system until now. Why? Because it’s part of a conspiracy.”

That makes two heads of state in the region who are nutters; Morsi joins Ahmadinejad.

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Cheney Lied... Or Maybe He Didn't

Here's a classic example of why you have to read the source documents.  Raw Story and 9-11 Truth News both run with misleading headlines:

Declassified document contradicts Cheney’s claim of Iraqi connection to 9/11

Dick Cheney Lied About Iraq Connection To 9/11 Attacks

A document declassified this week by the National Security Archive reveals that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) delivered a briefing to the Bush administration which directly contradicts former Vice President Dick Cheney’s claim that 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta visited an Iraqi intelligence official in Prague.

The document (PDF), dated Dec. 1, 2001 and delivered to the White House on the 8th, claims that Atta “did not travel to the Czech Republic on 31 May 2000,” and adds that “the individual who attempted to enter the Czech Republic on 31 May 2000… was not the Atta who attacked the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001.”

Despite this briefing, just days later on Dec. 9, 2001, Cheney told the late Tim Russert, host of Meet the Press, that the meeting in Prague had been “pretty well confirmed.”

What are they both leaving out of their accounts that appears in the source document (PDF)?

That Atta did in fact travel to Prague on June 2, 2000, two days after he did not travel there. Unfortunately, the document in question, prepared by the CIA, is heavily redacted and thus I cannot tell if this completely rules out the possibility of Atta meeting with the Iraqi intelligence agent or not. It is apparent that at some point in time, quite possibly after Cheney's interview with Tim Russert, the administration decided that the meeting had not taken place. It is not apparent that was the case in December of 2001.

Update: And here's another example of why you have to read carefully:

Over 120 CIA documents concerning 9/11, Osama bin Laden and counterterrorism were published today for the first time, having been newly declassified and released to the National Security Archive. The documents were released after the NSA pored through the footnotes of the 9/11 Commission and sent Freedom of Information Act requests.

The material contains much new information about the hunt before and after 9/11 for bin Laden, the development of the drone campaign in AfPak, and al-Qaida’s relationship with America’s ally, Pakistan. Perhaps most damning are the documents showing that the CIA had bin Laden in its cross hairs a full year before 9/11 — but didn’t get the funding from the Bush administration White House to take him out or even continue monitoring him.

(Italics added for emphasis).

Still, the drone program began in September 2000. One drone swiftly twice observed an individual “most likely to have been Bin Laden.” But since the CIA only had permission to use the drones for intelligence gathering, it had no way to act on its findings.

So they had him in his crosshairs shortly after September 2000? But was Bush the president then? No, of course not, Bill Clinton was the president. The writer gets around this problem by implying that they could have had bin Laden in its crosshairs again later, and taken him out, if only Bush had funded it. But... if you read the article carefully, it becomes apparent that the funding issue predated the Bush administration as well:

“Budget concerns … CT [counterterrorism] supplemental still at NSC-OMB [National Security Council – Office of Management and Budget] level,” an April 2000 document reads. “Need forward movement on supplemental soonest due to expected early recess due to conventions, campaigning and elections.” In addition, the Air Force told the CIA that if it lost a drone, the CIA would have to pay for it, which made the agency more reluctant to use the technology.

April 2000. Not under Bush's watch.

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Scootle Not Bound, Just Lazy....

Here's an update on the Free Scootle post I put up a week or so ago:

....the reason I never finished the "Red chips or Blue Pills" post and haven't responded to the leak until now is simple: procrastination. I've been suffering from blogger burnout recently and keep starting posts and never finishing them. On my other blog, Skeptic Denialism, I haven't published anything since December and have unfinished posts going back to last August! I was also going to write about Basile's study in my Blue Pills post and wanted to wait until it was officially going ahead before I finished it.

 Hey, it's quite understandable, although given this:

The last three years, I've emphasized the red-gray chips as a key piece of evidence in most of my YouTube videos^{[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]} - even my song^[8] - and have uploaded both videos of chip ignitions to my channel^{[9] [10]} and devoted entire videos to debunking paint claims^{[11] [12]}. On this blog, Adam, JM and myself have written over fifty articles defending the work of Harrit et al against debunker criticisms. We've all invested a lot of time into promoting and defending this work, and I doubt you'll find more passionate endorsers of it than us.

