RAELENE BOYLE: The IOC has to protect the rest of us; protecting those of us that are doing the right thing.PM
Indeed. Raelene Boyle is a disgrace. Caster Semenya, in her view, allegedly committed the crime of having androgen insensitivity syndrome and innocent athletes have to be protected.
I have a longstanding objection to elite sport, and this matter simply underscores what is wrong with the concept. This is where it logically leads.
Will someone please explain Dan Brown? Innocuous name, unoriginal plots, crap prose and they are printing 6.5 million copies of his next book. I used to think that popular fiction had some redeeming features but with the arrival of Brown I’m not so sure.
MH@3
OK, if the IOC is to provide a level playing field the obvious thing to do is to strip Semenya of her-his medal and institute a third category for people with androgen insensitivity syndrome. Caster Semenya would then stand a good chance of replacing the medal she had lost and scooping the pool for gold medals from then on.
The translations are expected to spark heated debate among historians and political analysts as Mrs Thatcher admits that what she said privately differed with the official communiques from the West, telling Mr Gorbachev he should not pay any attention to them.
Another nail in the coffin of the Wingnut Myth about the fall of the Soviet Empire.
Fran, I think I recall reading about your distaste for elite sport before. I have a question I would like to ask though. Without elite sport, how would you go about increasing a nation’s morale?
David H, the answer is easy. The media laps it up. They lap it up for the same reason they lap up the hysteria over Harry Potter. In both cases, there are a lot better books out there on the same subject or subject-oriented matter but they get no publicity.
One of the young libs quoted in the article linked to by Rationalist in comment 5:
”I think one of the dangers facing upcoming generations, including my own, is that we are developing an attitude of ‘what will the government do about it?’ I think the Rudd Government is sending the wrong message to Australians that we can’t function without the Government’s help in each area of our lives and I feel that this is fundamentally wrong.”
Just remind me again, which was the government that championed middle class welfare and nearly sent the country broke doing it? Couldn’t have been Howard, by any chance, could it? Not the great believer in “individual responsibility”?
I had the same problem yesterday, Paul @ 10, for quite some time using Alta Vista, Google and Bing. Even through linked articles in Crikey. I was told every time “there is nothing at this website address” It began when I was actually writing a comment at this site and when I clicked “submit” I was told the website address did not exist!
Patricia WA,
I had the problem yesterday too, but I was busy writing most of the day, so I thought I’d wait until this morning to see if it had cleared up. But it hadn’t. Still connecting via Facebook.
Does anybody know why its happening or is it just that my computer’s stuffed?
Without elite sport, how would you go about increasing a nation’s morale?
Here are some questions for you to consider before I offer a substantive answer:
1. Is a nation’s morale something that can be measured with the degree of precision to allow utility-based evaluation of resource allocation? If it’s more than a The Castle-style ‘it’s the vibe’ thing, what measures do you have in mind for longterm effectiveness-of-program auditing?
2. Is it possible that negative utilities,
a) for the nation as a whole
b) for parts of the nation
c) for other nations or parts of them
might be authored by resort to elite sport as a national morale-incrementing program. Regardless of the effect on the morale of Germans, would it have been better on the whole, if, for example, in 1936 at Berlin, the German track and field athletes had bested Jesse Owens? How would this have affected German or Eastern European Jews or Slavs?
Again, how would one go about accounting these negative utilities?
3. Opportunity Cost: What effects on other programs or public goods objectives does elite sport have?
a) How does elite sport affect housing costs, or skew/constrain transport and infrastructure policy?
4. Carbon (and other pollution) footprint: What do you see as the environmental footprint of elite sport? Consider the environmental cost of moving millions of people about and the cost of all the merchandise, not to speak of the costs of moving all the necessary equipment, the support staff, the cost of huge stadia, race tracks and swimming pools, the clearing of land for golf courses, the access roads and so forth.
5. Human rights: What are the civil and human rights implications of the security measures that needs must protect any elite sporting event associated with affirming the morale of nations?
Perhaps if you try answering these questions, you will approach a grasp of my attitude to elite sport.
In order to unravel the mystery of why Google won’t link to LP, mild-mannered historian Paul Burns undertakes research that leads him to the heart of a hidden deadly conspiracy which threatens the very foundations of Western civilization. Now, with Google nerds, Catholic bishops and mysterious Swiss assassins tracking his every move, his only hope is to team up with a beautiful young archaeologist and search for the key to the mystery in the Maldives, Istanbul, Zurich, Mayfair and Minorca, an exotic island where a mysterious Swiss Catholic Google assassin holds a secret to perhaps the greatest mystery of all…
Somebody wanted an explanation for Dan Brown? One word: airports.
Dear Fran,Er maybe people like elite sport,they watch it on TV and at sports grounds.
You may not like it but lots do.
I thought the Young Libs sounded just like the people Sheehan was criticizing,blinkered and suffering from convenient memory about Howard, Middle Class welfare,Lies,and trying to rewrite history.
Well,thew mysterious Swiss catholic assassin has just wiped my newsfeed from Facebook, and now I had to link here through Mark’s Facebook page.
(There was a pest sending me computer games that I deleted a couple of hours ago. Seems to have altered the whole look of my home-page, way back there. I guess I give up. But, when you haven’t ever read a Dan Brown book, I guess it gets hard to understand. (He has I believe gone from trying to upset Catholics to trying to upset Freemasons. Does that make him eclectic?
My morale increases when my team wins in a sports competition.
But not when it loses.
And whilst I enjoy my sports watching [my active days are sadly over and have left their legacy on various bits of my body] its a very very small part of how I get my morale boosting.
Hmm.
Let me count list just a very few of those things that, if going well, can boost my morale, or the converse.
Music. Arts in general. Movies/TV/theatre/ dance and similar stuff. Books.
Family is a biggy, particularly the grandkids.
Related to that are all the things that hopefully will go to enabling them to have a full and happy life. Good schools and health would be pretty high on the list of things important in that regard.
Hopefully they can have a choice of having a satisfying and rewarding career in the field[s] that they want. So laws and practices regarding work would seem to be relevant. I know I met a lot of people with very low morale and high anxiety about 2 years ago in the period before 24 November. That seems to have diminished slightly since.
The environment is important to everybody to a greater or leser degree, my grandkids were really disappointed when they saw the dead patch of our land that was once a vibrant wetland. The asked me what happened.
How do I answer that?
They worry, dinkum they really do and only a bit of it is down to me and family.
They cried when their mum cried on Sorry Day, again they asked why and she explained later when coherent, that boosted everyone’s morale although its gone down a bit in that regard since.
Blimey I could go on and on about how a society can boost its morale in dozens, hundreds of ways.
And very few of them have anything to do with sport.
Maybe that’s way some want to concentrate on the sports aspect?
So Dan Brown has nothing to do with elite sport? If I read more Dan Brown will my nationalistic sentiment decline in proportion to an increase in my general cynicism? Can we have a National Institute of Bookery next to the National Institute of Sport? So many questions, maybe Google has the answer…I’ll pray.
It’s been a better year for aussie films than it has for aussie sports.
My morale was boosted on the occasion of the apology to indigenous people, I thought it was a great first step in addressing what I think really ails this country and plays no small part in why we distract ourselves with sporting pursuits. I think sports provide an opportunity for us to can kid ourselves that there is an even playing field in this country. but a morale boost? not so much.
By reading through the comments so far I have gathered Dan Brown is an elite sport snob who was an unfortunately violent left wing uni student and has androgen insensitivity syndrome. I may have missed a few key points.
Paul, definitely not our computers! Mine is brand new and the problem seems to have entirely disappeared today, even at 5pm yesterday.
However, glad to find that you have the same sort of anxiety that sometimes strikes me about the internet, mobile phones and technology at large – i.e. any time it fails it must be me, or my equipment! I have overcome this by accepting with gratitude that 99.9% of the time it doesn’t fail and continues to offer an astonishing range of spectacle, wisdom and information for my delectation.
The internet delights and surprises me every day. Without needing to understand the technical intricacies which I guess could be explained to me if I took the time I still find it a miracle that people the world over are somehow cooperating to reveal themselves and the myriad details of their vibrant lives and stunning environments to each other. With so much order and seeming ease! If we do this together why can’t we live together without war?