Contrasted with this:

But since reading Millette's report and some of Oystein's JREF posts, doubts have formed in my mind. I haven't switched sides just yet, but I am more neutral. I think Oystein makes an interesting point about the similarity in composition to LaClede primer...

I think it's time to get off your duff and let people know that you've begun to worry that your eight YouTube videos and your "over fifty articles" might be wrong.  James and I make an effort to correct the occasional posts where we make a mistake (although with thousands of posts I am sure we have failed to correct something somewhere).

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Clueless in Seattle

Truther extraordinaire Jim Fetzer recently visited Seattle to give a speech, and apparently it had to be moved to due to a bomb threat.

In an ironic turn of events, a Scholars for 9/11 Truth presentation had to be relocated to a new venue after the speaker and founder of the organization, Dr. James Fetzer, received terror threats.

The presentation was to occur at 7:00 pm this evening at the University Heights Community Center. However, when UHCC received a letter containing numerous threats to "kill" Dr. Fetzer and to "firebomb" the school facilities, the event was cancelled.

According to a Meetup email message from We Are Change Seattle, the decision to cancel was made collaboratively between UHCC and 9/11 Truth Seattle, as they did not want to risk the lives of any students who may be in the facilities.

Not sure exactly what moving it a few blocks to a nearby church accomplishes.  Maybe they figure any potential bomber is as lazy as they are?  A bit of a far-fetched story, but who knows?  There are enough other mentally unstable nutcases in the Truth movement who consider this particular mentally unstable nutcase to be some sort of government disinfo agent, that it could have happened.

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Why Are Truthers So Lazy?

One of the things I have always genuinely wondered about Truthers, is how deeply they actually believe their own crap.  The wackier nutcases like Kevin Barrett and Alex Jones may be out there on the sanity scale, but at least they actually act most of the time like they truly believe in their theories.  Most of the Truthers are so lazy and complacent about their theories that they act like a bunch of teenagers arguing who would win a fight between Batman and Superman.

A perfect example of this is Journal of 9/11 Studies editor Frank Legge, quoted here in the Asia Times

VF: Where are the live hijackers? 

 FL: If there were hijackers, which I think is likely, they are all dead of course. It is not the real hijackers but the "named hijackers" who are still alive. This comes about due to identity theft. Where the live ones are is of no consequence. 

 No consequence? Really? Other than, I don't know... winning a Pulitzer prize, changing history as we know it and proving your idiotic theories correct, showing that the hijackers were not who we thought they were and are in fact still alive would have "no consequence"?

Really?

 REALLY?

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Why Do They Keep Asking Stupid Questions?

Truthers like to claim that they are "Just Asking Questions", but it is amazing that after 10 plus years they keep on asking the same stupid questions.  A perfect example is this recent post over at 911 Flogger regarding the Pentagon:

A few of the more compelling unanswered questions are as follows.
1. How could American Airlines Flight 77 have hit the building as it did, considering that the evidence shows the alleged hijacker pilot, Hani Hanjour, was a very poor pilot?
2. Why did the aircraft make a 330-degree turn just minutes before hitting the building?
3. Why did the aircraft hit the least occupied one-fifth of the building that was the focus of a renovation plan and how was it that the construction in that exact spot just happened to be for the purpose of minimizing the damage from a terrorist explosion?
4.  Why was the company that performed the renovation work, just for that one-fifth of the building, immediately hired in a no bid contract to clean-up the damage and reconstruct that area of the building? (Note: The same company was also immediately hired to clean-up the WTC site within hours of the destruction there.)
5. What can explain the damage to the building and the aircraft debris or lack thereof?
6 Why were the tapes from the surveillance videos in the area immediately confiscated by the FBI and never released?

Uhh, none of these questions are particularly compelling, all of them are idiotic.

1.  Because the Pentagon is one of the largest buildings in the world, and crashing into it is hardly a feat of aviation.  This is a little like saying, "How did that drunk man manage to crash a Corvette into the side of that parking garage?"

2.  Because Hanjour, not being a particularly good pilot, came in too high and needed to bleed off altitude.  Why do Truthers ignore the obvious answers?