The internet itself answers me. Because in revealing humanity to itself in all its magnificent complexity it also shows the darkness; the greed, the violence and the vice. Yet surely that underbelly is only a small component of the vast range of experiences we now share so easily of histories, ecologies, wisdom, creativity, and much much more…..but, most important of all, our common aspirations for a better world.
Of course, yesterday (still today over in the US) was the eighth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist atrocity.
All the alternative internet Internet forum sites appear to have avoided any mention of 9/11.
Only the corporate and government newsmedia seem willing to raise 9/11 in order to once again drum into us the message that we must continue with our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the removal of our guarantees of democratic freedoms, human rights and free speech in order to ensure that the 9/11 attacks are never repeated.
How is it that 9/11 seems so off-limits on alternative Internet sites?
Could it be that they fear the views of people who disagree agree with the Official account of 9/11 being expressed?
Patricia WA,
Mine has only just started working. (To whoever the boffins were at LP that presumbly fixed it, much thanks. Waves of technological paranoia have just gently subsided.
Patricia, the Internet is indeed a wondrous beast. I stay away from the nasty stuff if I can, though I do occasionally get e-mailed by some RWDB or porno-freak who has picked up my address. Mostly I find it absolutely bloody marvellous – access to books on line and buyable, primary sources of all varieties, (eg American Memory at the Library of Congress – history-heads check it out some time -) blogs, like LP, which comprises much of my social political life now that I’ve dropped out of SA, Armchair General, which is brilliant place to chew over history with people from all round the world, etc, etc.
And now to enter the sports as a force of national cohesion etc., debate. I hate sport. I never watch it. I make a cup of coffee when it comes on TV. I hardly ever comment on sport posts. But I do recognise other people enjoy it immewnsely, and why not? But me? Give me a good book, a good movie or DVD, that rare bird decent television, or a good classical concert or a poetry reading, or piece of well-directed, well-acted live theatre any day.
Feeble and insincere apologies for linking to my own blog, there. But considering how many are called to the holy tabernacle of Dan Brown hatred, suurprisingly few are chosen.
oh, and as far as sport is concerned, not a great deal can be expected from a pastime or whatever it is that was basically invented by the Nazis, in its modern spectacular incarnation. Raelene Boyle is only enunciating the fascist principles that underly the whole concept. Senex, a thoroughly demoralised nation is a healthy nation, in my book.
At the time it was a huge deal, I had a bit of a look at it to see what the fuss was about. As far as I could tell, there seemed to be an inverse relationship between those who REALLY LIKED IT and everyone else who reads books. The neophyte readers thus don’t realise what a crap book it is. While reading it, these people are riveted by the different ideas and paradigms it explores. The Celestine Prophecy was a similar case.
Give me Kitty the Werewolf or Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum books any day!
I’ve just had a look at the article Rationalist posted @5. I found myself floundering about, as usual, because none of the positions were defined. Hard left? Centre Left? Liberal? Right? Far Right? Labor has never struck me as being left wing at all, and suddenly it’s acquired a “leftist” identity.
Left and Right is clearly no longer about on what side of the King one sits. Both Marxist Socialist States and Neo Rationalist economic structures haven’t worked out terribly well. In the article there seemed to be an underlying assumption that “left” = “more State intervention”. “Right” = “less State intervention”.
All I’m sure about is that the continuum isn’t about how deeply one loathes John Howard. Howard Hating seems to cross all political boundaries, I always thought.
In praise of Raelene Boyle!Are you sure what she has said actually implies a criticism of the athlete,or a criticism of those behind the athlete!? When I was young Raelene was not only a pleasing personality,but a dasher of a runner,and if health meets beauty she wasn’t that far removed.As it turned out she suffered badly from certain countries cheating and putting in heaps of effort against impossible odds.The sickoes here are ready to shit on a good Australian, Raelene probably is mostly in line with their thinking.Sometimes the Elite of a country trying to set a standard that others can follow suffer more from the reckless of their own country.Raelene was universally liked.Can you say the same about yourselves dears!?
Catallaxy has been hacked by “Mahmoud SQL”, apparently a Euro-Muslim hacker or hacking team. If anyone wants to have a look, beware, I have no idea whether the site is safe to view from a Windows system.
“Being a Liberal at university can be politically very lonely. Courtney Dunn, 19, has never knowingly met another Liberal at the two University of Western Sydney campuses where she studies for a combined arts and law degree. ”The most visible political students on campus are the hard left, who the average student doesn’t relate to, which is further reason why voluntary student unionism is such a positive thing.”
”I think one of the dangers facing upcoming generations, including my own, is that we are developing an attitude of ‘what will the government do about it?’
Yet this is the same person demanding government do something, complaining about the number of trains services that service areas with limited population (and the horror, the horror – having to change trains)
MARIE FICARRA: – To add insult to injury the Labor Government recently cut peak hour rail services to the extent that no direct service from the Southern Highlands to the central business district arrives during the morning peak hour. Courtney Dunn, an 18-year-old Picton resident, recently contacted me. Courtney started working in the central business district after finishing high school at the end of last year. Like many residents of Picton and the Wollondilly shire, Courtney relies on public transport to get to and from work each day and, along with many people from Sydney’s outskirts, she spends a considerable amount of time commuting. Since beginning her job in January, Courtney became frustrated by the state of the rail service when, in a little over a month of working in the central business district, the evening rail service that she catches from Campbelltown to Picton was cancelled on six different occasions.
Unlike some people who are willing to put up with a poor rail service that has been compounded by many years of neglect, Courtney is a young woman who is ready to fight for her local community and has set out on a campaign to get a better deal for Southern Highlands commuters. Within a day of deciding to do something about the rail service, Courtney got over 50 people to sign a petition for better train services and had contacted the local newspaper, the Wollondilly Advertiser, to voice her concerns. The Wollondilly Advertiser has since run a number of stories about the poor train services to the Southern Highlands and is getting behind the campaign for improvements, and more local residents are signing Courtney’s petition by the day. My colleague in the other place, the member for Goulburn, Pru Goward, has been working for a better deal for Southern Highlands rail commuters and I know that she has encouraged Courtney in her efforts.
One thing that particularly frustrates Courtney and many other Southern Highlands commuters is the lack of services in the morning peak hour. There are currently only two services for the morning peak hour and both these services terminate at Campbelltown, meaning commuters are forced to change trains. During her campaign, Courtney has found that many residents have just given up on the Southern Highlands line and are either driving to work or driving to Campbelltown station. With poor services like this it is no wonder that so many commuters feel this way and it adds to the stress on their local roads in peak hour.
Peter, I think you are blind on both counts, though, particularly the latter.
Obama is loathed. You hear those good ol’ boys splutter with rage at his very name. A lot of the time just because of his colour.
Kevin, you can tell, gets up those Liberal noses because they just do not take kindly to losing the privilege and power. You see, because they never learned to share, they are now very angry and incompetant with it.
Daggett #28 on 911
Pepe Escobar in Asia Times asks 50 questions about 911. I was wondering, is asking questions a less risky way to avoid defamation suits than making statements? http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KI11Ak02.html
Not true. They invented gas chambers. They developed huge public rallies (a la Nuremberg) before the ‘36 Olympics but they most certainly did not invent elite sport. Int’l cricket (Ashes etc) – not due to the Nazis. They persecuted Slavs and Jews and Gypsies and Communists and the mentally infirm, but they didn’t invent elite sport.
Raelene Boyle is not a fascist. She may be harsh, restrictive, misquoted and several other things but she is not a fascist.
Let’s invent a Godwin’s Olympics competition. Event 1: think of something you can blame the Nazis for. Give it no further thought.
Event 2: find someone you can call a “FASCIST”.
Event 3: Have a bit of a lie down after the strenuous effort of competing inEvents 1 and 2.