3.  Because the west side of the building was the side the plane came in from.  If the plane would have hit the east side of the building, now THAT would have been suspicious.  This question is a bit like asking "Richard Gage drove from San Francisco to Portland on I-5 North?  Why did he do that, could it be because he was smuggling lemons and wanted to avoid the agricultural checkpoints on the California border which are only on I-5 South?  I find that suspicious..."

4.  Maybe because construction and demolition companies are often intertwined and share much of the same equipment?  The fact that they were already there shows that they have the experience and knowledge of the building.  If they would have been kicked out and some company from far off were brought in, now THAT would have been suspicious.

5.  A large passenger liner crashing into it.  NEXT!

6.  Why is it suspicious that the FBI collects evidence of a crime?  I never have figured out why that is somehow ominous.  If the FBI had shown no interest in the video footage, the truthers would be asking why not?

Nearly 11 years have gone by, and they have learned nothing.  Sad.

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Alex Jones and Subliminal Messaging

I haven't been blogging much lately, and have kind of missed that special brand of nuttery that Alex Jones brings to the table.




And one point in this bit he actually accused Fox TV of taking instructions from the CIA.  Strange, I always thought it was the other way around.  I really need to get my copy of the New World Order flowchart updated.

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Free Scootle!

I've been rather critical of the folks over at the rebunking 9-11 blog, but it appears that Scootle Royale is actually beginning to realize that perhaps some elements of 9-11 Trutherism are counterproductive.  He wrote a longish post over there warning his fellow Truthers that perhaps it was time to say ix-nay on the ermite-thay.

Unfortunately, if you surf over there, you won't find it.  Why?  Well, there are two possible explanations.  One is that he wasn't quite done with it (which appears true).  The other is that he's been gagged (which appears more likely).

On May 3 and May 15, Scootle published a post entitled "Red Chips or Blue Pills; A Warning to AE911 Truth."  In the post, he noted the results of the Millette report, which proved pretty conclusively that the red and grey chips claimed by Harritt and Jones to be nanothermite, were not.  Instead they are quite likely a form of primer paint, although Millette was unable to definitively establish that.

Each time, the post had only partially finished sections, and thus seemed like a draft, and each time, the post was fairly quickly "pulled".  I was advised of this post by several commenters and by an emailer who shall remain anonymous.  It was decided to allow Scootle some additional time to finish off the post.  But at this point it's been five weeks since the first version was posted over there, and three weeks since the second one, and it wasn't that incomplete.

What's more, since then 9-11 Rebunkers have prominently promoted Box Boy Gage's latest opus, 9-11 Explosive Evidence: Experts Speak Out, which relies heavily on the nanothermite claim, even though Scootle's May 15 version of his post concluded with this warning:

Red-gray chips could, if debunked, discredit Expert's [sic] Speak Out, and therefore AE911Truth and 9/11 Truth as a whole.

 You can read Scootle's post as it appeared May 15 here (click on the image to enlarge it to viewable size).  When will his post return on 9-11 Rebunking?

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Fan Mail

It is amusing to get e-mails from readers who have just discovered our blog, and act like they have unveiled our nefarious plot forever.  That is so 2006.  Also amused by the ironic resemblance of his name to a famous FBI agent turned spy.

What is your motivation for creating this blog? Why put time and effort into discrediting a silly 911 twoofer movie? Screw Loose Change is a forgotten waste of time...unless you are being compensated to help destroy the credibility of a low budget film. Ultimately, your blog makes me wonder why people would care enough, on a personal level, to create it to begin with. If you are sponsored to discredit 2fas...WHY?

Just Curious
Robert Hanson
PS: Do you ever have internet privacy concerns? Every move you make online can be used as evidence against you now. (IE: I know who you work for you fucking treasonous coward.)     

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Damn, Missed It

Well, Richard Gage came to Seattle last week, and as a result... uhh... well, absolutely nothing happened. No mention in the media, or any truther websites that I can find, except for the usual statistics on the AE911 site.  I stayed at home and watched Mad Men from Netflix.  According to their site it drew a massive turnout of 77 people, of which 73 were already Truthers to begin with.  I guess the moral of the story is that if you put someone in a room outnumbered 20 to 1 by crazy fanatics and bore them to death with Powerpoint slides, you can get the remaining few holdouts to change their mind on something.

But in other news Jim Fetzer is coming to town next month, and admission for that one is free.  The crazies just keep on coming!

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Any questions?

Video streaming by Ustream

The problem with recording an event without the old-fashioned Vu-Meters. Even funnier than the idea that somebody screwed up the recording is that somebody posted it over at 9-11 Flogger without listening to it. Although I can sympathize; after all who wants to hear Gage and his inane "experts" drone on.

The bad news is that after about 15 minutes of the sounds of silence, somebody apparently figures out that they aren't being recorded.

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Ricky G is Coming to Town

Not much is happening on the Truther front, although Richard Gage is coming to the Northwest this Friday promoting yet another version of his movie, called 911 Experts Speak Out: The Final Edition (yeah, right).  I was considering stopping by and saying hello, but they want $10 to get in to the stupid thing.  For that much I could go see The Avengers.

In other news, one of the leading candidates for the Egyptian presidency, former member of the Muslim Brotherhood Abdel-Moneim Abolfotoh, turns out to be a Truther.  Mahmoud Ahmadinjad, Hugo Chavez, Richard Gage, and now Abolfotoh.  Distinguished company.

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Conspiracy Con 2012

The 2012 version of this event is coming this summer, and it looks to be another humdinger of fruitcakery.  Jim Fetzer continues his descent into no-planes:

Jim Fetzer

9/11, PLANES OR NO PLANES

Shocking Evidence Of Video Fakery

And I have to say, it sounds like he will fit right in.  Check out some of the other speakers:

 

Deborah Tavares &

Gary Richard Arnold

SMART METERS OR MURDER METERS

The Grid That Can Kill

Jay Weidner

FROM HOLLYWOOD TO THE MOON

How Director Stanly Kubrick Faked Apollo

I particularly like that smart meter bit; anything new is an attempt by the Illuminati to kill us all.

The Truthers will of course snort about nobody in the movement respecting Uncle Fetzer anymore, but at last year's Conspiracy Con, Steven Jones was a featured speaker and Richard Gage was a "special guest".

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What Do They Want?

The September 11th Advocates (essentially the Jersey Girls minus Kristen Breitweiser plus Monica Gabrielle) release a statement on the upcoming tribunal of KSM and four others:

It would seem that the U.S. Government found itself in a conundrum when they allowed prisoners, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), to be tortured in secret prisons around the world. Once tortured, any confession or testimony from KSM, or others, could not be deemed reliable. Furthermore, the focus of the eventual proceedings would become a trial about the practice of torture, instead of being a trial about alleged terrorist crimes. That would have been untenable for the U.S. Government, which wants to avoid any and all accountability for their own crimes of torture.

In order to bypass potential discussion of torture, the latest Chief Prosecutor for the Military Commissions, Brig. General Mark Martins, found a willing witness in Majid Khan, a fellow GITMO inmate to KSM. Khan himself was not involved in the 9/11 plot. He supposedly got his information from time spent behind bars at GITMO with KSM. Kahn (sic) will be allowed to give this hearsay evidence against KSM in return for a reduced sentence. However, Khan’s sentencing won’t take place for four years. It seems the Prosecution is pinning their hopes and dreams on Khan’s upcoming performance. None of this lends credibility to an already suspect system.

Additionally, with campaigning for the upcoming Presidential elections heating up, the timing of this latest attempt at justice for 9/11 is exploitive (sic) at best.

First of all, why the focus on the supposed torture of KSM and others? KSM admitted his role in the 9-11 attacks before he was captured. Second, Casazza, Kleinberg, et.al., appear not to understand the meaning of the term "hearsay evidence". Admissions made to a fellow prisoner are not hearsay. It is when the admissions discuss third parties that it becomes inadmissible as evidence. If, for example, KSM confessed his part in the 9-11 attacks to Khan, that would be perfectly acceptable as evidence. On the other hand, if KSM told Khan that Ramzi bin-al-Shibh was the paymaster for the attacks, that would not be admissible.