(Cross-posted to Weekend Reflections on johnquiggin.com)
On Correspondents Report just now (podcast seems unavailable at this moment) an ABC reporter said that a CIA agent told her that ‘Al Qaeda’ was planning an even bigger terrorist attack upon the US than 9/11. I didn’t get all of the words, but she said roughly:
A CIA agent who has followed the 9/11 case told me that the next attack on the US has to be a ‘game changer’ — even bigger, even more terrible than the last …
Given the gross, unbelievable incompetence of the US Government in its failure to prevent the 9/11 terrorist attacks (that is if we accept the Official September 11 Conspiracy Theory and not the alternative Conspiracy Theory) and given that not one single figure in the Administration of President George W Bush was even reprimanded, let alone sacked for that incompetence, would anyone here put their trust in the US Government to prevent the next attack?
If the attack were to succeed (or even if it were not to, but were to be thwarted at the last minute) does anyone not see how this could be used as an excuse to completely remove our democratic freedoms, civil liberties and human rights?
I’ve always hated this turn of phrase for its arrant absurdity. As improbable as it may sound however, I was able to buttonhole the latest offender her on the street just yesterday and the impromptu interview with Mr Empty
FB: Mr Empty, you don’t mind if I call you that do you …?
Mr Empty: Not at all. My friends call me that …
FB: You say that you are not ruling it out and you’re not ruling it in…
Mr Empty: That’s right …
FB: It’s impossibly paradoxical, surely?
Mr Empty: How so?
FB: You say you’re statements are logically consistent, do you not, Mr Empty?
Mr Empty: I sure do
FB: You would agree that ruling something out and ruling it in covers the full gamut of policy options, would you not?
Mr Empty: Well yes …
FB: So the conclusion is compelled, if you are consistent, that not ruling something out and not ruling something in are to some extent at least, coextensive.
Mr Empty: Yes I suppose …
FB: So in your view, the words out and in are not mutually exclusive
Mr Empty: Well err … look, all I’m saying is that I don’t want to commit to a policy on this right now.
FB: Oh I think I get that, but that means that you are going to commit to a policy in the future, does it not?
Mr Empty:Well yes …
FB: So before that time you will seek data about the feasibility of the existing workplace relations regime, consider proposals for individual contracts being discussed within the party room with an open mind, correct?
Mr Empty: Well yes …
FB: Can you do that if you rule it out? If you rule it out, you’re saying that such discussion would be pointless and counterproductive, surely?
Mr Empty: Well yes …
FB: So not ruling it out, entails ruling it in, not just in theory, but in practice. You are seeking a discussion of the matter.
Mr Empty: Can we talk about how Mr Rudd is like some Communist Party General Secretary?
FB: If you like … you said it was extraordinary
Mr Empty: That’s right
FB: Yet you also said he was the Bradman of Boredom
Mr Empty: That’s right. I could have added the Baudrillard of Boredom but that would have cost me two points in the polls for knowing a post-structuralist and reading LP.
FB: Indeed. So you are saying that the extraordinary is boring?
Mr Empty: Err yes …
FB: Was Stalin a post-structuralist?
Mr Empty: Oh no … definitely a structuralist … hang on … oh there goes two points …
FB: Out is in, the boring is extraordinary … you’re having a problem with consistency aren’t you Mr Empty?
Mr Empty: Maybe if I could be a post-structuralist, it would be easier …
FB: There goes another two points …
Ambigulous – if you’d read my comment properly you’d see i said the Nazis basically invented elite sport in its modern spectacular incarnation, and that Boyle is enunciating the facist principles that underlie sport – not that Nazis invented elite sport per se – nor that Boyle is a fascist herself.
I was interested to observe that the Greens rep who interjected in the parliament and mocked Senator Fielding’s disability wasn’t named by the press. It was Sarah Hansen-Young.
Professional cricket and baseball dates extends well back to the nineteenth century, and the VFL – which broke away from the VFA to permit professionalism – formed in 1896.
Is your claim that the Nazis invented sport as a vehicle for nationalism? Yes, they may have taken it to new and ugly heights in 1936, but invented it? Hardly.
Adam Tucker @ 54.
I’m disabled in various ways. So, re Steve Fielding’s disability, speaking as a disabled person to non-disabled people – you can be disabled like Fielding – though calling a learning difficulty a disability is a bit of a stretch, I think – and, like Fielding, still be an utter, complete fuckwit.
The Nazis were on about racial and physical purity. Part of the story comes from Germanic culture (and Simon Schama in his book Landscape and Memory articulates how far back that goes). There was a whole set of traditions in both the 19th and 20th centuries in the west that latched onto physical purity and referenced that back to the Greeks vis a vis the re-establishment of Olympism. (And it was no accident Rudolf Steiner built his philosophies, with a deep emphasis on purity, from a Germanic heritage)
What Hitler did was to take this myth within the Germanic context and place it as propaganda into the the mass media, for example through the work of Leni Riefenstahl. Those methods were clearly a development that resonates today, but it was the photography (i.e., tracking shots of athletes), that was the invention. All else can be traced to existing developments with deep historical roots.
“if you’d read my comment properly you’d see i said the Nazis basically invented elite sport in its modern spectacular incarnation,”
I think that’s highly questionable as well, Laura. The 1936 Summer Olympics have strong associations with the Nazis, obviously, given that they took place in Berlin but they were conducted by the IOC on the same lines as previous events. The Nazis certainly didn’t invent the fire, stadium and marching teams spectacular.
Leni Riefenstahl did however make a movie about the Games (called ‘Olympia”) which was arguably the prototype for modern sports filming technique.
Interestingly, there was a gender controversy at the ‘36 games (two female medallists later had FtoM gender reassignment surgery) which led to the much later introduction of gender verification by the IOC.
Rather surprised to see what’s a fairly widely held view so strongly rejected, to be honest. I did state it in a sloppy hyperbolic Saturday Salon style, sure, but the notion that the 1936 Olympics initiated our current culture’s special delight in racial, imperial, gendered and nationalist rituals of domination, expressed via hi-tech representations of fake antique / Classical body imagery, all served within the mediatised stadium spectacular where the crowd becomes part of the spectacle, has been around in sociology & history at least since th e1970s – see for instance Richard Mandell’s _The Nazi Olympics_ – and going back further, it was recognised & described by cultural theorists who were there at the time, eg Benjamin, Lacan.
Laura, associating a pastime that I and many other LP readers enjoy with “fascist principles” is pretty inflammatory, and was guaranteed to generate just a bit of resistance.
Actually, the Nazis did invent that.
.
Yeah they thought they were demonstrating their inheritance. They thought they were the New Wave of Ancient Greece. Fascists alway do seem to corner the market on unintentional irony.
I’ve got to agree strongly with Laura on this one (except to point out that the Olympic Flame dates from 1928; the Nazis only innovation was to make it a cross-country event). Remember that the people who created the modern corporate Olympic games of the post-war were often Fascists too; Juan-Antonio Samaranch for instance was one of Franco’s cronies and a proud son of the Falange into old age.
To be fair, though, I tend to prefer the egalitarian-nationalist ideal of the Olympics and FIFA World Cup over it’s worse alternatives: Baron de Coubertin’s original reincarnation of amateur private gentlemen’s honourable athletism without women or proletarians on one hand, and the kinds of nationalist sporting movements that created bizarre and pathetic late-nineteenth century chauvinist sports like Pankration, and the Gaelic Games that were part of the Gaelic Revival, on the other.
I recall a radio interview with Asa Briggs in about 2002 who said not entirely tongue-in-cheek that modern Europe had displaced the urge to kill one’s neighbours with the urge to watch one’s neighbours beaten in UEFA Cup football. That’s got to be a good thing.
associating a pastime that I and many other LP readers enjoy with “fascist principles” is pretty inflammatory
I’m surprised at you, RM.
You’re generally the most uncompromisingly scientistic of the posters here, the most willing on general principle to bend inclination and enthusiasm when faced with proveable fact. The Olympics have radical, nationalist, right-wing roots, with stacks of evidence in their favour, and historically it’s pretty uncontroversial to say make the link. To not follow an argument because of where it might politically lead is something you’d expect of right-wing Laborite hypocrites like me, or the other bourgeois leftists around here [cough], not empiricists like yourself.
ONE OF US, ONE OF US, etc.
when even the Greens sold out on it. what hope did the mary river ever have. we need a third political party that is centre-left and opposed to prvatisation of asstes and this dam.