More important is the third issue. Are the September 11th Advocates so wedded to the idea that KSM and his co-conspirators should be tried in a US court that they would be willing to accept the possibility of him being set free? I certainly am not.

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More Hecklivism from Luke

Note that Luke starts right out with a lie by giving a phony name. Also note that Luke apparently can't read; while Sunnstein mentioned the possibility of banning or taxing conspiracy theories, if you read ahead to the end of the paragraph Luke highlights, it specifically rules those two options out in favor of infiltration.

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Kay and Tarpley Debate

Haven't had a chance to watch much of it yet, but Canadian journalist, and author of Among the Truthers, Jonathan Kay debates polyconspiracy theorist Webster Tarpley in a debate moderated by David Frum and filmed for CSPAN.  Enjoy the looniness.

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Some Real Hilarity...

In this very long thread over at Troof Action.  It starts with Ronnie Bushnell:

I’m not sure I understand correctly the problem some of the people on this forum are having with CD (controlled demolition}. I wish someone would volunteer to explain it to me. Either I don’t understand what I’m looking at in the videos of the WTC being ripped apart by explosions or I’m just plain stupid, which I guess is not an entirely an unlikely possibility.

Heh, you can say that again.  Ronnie for the most part has confined himself to one thread over at TA, and it's a doozy.  It just goes on and on for 25 pages, and after the first page or two, I'd guess that 95% of the posts are from Ronnie himself.

But he has a question for the TA folks:

If there is some doubt about CD (not music), then that seems to me to indicate that someone may have made all this crap up. Is Richard Gage lying? Is Dr. Jones lying? Does it mean that they all lied about the supper nano thermite being found in the dust? If they did, we are all in deep, deep, deep, deep, deep dodo, and I personally don’t care to be in any kind of dodo.

 Well, the good news is that the dodo has been extinct for centuries, so I don't think you have to worry about it.  The bad news?  Brian tried to reassure Ronnie about Box Boy Gage and Mr Perpetual Motion.  Regarding Gage:

He has an unfortunate tendency to play to his conspiracist fan-base, and certainly he is wrong at times (as we all are), but I don't think he lies.

I've always been skeptical of the nanothermite claims and I felt that the Jones team did not take sufficient pains to distinguish their chips from ordinary paint, but though Dr. Jones may prove to have been wrong I see no reason to think he was lying. The kind of public adulation Dr. Jones got from his admirers when he first started lecturing on 9/11 is very bad for a scientist's objectivity.

 Brian's always been skeptical of the nanothermite claims? And as for the question of whether Gage lies, Oystein points out the ridiculous dissembling that he did about the results of the Millette study, when he failed to mention that it proved that there was no nanothermite in the WTC dust.

AE911T is at least mistaken, if not adding a second lie, when they imply with the expression "the primer paint used on the WTC steel" that there was only one such formula. There wasn't just one. There were at least two, and neither Millette nor Harrit e.al. have ever test any of the other WTC primers, and thus ruling out the chips are WTC primer has been fallacious.

 Anyway, the thread goes on for pages and pages, and eventually a Truther named Kat Dorman comes along and starts cleaning Petgoat's clock:

The first is that steel columns failing in axial compression afford the same resistance (capacity) over the entire range of compaction travel as they do over the linear response range. They do not. A rough rule of thumb is an average capacity of 10-15% of peak capacity. If a column has a maximum capacity of three times the imposed load, it then would have an average capacity of 0.30 - 0.45x the load. Thus a load which already possesses sufficient momentum to overcome the peak capacity will experience a large drop in resistive force as that peak is passed, with the average resistive force giving a resulting average acceleration over the interval of between 0.55 and 0.7g.

Pretty much what was measured for the early descent of WTC1!

But that's only the early descent... and that's all Chandler measured. Other higher resolution measurements extending slightly further indicated a rapid decrease of acceleration magnitude immediately after that period, and later measurements of the WTC1 leading ejection front showed minor variation about a quasi-terminal velocity. Extrapolating a constant velocity from the measured region to ground level gives a collapse time of between 14 and 15 seconds. Therefore, there is strong reason to believe the overall collapse dynamics converged rapidly on dynamic equilibrium of the opposing forces and so zero acceleration.

The second misconception is that the capacity derived from perfect axial alignment is available during collapse. The statements above concerning the load displacement relation for steel columns in axial compression apply to the ideal case of perfect end alignment. The capacity of a column is proportional to its cross sectional area. Lateral displacement of the upper block in the amount of only a few inches will in itself reduce capacity to a fraction of design maximum.

While Kat is a Truther he or she does not believe in Controlled Demolition, and obviously is orders of magnitude smarter than Brian, but of course Brian cannot admit this and so he starts engaging in the sort of hostile behavior that Carol Brouillet and Willie Rodriguez can recall.  But what's really funny is that Brian thinks he's winning the argument (and yes, somebody quickly mentions the Dunning-Kruger effect, where the more incompetent a person is, the more competent they think they are).  It just goes on and on from there, and Brian starts pissing off the rest of the TA gang, particularly Snowcrash:

You're one miserable troll Brian.

You are STILL pimping that "circular argument" reproach while it has been debunked pages ago. A domino falls because a domino falls. Is that a circular argument? No, it isn't. Of course not. It's a simple cause and effect chain where each element is physically and positionally distinct from the element causing its demise. You pretend you haven't read or haven't been made aware of this rebuttal of your ridiculous fallacy allegation, because you mean to irritate. Because you're butthurt. Because this is your disruption strategy, because you're so "polite". How utterly pathetic. You're not polite, you're a cunning troll who has optimized his survival tactics.

You've been repeatedly asked to back up your ignorant assertions and the AE911Truth talking points you parrot. You simply don't. You think you'll be just fine trolling. I asked a couple of additional questions two times now and you've ignored them too. You claim not to believe CD but you've made a laundry list of declarative statements which match the description of a Controlled Demolition believer to a T. Your sole reason for non-committal is plausible deniability should any of your spurious claims be proven unequivocally false, but you might as well let go of that tactic, because, as you've demonstrated in this thread, you'd lie about visual observations even as they stand facing you when you quote them in reply. A shameless liar of your caliber needs no additional insurance policies.

 Very entertaining.

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The Eleventh Day: Pulitzer Prize Finalist

I thought all along that it was a terrific book based on my knowledge of the subject matter.  But it's a bit humbling to realize that everybody else has caught on.

Congrats to Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan.  As I said when I read it originally: "Overall The Eleventh Day strikes me as belonging on the top shelf of the 9-11 books, right up there with The Looming Tower and Perfect Soldiers."

A Pulitzer would put it right next to the Looming Tower.

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Troofers Inspire Terrorist

What a shock.  Not!

The admitted mastermind of a foiled plot to bomb New York City subways testified Tuesday that he wanted to fight jihad in Afghanistan after coming to believe that the U.S. government was behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The men had decided that complaining about American intervention in Afghanistan wasn't enough, he said.

"We decided we were not doing our jobs," Zazi said. "We shouldn't just point fingers."

At that time, he said, "My view was that 9/11, who was behind it, was America itself."

Hat tip: ConsDemo in the comments.

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Like the Phoenix

The new One World Trade Center rises from the ashes.  More photos here.

Hat Tip: Triforcharity at JREF.

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Insane

That's my vote with regard to this headline:

9/11 Conspiracy Theory–Insane or Insightful?

The writer, who apparently worked for CNN at one point, goes on to talk about one of the silliest tropes:

I keep coming back to one question in the 9/11 conspiracy story: How did two jets knock down three New York City skyscrapers?

Answer: They didn't.  They caused a fire which knocked down the first two buildings, which damaged many surrounding buildings, including the third skyscraper, which burned uncontrollably for about 7 hours and finally collapsed.

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KSM to Face Gitmo Military Commission

The wheels of justice grind slowly, but they grind inevitably:

Charged along with Mohammed are Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, a Pakistani who is Mohammed’s nephew; Ramzi Binalshibh and Walid bin Attash, both Yemenis; and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, a Saudi. All are accused of playing key organizational or financial roles in the attacks on New York and Washington, a plot that Mohammed has said he masterminded.