Liam, actually you’re the one I’m surprised at. “Nationalistic” isn’t “fascist” isn’t identical with “Nazi.” If I understand Laura correctly, the contention was that the 1936 Nazi All-Black-and-Reds were responsible for an original, new set of tropes (which became ours today, is that a fair summation?), viz. we should credit the ‘36 Nazis specifically, not the general historic flow of increasing nationalism.
Depends what you mean, I guess. Babe Ruth’s famous “called shot” happened in Chicago in 1932, four years before the Nazilympics, for instance. Hype? Check. Triumphalism? Check. Huge crowds? Check. Ginormous stadium for the “masses”? Check. Nationalism? Check, sorta (the national anthem was sung before the game). And all this stuff was well-established in sports culture well before that (and I bet in other sports too — anyone care to comment on cricket?).
I think the new ingredients the Nazis added to all this were a profound humorlessness about it, and grim Teutonic precision and determination. Babe Ruth was part of a rowdy squad that played for a rowdy, fun-loving crowd, he liked his beer and had a tremendous paunch for an athlete — presumably he wouldn’t pass muster in a Germanic cult of bodily purity (despite being a German): but we don’t see such a cult in the Anglosphere sporting world today, do we? At least not in a consistent way. Or would one say that we do? (with bodies sculpted by steroids etc.?) Though I will concede that NBA basketball is filmed in a crypto-fascist style full of dominance obsession and body glorification and insane “mighty warrior” posturing. (Good grief, you’re a bunch of grown men throwing around a rubber ball, get over yourselves.)
As for the “gendering” of sport, doesn’t it go back at least as far as the funeral games in the Iliad?
btw, for a hilarious take on gender in sports, look up on Youtube “Babe Ruth in Fancy Curves,” a lame one-reel erstwhile comedy where he coaches an all-girls team. All your gender tropes in one spot — even a scene of Babe Ruth transvestism! (true.)
AUSTIN, Sept. 11 /PRNewswire/ — Appearing on The Alex Jones Show today to
discuss his video address to Barack Obama, Charlie Sheen has challenged those
who have publicly attacked him for speaking out on 9/11, particularly Meghan
McCain, Rush Limbaugh Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly, to debate him on CNN’s
Larry King Live.
Following the publication of Sheen’s “20 Minutes With The President,” a
fictionalized account of a meeting with Barack Obama in which Sheen implores
the President to reopen the investigation of 9/11 in light of the majority of
the 9/11 Commission members publicly denouncing the official story as a
deception, McCain attacked Sheen on ABC’s top rated show The View, comparing
people who question 9/11 with holocaust deniers.
…
A familiar theme arising out of such hit pieces is an effort to imply that
Sheen’s questioning of the official 9/11 story is somehow an “outrage” and
hurtful to the family members of the victims, despite the fact that the
majority of victims’ family members share the same questions.
Furthermore, claiming that people who doubt the government story are on par
with holocaust deniers completely ignores the fact that six of the ten 9/11
Commission members, along with scores of other highly credible former and
current government officials, intelligence professionals, military officials,
scientists, structural engineers and architects, and legal scholars have all
publicly questioned the official version of events behind September 11.
Fox News talking heads Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity, as well as popular
radio host Rush Limbaugh, have also attempted to attack Sheen’s credibility
while failing to discuss any of the subjects he actually raised.
In response, Sheen told The Alex Jones Show that he is challenging any one or
all of McCain, Hannity, Limbaugh or O’Reilly to a debate about 9/11 on CNN’s
Larry King Live or any other television show in Los Angeles, adding that the
show must be broadcast live to prevent bias editing. …
“To be fair, though, I tend to prefer the egalitarian-nationalist ideal of the Olympics and FIFA World Cup over it’s worse alternatives:”
I completely agree with the principle of this although the actuality of each Olympics continues to fill me with rage and disgust. And while I personally can’t get interested in any pasttime like NRL which celebrates a distorted version of masculinity as violent dominance, I do agree there are certainly less bad sports, as the great-granddaughter of a Test captain I think cricket is one of them; it doesn’t apparently involve group masturbation or rape, although it is extremely racist still.
Personally I think competitive, win-focused sport which depends on segregations of various types is inhumane, stupid and pathetic. Raelene Boyle believes the IOC has a duty to “protect the rest of us”, maybe by starting a separate Olympics “for these people with not the normal physical make-up or chromosomal or scientific make-up that we have”. Either make it that you can only have races between people who are exactly the same in every possible way, or let everyone race, including animals. Then we’ll find out once and for all whether there will ever be a boy born who can swim faster than a shark.
” Either make it that you can only have races between people who are exactly the same in every possible way, or let everyone race, including animals. Then we’ll find out once and for all whether there will ever be a boy born who can swim faster than a shark.”
I don’t think it is reasonable to assume animals want to race others be they other animals or humans.
Do you envisage the presence of a group of people who specialise in training various animals for sports events? Let’s put it this way – if you can get your cow to my place I’ll get one of mine to race your’s in the river out front. 200m individual medley OK?
Just thought I’d also say surfing is a non competitve past-time . You can arrange to judge each other but that is a small minority much wedded to advertising and corporate sponsorship.
The rest of us are engaged in a quite useless and non productive activity which makes you feel happy when you get out of the water.
I don’t think I failed to read your 33 “properly”. But I could be wrong.
The 1956 Olympics in Melbourne were homely, provincial, international, friendly and liberal (under the clouds of the Cold War). Fascist they were not. Fascistic? not that either. Ask someone who was there.
You’re welcome to your views of sport, sporting compoetition, etc. Hitler has little to do with it. Was there any area of life and culture he didn’t attempt to warp and poison? Should we conemn documentary film because Riefenstahl served Nazi aims? I think not.
Bread and circuses were invented long before 1936.
Seeing goose-stepping PLA troops, or massed North Korean persons, or Red Square military parades (in Soviet times) reminds me more of Hitler’s regime and its panoply of regimented, choreographed spectacle than any international sporting meeting.
Ambigulous, re #55, you’re protesting too much. Let me assure you I am not in the least callous about the holocaust. When I finally finish my marking and get it written, if you give me an email address, I will send you the article I’m working on about what it was like interviewing visitors to the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam last month. Actually, I wish I’d developed a few more protective psychological calluses before leaping into that particular abyss.
Doesn’t it bother you even a tiny bit that women aren’t allowed to play AFL or NRL, or compete against men in almost any sports? They could you know. It would be a simple matter of lifting or adjusting the drug ban, which in some ways is more a mechanism for creating an uneven playing field than for levelling one.
Hoges, by prophylactic supply statistics, at least 100,000 roots in the last 2 Olympics but surely the lefties didn’t miss out?
(Could there have been some “blowback” on right wing Christian virginity pledges to validate your assertion of the political flavour of this activity?)
Jam Master JPZ, I certainly wouldn’t ever argue that Nazism is equal to Fascism is equal to nationalism; any more than you’d contend that funk was equal to soul was equal to rock ‘n’ roll. Still—four-four time is four-four time, and a team in coloured shirts is a team in coloured shirts, whether on a football pitch or out in the street, and they share supporters, and they share familiar aims. (Which I say, note, as a supporter of Real Madrid).
Sport history’s full of elite spectacle, as others have noted, going back in organised media-marketed fashion to the circuses of the Romans, and pre-planned games-and-ritual are a universal part of humanity. And just because it can be oppressive and awful doesn’t mean it can’t also be amazing and beautiful; as the celebrated post-Fascist Enoch Powell observed, football’s nothing more or less than working-class ballet.
Did I misread 55 too? I’m distressed to hear of your project in Amsterdam. I had a brief visit to that city and chose Rembrandt paintings on a Saturday afternoon instead. I couldn’t face the Anne Frank Museum.
Instead, Vermeer won me over, in the Rijksmuseum. And a small statue in Leyden: a sad young girl, with the years of the WW2 occupation inscribed. No words. Exquisite anguish, strong remembrance.
Women in sport? What did Anne Frank write about that?
Laura, I don’t think merely making performance-enhancing drugs available to adult women would go anywhere close to evening up the score in the AFL.
The average AFL player is 185 centimetres tall. According to ABS figures (from 1995 and across the population, so not quite representative of young adults, but close enough to be indicative) 24.5% of men are over 180 centimetres in height; only 0.1% of women are.
Given that, unless you’re going to give HGH to girls on the basis that a tiny fraction of them might be further chemically assisted to play AFL footy, the odds are that very few women would be competitive AFL players even with chemical assistance.
Furthermore, while AFL players are endurance athletes, they also require a great deal of strength. So while you could give a woman AFL player EPO to assist with their endurance (which is actually an area where the differences between women and men are comparatively small), to be able to compete in strength terms the drugs of choice are steroids of one form or another. And if you want to know the long-term side effects of administering steroids to female athletes, go ask an East German.
On top of that, there’s also the little issue of anterior cruciate ligaments. Female athletes are, apparently, about eight times more likely to suffer this rather nasty injury than male athletes. Given ACL injuries are amongst the most common season-ending injuries in the AFL, it would seem likely that a large fraction of women who chemically enhanced their muscular strength and power to the point where they would be competitive AFL players would suffer an ACL injury sooner or later.
There are sports where your argument is plausible – endurance sports, particularly cycling because some disciplines within it favour small athletes – but AFL and NRL aren’t among them.
Women’s exclusion from much elite sport – and the marginalization of many women’s competitions in sports where they do participate – are important issues to think about in our sports-mad culture. But the idea that chemical assistance is a way out of it doesn’t really stack up.
When I was studying a gender studies course as part of my Honours coursework I had a private joke along the lines that all debates within feminism ultimately boiled down to the question of whether football should be played by both genders or banned for both genders.
I read on the weekend that the West Atlas Oil Spill now covers nearly 6000Km2. The company, PTTEP Australasia says it should have the spill under control within four weeks.
This is very disappointing. Where’s the idea of turning a crisis into an opportunity. Since the spill can be seen from space, why not use ships and booms to fashion it into a shape like the COMPANY LOGO. They could have the world’s biggest ad …
Big signs can be in the ocean as well as the skies — a little dye and you can get out the the good oil …
Despite my avowed distaste for sport, I do occasionally delve into sport history.And, in response to the query about nationalism showing its ugly face in cricket, from an Australian and British viewpoint may I offer the following: November 1932, the Bodyline matches at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, where the English,threw balls at the bodies of Australian batsman, notably one Don Bradman, (who I’ve never really had much affection for). Jardine was so hated by the mob on the Hill, that when he brushed at the summer flies some-one yelled outr, “Leave our flies alone, Jardine.” According to the TV series Bodyline, Aussies burnt the Union Jack. On one interpretation, the Bodyline matches plunged Australian/British relationships into crisis. (Which just shows how dangerous nationalism can be.)
Most of you probably realise by now, that despite being a socialist (genuine, not what the Americans call socialist) I have a soft spot for the US. Nevertheless, they did poisdon Phar Lap, which, along with the Smoot-Hawley tariff wars provoked a fair bit of Aussie nationalism against the Yanks here in the 1930s.
And I’m not even going to comment on the racist fascism of the Howard inspired Cronulla Riots when Ratty was PM.
There was also the notoriously bloody water polo match between the Russians and the Hungarians at the 56 Olympics.
Here’s some light reading for anyone interested in the idea of lifting the drug ban, which I understand is rather fictive anyway in that it doesn’t prevent untestable drugs from being used. http://eprints.vu.edu.au/259/ Or this one, without a specifically feminist agenda but saying much the same thing: why we should allow performance enhancing drugs in sport
Not entirely coincidental that the examples we’re all thinking of are from the 1930s, I suspect
Not that there aren’t later examples of course. Think Melbourne 1956, the water polo game between the USSR and Hungary …the Black Power salute at Mexico 1968 and the what happened to the Aussie at that event … the use of 1980’s Olympics as a vehicle for boycott by the US/Australia and the tit-for-tat by the USSR at LA 1984 (and the USA’s response). Could anyone have missed the nationalism at Beijing, 2008? Doubtful.
The famous ‘football war’ between El Salvador maybe germane here. It wasn’t caused by soccer or the World Cup, but it did provide the trigger.
This war was fought at a time when tensions between the two countries were building due to competition in the infamous qualifying games for the 1970 FIFA World Cup tournament. The first game took place in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, with Honduras winning the game. The second game took place in the Salvadoran capital of San Salvador, with a home team win. The game was in a deadlock with each country gaining a revised sense of pride and legitimacy. The Honduran press exploited existing tensions reporting beatings, the burning of cars, and riots by Honduran citizens in El Salvador. In the meantime, Salvadoran press exploited alleged Honduran citizens and security forces attacks on Salvadoran immigrants.
the legend is that “the Yanks poisoned Phar Lap”. I vaguely recall that recent work points the finger towards a tonic administered by Phar Lap’s Aussie trainer, but not sure of the details.
Robert M: I found Laura’s suggestion that there should be open slather on performance enhancing drugs, just to attempt to get women players into AFL teams, quite remarkably strange. Isn’t there evidence of long-term harm to athletes, who take these (anabolic steroids and others)?
And the largest-scale officially sanctioned drug use program for sports competitors was by the DDR athletes, in a society having (arguably) more similarities to Hitler’s Germany [State control, secret police, heavy indoctrination, etc.] than most other societies across the globe at that time.
Women’s cricket, women’s golf, women’s tennis, women’s swimming, women’s athletics are all thriving. Netball is fantastic: at the elite and suburban/country levels. Some women play Aussie Rules in their own competition.
Don’t aim so low Laura: don’t urge women to copy Fevola, Cousins, Carey and the rabble!!
A most interesting discussion on sport. Fran might be surprised to know that I agree with much of what she said @ 18. In particular I’ll be surprised if 30 years down the track sporting teams are flitting around the world with such gay abandon.
Nevertheless I personally enjoy watching most forms of sport. A large part of it has to do with an appreciation of human skill, speed, endurance and/or power. I enjoyed a performance of Circus Oz last week. There were some aspects of how roles were portrayed that could be criticised, but especially memorable was the strong woman, where half the troupe climbed on her back and the obvious affection between her and the dwarf woman who was about half her height. Also the incredible skill and control in the hula hoop performance by one of the women and much more.
I don’t know a lot about sport history and found the information from Laura and others fascinating. I suspect, though, if we were able to excise the Berlin Olympics from history, elite sport and the Olympics would not be noticeably different now.
I’m surprised that Laura sees cricket as less bad. I seems to be designed for 11 people to humiliate and mentally destroy the opposing team one at a time, and has the converse opportunity for individuals to humiliate the whole of the other team.
I appreciate NRL for the combination of skill, speed, power, endurance, teamwork and tactics. Although wingers are commonly 100 kg these days there is a role for little men, such as Preston Campbell, Brett Kimmorely and others, although they have to be very tough and strong and prepared to tackle head on a 115kg prop forward going like a runaway train. There have been some excellent matches this year now that the tackling/play-the-ball area has been cleaned up.
Apart from State of Origin and always wanting to beat New Zealand, South Africa and the Poms at anything, I don’t much mind who wins. If you follow enough sports some of “my” teams are always winning. The Lions went down in AFL, but the Broncos prevailed in one of the best matches of the year. The Aussie Diamonds beat the Silver Ferns at netball, Federer kept on winning and Clijsters sorted out Serena Williams. And we creamed the Poms at cricket (a magnificent spell of bowling by Brett Lee a highlight).
I see lots of aspects that I don’t approve of all the time. I like to think that the fact that I don’t get angry or upset is because I’ve learnt the futility and destructiveness of those emotions. Probably, though, it has more to do with my system producing less testosterone, or something.
Finally, I think the damaging consequences of an over-emphasis on winning and competitiveness is a greater problem in junior sport, rather than in the elite arena.
Ambigulous #92, there are some quite high-profile examples (mainly from the US) of individuals who are known or strongly suspected to have died an early death due to taking performance-enhancing drugs. One notable case some years ago involved a gridiron player who died a lingering and miserable death from illnesses brought on by steroid use.
I also like some elite sport, including as you know, the cricket.
I wouldn’t favour banning elite sport — bans are only for the most intractable and pernicious of activities IMO, but I don’t think it should be directly or indirectly facilitated by the state or by subsidies. It should have to pay its way, and if this meant there was less of it, so be it.