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I Don't Have A Clue What He Means Either

Over at Flogger, he specifies that he's not arguing that there were no hijackers; I suppose this is the old "No True Muslim" bit. Shaima Alawadi is the Muslim woman who was murdered in San Diego two weeks ago. Of course, Jon's wearing the hoodie as a show of support for Trayvon Martin, the black kid killed in Florida over a month ago, whose death is being played out in the media (and about which I profess no opinion).

Still, it's just a little too close to the "Muslims didn't do 9-11" line that Richard Gage and Kevin Ryan have been pushing. I'd like to see all three of them "man up" and tell us exactly what they mean. Do they believe that Mohamed Atta, Marwan Al-Shehhi, Hani Hanjour and Ziad Jarrah piloted planes into the WTC, the Pentagon and Shanksville, but they are not good Muslims? Or are they just being coy as usual about admitting their real kooky beliefs?

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They've Got Models....

The video starts off with about 3:40 of JREF forum member and NASA engineer Ryan Mackey describing a possible model that could be used to analyze the collapse of the towers.  So far so good.  But what follows shows the flaw in casting pearls before swine.  Truther psikeyhacker builds a model that has metal washers for the floors and paper loops.  Right off the bat, he completely misses the point about scaling that Ryan was very careful to note in his discussion.

Over at Truth Action, psikeyhacker has a thread where he discusses his beliefs:

Why can't the "Academics" address a grade school physics problem?


But here we are ten years later and most of the "Academics" can't think to demand accurate data about the distributions of steel and concrete down the towers. High school physics students should have known to ask that in 2001. The "Academics" should have made the Truth Movement unnecessary.

See, he thinks that somehow the "distributions" (sic) of steel and concrete in the towers is crucial to determining whether they would actually collapse and do the damage shown.  Never mind that very good approximations can be made for the actual distributions and that when those approximations are made it has been demonstrated that the gravitational potential energy stored in the towers was quite sufficient to do the damage shown.  Note also the usual blather about how grade school or high school physics should be sufficient to prove that the towers did not come down the way we were told.  And later:

 I say this is GRADE SCHOOL PHYSICS. 7th and 8th graders should be able to understand why it is ridiculous to think that an airliners weighing less than 200 tons could totally obliterate skyscrapers more than 400,000 tons each.

What difference does the weight make?  By the "logic" he's using here, a small match, which can't weigh more than a gram at best, could never totally obliterate a large wooden house.  Note that when others mention that if this were truly the case, then physics professors would have raised a ruckus, he uses the conspiracy theorist's favorite card:

Look at it from another perspective. Suppose most physicists could figure out within days that there was no way airliners could destroy those buildings. But the buildings were destroyed. That means something other than airliners did it and some organisation that has A LOT of power does not care who they kill or how many.

So is a physicists with a career and a family going to stick his neck out?

 Yep, the physicists kept quiet because they knew the plotters would chop their necks off.  Of course, Steven Jones and David Chandler have somehow remained in the land of the living, but that's probably because they haven't pursued the "distributions" issue.  And no, psikeyhacker is not a physicist himself (which his probably why he thinks it should be obvious to 7th graders); he's apparently involved in computers somehow, although he isn't very knowledgeable about his own field:

I worked for IBM for years. I never heard the term von Neumann machine or saw it in any documentation. I soldered together my first computer while there so that is how I really learned how they actually worked despite being sent to numerous IBM courses. It wasn't until after I left IBM that I learned that IBM hired John von Neumann as a consultant in 1952 and that nearly all computers are von Neumann machines.

 Entertaining thread.

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Two JREFers Join Truth Action Forums...

And chaos starts erupting.  It appears that somebody invited Orphia Nay and Oystein to join the debate over there.  Oystein is strong on the technical aspects regarding the Millette study which debunked nanothermite, while Orphia Nay has excellent overall knowledge of the general Truther claims.

What I find amusing about the thread is how quickly the CT nonsense comes out.  It is easy to forget that while the Truth Action folks recognize the transparent nuttery of Kevin Barrett and Kevin Ryan, they completely miss their own areas of confirmation bias.

For instance, Snowcrash is just a tad hyperbolic:

Sorry Orphia Nay, applicable as my quote may have been to the sorry state of a "truth" movement full of liars, kooks, frauds, con men, idiots and nitwits, I have no love for JREF either. Humankind is on the brink of collapse, on the cusp of irreversible environmental decline, we have lost all our civil rights, our privacy, our freedoms, and our children's children will live in a totalitarian dystopia, thanks to 9/11.

All our civil rights?

Jon Gold is going to hate that I compare him to David Ray Griffin, but that's deserved when he writes nonsense like this:

One thing I've noticed that "debunkers" do is look at everything as if it exists in a vacuum. I look at everything in an accumulative light. SO MANY problems with the official account, SO MANY warnings that were coming in, SO MANY efforts to obfuscate, cover-up, hinder investigations, etc...

 Remember, Griffin loves to talk about his "cumulative" argument being like strands on a rope and not links in a chain, so that if one breaks, the whole thing doesn't fail.  One wonders why anybody would bother making a rope out of weak strands, but the answer is quite simply that's all they have. Gold takes Grifter's argument a step further.  Even if you debunk all his points, he still believes he has a case just because there are so many strands.

It's not hard to see that things will end pretty badly over there; if asked to guess I would say the over/under on the JREFers being banned is Thursday.  There's already quite a bit of grumbling about them being allowed to post.  Gold:

I love how ignored and censored whistleblowers don't concern you at all, or the fact that the 9/11 Commission was a farce. You would rather spend your time arguing with those fighting for justice and accountability. I do not understand that mentality at all.

Why are these people here?

 The "ignored and censored whistleblowers" include Patty Cassazza's mysterious roadside informant who claimed that the US government knew everything about the attacks including the date and method.  Gold bitterly notes that I "debunked" that claim by saying that Patty was duped by a conman.  But note the oddball response from the Truthers to that particular claim.  Sibel Edmonds comes up with the LIHOP faction's dream witness and what happens?  Complete and utter lack of curiosity about him or her.  If I were a Truther, I'd be asking Patty about this person--was it a man or a woman?  How old?  Did he say what branch or agency of the government he was in?  Can we get him on tape?

Note that when the credibility of the whistleblowers is brought up, Jon endorses the credibility of Patty:

Patty Casazza is both valid and relevant, and so is her claim.

But nobody questions her claim.  It's the whistleblower's claim that has to be assessed, and that's why the Truthers should be asking more questions, to establish his credibility as a witness.

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An Investigative Lead for the Truthers

(Watch starting about 17:00 in)

If you're a famous, conspiracy theory talk show host interviewing a "civil rights icon" like Dick Gregory, and he tells you that he was warned on 9-10-01 to get out of New York:

“You’re not, your friend called me and told me to tell you don’t spend the night in New York tonight,” Gregory said his wife told him.

 What would be your next question?  I know that mine would be "Who was your friend?"  But Alex shows no curiosity on  this point, even though he's happy to point out that this proves that "they" knew the attacks were coming.  Gregory and Jones go on to talk about the supposed warning that then-San Francisco mayor Willie Brown received not to fly to New York on 9-11.  But again, this makes no sense in the context of the conspiracy theory.  Let's suppose for a moment that elements inside the government knew of the upcoming attacks, even to the point of knowing the date.  Wouldn't they also know the flights?  No planes were hijacked from SF to NY; instead it was a Newark to SF flight.

But if you are a Truther, I would certainly suggest that you start grilling Dick Gregory on the identity of his mysterious friend, who apparently had inside information.  This could be the clue that brings down the whole conspiracy!

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Box Boy: 9-11 Was an Inside Job

No surprise, Gage lets the mask slip a bit:

We were also honored to speak to many times that many live streaming on the internet and who knows how that message will reverberate throughout the Nation of Islam and into the Black community where we’re hoping to receive more support than we’ve received in the White community. The support I’m referring to is breaking through into the public’s consciousness so that people can understand if the World Trade Center Towers were indeed destroyed with controlled demolition, then this is obviously some sort of an inside job and people here really get that.

(Bolding added for emphasis)

Gage has usually been coy about admitting that he's a conspiracy theorist, preferring to leave open the question of who was behind the attacks. This is the first I can recall him using the term "inside job". Of course, on Chinese TV, he did state that Muslims didn't have anything to do with 9-11, so it's not like he's fooling anybody but his donors.

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