I’d be a tad disappointed if there were less cricket, but then again, one can argue that we have something of a surfeit — do we really need seven ODIs in England? Doubtful. Either way, it would be a price worth paying on grounds of general utility.
Ambigulous @ 92,
I cheerfully stand corrected on Phar Lap. As I understand it, a couple of years before the nmost recent research, which I think was last year, traces of arsenic were found in Phar Lap’s hair. The latest evidence, coming from the trainer’s diary or medicine book I think, showed the poisoning was accidental.Your comment jogged my memory.
[Whips oneself for perpetrating historical inaccurracy/howler.)
Advocates for allowing performance enhancing drugs suggest there should be a shift of focus from testing for substances to testing for health. Nobody recommends anabolic steroid use for this reason.
There are plenty of practices athletes engage in that are potentially harmful besides taking drugs, and plenty of drugs that are not harmful to health if used properly.
Paul B, please do not WHIP yourself on our account. Or at least have it televised as a reality TV show and make squillions.
Thanks Paul N, I couldn’t recall the details.
Laura, I don’t doubt that there are other potentially harmful pracices: but you raised drug use as a possible “way to go”. It’s not sufficient, to say “look over there, some OTHER harmful practices!”
I hope your marking’s going well. (Some use coffee, others use Jaffas or other chocolate I’m told.)
Fran @ 95, I think that for every ODI we play in this country we are obliged to go and play one in the touring country in return. This has been overloading the schedule for our guys. I think it’s partly behind the recent reduction of our summer commitments in this regard.
Personally, I wouldn’t shed many tears over the demise of L50 cricket. It’s a pretty stale and tame format these days. L20 gives most of those that L50 was pitched at all of what they want.
I know it’s not fashionable, but I like L50 cricket. I find L20 a bit too much hit and run although it can get exciting. I like the more drawn out form, especially when you can really put the brakes on the other team with some good bowling and see the run rate blow out over 6 an over or watch a thrilling chase. I would like to see it stay, but I’m in the minority I think.
I think the thing is Mindy that with an L20 the whole thing is over in an evening after work, so it is more marketable. Potentially you can have a doubleheader and even if there is a little rain you can probably still get through the whole fixture without a D/L result.
Far more people have three hours to spare than have six and it’s a better fit with work patterns too.
Thanks for your interest in my post on 9/11 and thanks for that link to that most helpful article.
I think there are two reasons why 9/11 Truth activists often tend to ask questions. One is, as you say to avoid the risk of defamation suits (although defation laws in this country are not as bad as they once were (which is one of the very few good things brough about by the Howard Govenment, or, more accurately, Philip Ruddock).
The other is that we don’t know many of the answers.
The only people who do are those who planned and executed the 9/11 terrorist atrocity.
That is why there needs to be a proper investigation so that people like Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, Rudi Giuliani, George Bush et al can properly account for their bizarre behaviour on that day. It lokks as if that will occur. It looks as if New York City residents will be allowed to vote on whether to set up an enquiry at the November general elections.
Who’s to say that Daggett didn’t author both comments? Why are you denying the only outlet for people who want to question the Official Comment Timeline? What agendas are you serving FDB?
I’VE BEEN SILENCED ALL MY LIFE
Of greater importance here is what certain members of the BAHNISCH FAMILY other LP ILLUMINATI were up to at the time of the thread-comment-temporal-anomaly-and/or-failure-to-attribute attack. Flight records show them on the last two chartered DC-10s out of Brisbane, bound for Nauru – and the official “explanation”? Bah! Missy Higgins isn’t scheduled to play the Yaren Tavern and Grill until next Thursday.
There is also a petition signed by 4,300 electronic engineers and IT specialists which questions the official explanation.
Probably because I read a Google News item about season 2 of Mad Men that confused me – has Series 2 started on one or other of the SBS’s last weekend and did I miss it because it was at 11pm at night – or have I missed promos because I didn’t want to be bored out of my mind by cricket? Am keen to know.
Of greater importance here is what certain members of the BAHNISCH FAMILY other LP ILLUMINATI were up to at the time of the thread-comment-temporal-anomaly-and/or-failure-to-attribute attack.
Well I for one left the public service 10 years to the day before 9/11, so obviously I had something to do with it! Nobody has ever asked me to date.
Actually, and seriously, I’ll come clean and declare that I’m firmly in the camp of historians who have read enough evidence to convince them there was a clear US-Government supported conspiracy to remove human rights and freedom of speech and association on 11 September.
1973.
Recently I watched Hitchcock’s “The Birds” again which I hadn’t seen in maybe 15 years.
Fun coincidence factoids:
– the movie has performances by a young Veronica Cartwright (as Lydia’s daughter) and also by comedian Doodles Weaver (as a fisherman.) Doodles was of course the uncle of Sigourney Weaver, and both Veronica and Sigourney would go on to star in another horror classic, “Alien”.
Also was struck (never noticed it before) by how The Birds foreshadows Night of the Living Dead, with a) no one ever knows or finds out why it’s happening, and b) Must. Barricade. Farmhouse. Against. Massive. Onslaught. also, c) accidental catastrophe at gas station.
Fortunately nobody suggests they retreat to the basement. We ALL know how that play ends up.
Also, didn’t know Rod Taylor was Australian! And ya gotta love the lady ornithologist.
just curious: are any of the important sources only in espanol?
It seems to me possible that the basic mistake Mr Allende made was grandiose rhetoric: at the first, winning Presidential election he scored about 34%, si? Why then proclaim the “Chilean Revolution”? Nowhere near majority electoral support.
I’m aware there were millions of desperately poor Chileans his Govt wanted to lift out of poverty and despair…. Would a slower pace have had any chance of success? (Yes, RM Nixon hovered in the background…..)
Or does the Chilean political style abhor gradualism, preferring drama, even unto noble death?
This is some sad news for poetry lovers… vale Jim Carroll, dead at 60. Just learned of it.
Despite the notoriety he gained from The Basketball Diaries and “People Who Died,” IMO his standout work was his first little volume of poems, “Living At The Movies,” written by age 19 or so, which beautifully captures a certain something about cosmic teenage pains and pleasures, in a delicately surrealistic idiom. I loved it when I was 17 or so myself, and though there are many far greater poets of his time, I’ve always had a little birdhouse in my soul for that work.
From “Blue Poles” which opens the book (from memory)…
Blue poles (well?) on the beach
In a snowless winter and
I’m too cold to ask you
Why we’re here, but, “we are”…
I love the little joke of the ‘well?’. This is from the last poem in the book, “An Apple At Dawn”…
…They’re “cold and enduring.”
Look out Manhattan
your prince’s sorrow
might be back
again
tomorrow.
From those points A to B is nearly a whole life right there. So long Jim. Tonight “there is a stadium beside my window, filled with winter.”
I had a private joke along the lines that all debates within feminism ultimately boiled down to the question of whether football should be played by both genders or banned for both genders.
.
Well I’d make a snide remark to the effect of that joke underlying the relevance or lack thereof of feminist theory as we now know it. But I won’t.
.
What I want to know is where are the drugs that will make me a world class ballet diva or gymnist.
David H @ 24, As you are well aware, I was commenting on two separate questions. What you are after is the National Library of Australia.
Fran @ 18, This is the first chance I have had to revisit this thread. I will endeavour to answer your questions.
1. Is a nation’s morale something that can be measured with the degree of precision to allow utility-based evaluation of resource allocation? If it’s more than a The Castle-style ‘it’s the vibe’ thing, what measures do you have in mind for longterm effectiveness-of-program auditing?
I don’t believe anything can, that’s what we have economists for and not even they are sure. No matter what we do in this life, it is a best guess scenario. Even if its not for the nation, what about an individual? I surely don’t think elite sports “stars” should be paid anymore than the median wage at best. That’s never going to happen though, I’m a realist. We cannot always measure things by KPIs – sometimes we have to make value judgements.
I do not know what the term negative utilities (in what context are you using the word utility here? Utility to me means multiple functions depending on the situation thus utility is always useful) means so I can not answer the question. As for the Olympics, itself, although considered an elite sport, is a waste of everyone’s time. You only hear of those people every four years and nothing out of them in between. It’s mainly the other sports I’m thinking of, the major football codes, basketball, netball, hockey, etc.
As for the 1936 Olympics itself, you can only examine things in the context of their times and I wasn’t around then and I imagine you probably weren’t either, I am not aware of the zeitgeist of that era and cannot make a point thus rendering the vast majority of that question moot.
As for Carbon Pollution, stop the fireworks at all the sports events, stop private vehicles going into city CBDs make cycling and public transport the only options – problem fixed. I haven’t done any actual measurements but I think it would go a long way. Overall I’m not too concerned about Carbon Pollution one way or the other.
3. Opportunity Cost: What effects on other programs or public goods objectives does elite sport have?
What effects on public goods does elite sport have? It can prevent and alleviate mental illness and psychological disorders. I rationalise that by when your life is total and utter crap and your sports team is going crap, there is absolutely nothing that will pick you up – not even a good book, but if your team is going brilliantly, you’ll be on a high that will balance out some of your depressed modes. Endorphins work for fans just as well as anyone else doing a physical activity. We are all different.
I’ve just noticed I’ve mainly addressed psychological difficulties there and not mental illness ones, so I’ll just add that it may help to give the mentally ill focus, dependent on their condition (Again depends on context)
Ooh I missed this one: How does elite sport affect housing costs, or skew/constrain transport and infrastructure policy?
The events only ever occur in a major city, so on housing costs, its a boon for those that own their own homes and rent them out. As for housing costs in general, they’re overpriced in the CBD. I understand that their are market rates for location, location, location but when they’re asking for $1000 000 000 for a house that only cost say $200 000 to build (I plucked this figure out of the air), its too much. Especially when it only costs about $11k per 9m2 (These are figures supplied by a Sydney based builder a year or two ago) to build.
You would have to be more specific on what you consider to be infrastructure. I have all ready addressed the transport question.
On Human Rights, it depends on what you consider to be one? For eg. If you are referring to the UN version of Human Rights and use their recent complaint about the indigenous intervention. I think their report is too harsh and that the UN is not aware of the full context.
Overall I am a very context specific person and when I look at your view (not that I’m criticising, critiquing maybe) I think of the nth degree and if all the elite sports disappeared overnight the outrage that would cause.
The lack of inspiration children will have. Some get into physical exercise of what they see others do. It could be a football star, it could be a track runner or it could just what they see at a local sports day.
That’s not to take away from other inspirations people will have in Science, etymology and the like.
Your questions cover quite a range across the spectrum of policy and are difficult to answer in one sitting but I have done it now in somewhat of a rambling fashion (off the top of my head).
I have attempted to answer your questions. So how would you phase out elite sport without causing a major uproar (lowering morale) and what would you replace it with and how Fran?
Definition: utility — an evaluation of net public good — realised or prospective benefits less realised and prospective costs and unrealised risks — obviously can be positive or negative. Broadly, a balance sheet of some particular thing …
You concede that the nation’s ‘morale’ cannot be measured with the degree of precision to allow utility-based evaluation of resource allocation. If this is so then your implication that this objective that deserves public support collapses, at least of public policy is to be evidence-based and an exercise in rational approach of commonly agreed goals. One might consider your claim refuted right here, whatever one thought of the value of morale.
As to the pay of sports stars, as you concede, having them on an average wage is unfeasible. Personally, I see no particular value in promoters getting rich at the expense of athletes, even if one could engineer it.
Your proposals on carbon pollution at elite events would make very little difference to the really big international events and only a marginal difference to the local ones. The moving of all those goods not just on the day but in the lead up are very costly in CO2 terms.
My reference on human rights refers to the necessity to turn the city (and sometimes the country) where the event is into a temporary police state. We had a taste of that in Sydney in 2007 not with a sporting event, but with APEC, and later with World Pope Week. It will happen in London 2012.
On housing, elite events force up housing costs and since it’s wealthy people who own most of the housing, it is inequitable. These also skew infrastructure policy as the state tries to extract use out of the white elephant left by the event — such as the Olympics.
I don’t believe the handful of kids inspired to aim for elite success can justify the multi-billion dollar expenditure each year on elite sport.
As to the phase out, I’d withdraw all state support, direct and indirect for elite sport and instead direct adequate funds into non-elite or community sport. Some of the budget would go into structured sport-relevant fitness and skills programs and into early intervention for families who had putatively unfit children. We’d fund before and after school care for high school kids in state schools, with good meal programs, homework supervision and so forth.
I daresay that would raise morale a lot more, and we could measure it in improvements in primary health statistics, lowered youth contact with the justice system, declines in the scale and demand for DOCs interventions and improved educational outcomes.
You say you are happier when your team wins, but that surely means that you and all others like you are to that extent unhappier when it loses. Since most teams lose, most of the time, the net public happiness — the net utility of elite sport if you will, must be negative. Why should the public fund the decreased happiness of most people and encourage a handful to hang their happiness on the vicarious pleasure associated with events over which they have virtually no control and depend on/foster significant inequity?
If you look at my posts you will find I often quote at length from other posts. That was what I initially intended to do this time. I changed my mind, but neglected to delete it from the text buffer.
Of greater importance here is what certain members of the BAHNISCH FAMILY other LP ILLUMINATI were up to at the time of the thread-comment-temporal-anomaly-and/or-failure-to-attribute attack. …
Have you ever, in the eight years since it occurred given 9/11 any serious thought?
If you had you would have understood that there were at least two Conspiracy Theories offered as explanations of what occurred on that day, both of which would have seemed implausible to most, including me, before 11 September 2001.
It seems to me that if you reject one you must necessarily embrace the other.
So which of the two do you embrace, FDB?
Perchance, it wouldn’t happen to be the one peddled by the likes of President W, Dick Cheney, John Howard, Bill O’Reilly, Phillip Adams, Rupert Murdoch and now Kevin Rudd and Barack Obama?
Here’s Rupert Murdoch peddling that Conspiracy Theory through his Brisbane mouthpiece the Courier Mail on 17 August:
It is all too easy in the face of this appalling human loss to question why Australia and its allies should continue to dedicate so much precious human capital to a country so far away. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s answer to that vexed question was to note that the mission to defeat the Taliban was essential to his country’s security because “three-quarters of terrorist plots against Britain come from the border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan”.
Essentially the same argument can be mounted for Australia’s continued military involvement in the country. Australians are all too aware, courtesy of vile and deadly bomb attacks in five-star hotels in Indonesia or alleged terrorism plots here in Australia, that the web of al-Qa’ida-inspired extremism is truly global. We have little choice but to attempt to confront this violence at its source, and to help Afghanistan restore a semblance of stability and security. (“We must stay the course in Afghanistan” of 17 Aug 09)
Does it strike you as odd that our forces have been fighting in a country where 9/11, the Bali bombings and “three-quarters of terrorist plots against Britain” were hatched and yet not one person with a proven link to 9/11 or any other of those events has been captured?
The editorial continues:
The trouble is, no one knows just how long this task might take. US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has admitted he has no idea how long Western forces will have to continue fighting in Afghanistan, but believes that defeating Taliban and al-Qa’ida would take “a few years”. Assadullah Hamdam, the governor of the Afghan province of Oruzgan, where Australian troops are providing security and reconstruction, believes the Australians will need to be in place for another five years to see their work through.
So, how much longer do you predict it will be until the first person with link to 9/11 will be captured?
There is not necessarily any shame in having swallowed codswallop such as that written above in the past. I did myself and even initially welcomed the invasion of Afghanistan. It was not until two years ago that I gave a proper hearing to people who rejected the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory and it was not until a year ago that I seriously studied the question.
However, today the truth of 9/11 is readily available to anyone with a critical and open minded, so there is no longer any reason for anyone to be fooled, that is unless they wish to be.
“So, how much longer do you predict it will be until the first person with link to 9/11 will be captured?”
.
In a similar line of questioning -”How much longer do you predict it will be until the first person with a link to the vast co-ordinated conspiracy will come out and explain their role in the controlled demolition?”
Definition: utility — an evaluation of net public good — realised or prospective benefits less realised and prospective costs and unrealised risks — obviously can be positive or negative. Broadly, a balance sheet of some particular thing …
Fran, are you perchance related to Humpty Dumpty? You seem to share his penchant for making up definitions of words.
Here is where I remind you of the concept of context. The meaning of words is determined in part by how they are deployed. The word sanction for example, can mean nearly opposite things, depending on how it is used. My entire response to Senex drew upon the conceptual ground offered by John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham and so the question of utility needed to be understood in this context.
I’m willing to accept that you are unfamiliar with this ground, but such unfamiliarity ill-recommends you to pronounce on the adequacy of my usage here.
The quality or state of being useful; usefulness; production of good; profitableness to some valuable end; as, the utility of manure upon land; the utility of the sciences; the utility of medicines.
Happiness; the greatest good, or happiness, of the greatest number, — the foundation of utilitarianism.
You are either being disingenuous or you are incapable of apprehending simple English. This is not the first time reading your posts has urged a choice between these inferences.
I suspect you are simply trolling. Certainly, your ‘commentary’ if that is not too flattering a descriptor of your text, contributes nothing to any matter of substance, which is unfortunate.
Brumby has finally dumped Steve Newnham as ALP State Secretary in Victoria. He is to be replaced by Nick Reece.
This may result in a cleaner next election as, many will know, Steve had form particularly towards the greens. Les Twentyman was subjected to some pretty nasty tactics, as well.
“Since most teams lose, most of the time, the net public happiness — the net utility of elite sport if you will, must be negative.”
- Fran barlow
WTF?
How does that work? How can most teams lose most of the time?
Given that in every match one team will lose and one will win, (cept in a draw), then most teams will lose half the time and win half the time, and all teams will lose and win slightly less than half the time.
And it doesn’t take into account the morale boosting effect of non partisan elite sport. Watching the 2002 (?) AFL grand final between 2 sides I had no emotional involvement with. What a great game, and a fascinating contest.
Net result improvement in my morale.
I agree about the funding shift from elite to local level sport tho.
Somewhere online there is a study that shows underdogs succeed at a higher rate than would be expected and their success is determined by how well they attack weak points in structures. That favoritism is determined by a consensus analysis of what is required to succeed and that using these strengths as weaknesses.
Elite sport provides an excellent environment to study this. Anyway I can’t find the link. Thought it might be at John Robb’s site but it isn’t.
Daggett, was my sister part of the conspiracy? She was downtown in Manhattan working for Time mag on 9/11, and was plugged, real-time, into the evidence-gathering and cross-referencing systems that largely established the “official version” that gradually emerged to explain the attack. Information that fits the official explanation was flooding in from tens of thousands of sources, collated and sifted for useful info by thousands of hardworking people trying to find answers, communicating with each other in good faith and stricken with grief.
Any division in a sport where at the end of the regular season, the points are not all even is one in which at least half the teams have lost more often than they have won.
In a typical distribution, where there are about 8-10 teams in a junior competition, at the end of the season the top team and a principal challenger win between 65% and 90% of their matches and perhaps draw some of the rest and the remaining wins are scattered amongst the also rans. Typically two teams may go through the entire season with at most one win. Even the fourth placed team may well have a negative win-loss ratio.
Sidenot: A cousin of mine played in a soccer team during the 1970s in which the team won one match and drew another in the course of three seasons. During his time the bottom four of the 11 teams typically won 3-4 times per season — always when they were playing each other.
Over time of course, the better/more enthusiastic players are attracted to the better performed teams skewing the results still further.
When I’ve coached teams (cricket, inline hockey), this is the message I’ve always given them — that they must find a way fo enjoying their sport and regardless of the result, because if it is significantly bound up with winning, then their prospects of happiness are statistically unlikely and that in any event, they can be happy only at the expense of others. I pointed out that their prospects of earning a living in the sport were less than winning the lottery, and each week I’d pull out a scrath lottery ticket at the beginning of training, scratch two lots of $10,000 or $50,000 and then smile as no others turned up.
As perverse as it may seem, this insight lifted morale amongst the kids I was coaching, and we got down to focusing on the things we could control — our own skills, team cohesion and the enjoyment of each other’s company. In my first season of inline hockey, despite working with the “discards”, and suffering some truly awful scores, by the last half of the season we were competitive, though still unable to stay with the top team deep into the second half of the matches.
That said, we laughed amongst ourselves at the end of each match and even got a couple of “star” recruits from the number 2 team following season and finished third out of seven with a 50-50 win/loss and a couple of them that we were a touch unlucky to lose.
Daggett 9/11 is a brand now – nothing else. It has been since around 2005 when the last of 9/11 truth disappeared up its own arse and joined the consensus level of identification to it.
People use it to reinforce their cultural identity.
Anti authoritarian types who want to seem edgy but don’t really challenge authority like it to reinforce their views of themselves without actually doing anything practical to address real injustice in the world. (IE We’re fighting for the truth, and once we win then the Patriot Act, the Afghan and Iraq wars and all the other evil in the world will magically disappear.)
Racists use it to reinforce their particular bigotry – ie “the Jews done it” or “the Muslims done it”.
Rationalists use it to reinforce their cultural superiority, and their preference for putting things in boxes and leaving them there, free of further examination. (IE You challenge our dominant paradigm then you are racist, or crazy or both, and worse – you damned cultural heretic.)
You probably should read the lolz link.
Some of you cereal rationalists could do with a look at the LULZ too.
Mind you its probably only worth it for the historical significance.
In a similar line of questioning -”How much longer do you predict it will be until the first person with a link to the vast co-ordinated conspiracy will come out and explain their role in the controlled demolition?”
I can’t say.
If that were to happen, it would require that the person concerned would have reflected upon his/her actions and have changed from being a cold-blooded killer into a person capable of feeling remorse.
Furthermore, blowing the whistle on the controlled demolition of the three WTC towers would obviously entail enormous personal risk. If anyone who were to come forward to blow the whistle, they would need immediate round-the-clock protection, or his/her life expectancy would be very short.
And even then, what guarantee would there be that the Newsmedia which has already covered up so much news contrary to the Official Conspiracy Theory would even report it?
Who is to say that someone may not have already attempted to step forward but been silenced?
It should be worth noting that Barry Jennings, a former New York Housing Authority Emergency Coordinator, who worked in the ‘collapsed’ World Trade Center Building 7 including on 11 September 2001 and who was outspoken with testimony against the Official account of the collapse of Building 7, died mysteriously in August 2008. Before he died he told of how his job had been threatened and he feared for his life. Some of his testimony can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQY-ksiuwKU
The Testimony of Scott Forbes a computer technician employed in the South Tower and who witnessed power downs and many other mysterious events, including visits by large numbers of technicians with toolboxes up to the weekend prior to 9/11 during these power downs, can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brSXmZVVCMI
There is also an enormous amount of corroborating evidence from 9/11 hero William Rodriguez of mysterious happenings in the WTC buildings before and during the 9/11 attacks.
In short there is a mountain of evidence in support of the hypothesis that charges were placed in the WTC buildings prior to 9/11. None of that evidence was considered by the 9/11 Commission.
So, I think it would be wrong to reject the alternative to the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory simply because none of the 9/11 Conspirators themselves have, so far, stepped forward to confess their role in the 9/11 attack.
Khaled Sheikh Mohammed was tortured and his confessions have not been tested in a proper open trial, so I think, given that no proof that any of the hundreds of other tortured Guantanamo Bay detainees have have been shown to have participated in 9/11 and that not one other person with a proven link to the 9/11 attack has been captured in 8 years of war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, we are more than a little entitled to be skeptical about the claim that the 9/11 attacks originated in Afghanistan.
I therefore think we are entitled, after all this time, to see a new inquiry in which all the large numbers of unanswered question, which were not asked by the 9/11 Commission, are properly pursued, just to be absolutely certain that the wrong people have not been blamed for 9/11, don’t you think?.
Fran, I do accept what you are saying re the stats, I just don’t think thats all there is too it.
I have coached juniors as well (and hopefully will again), Aussie Rules in Northern NSW, and the AFL needs a serious kick up the backside wrt its funding policies in this part of the world. I have coached sides that had one win in a season and one that went through the season undefeated with an average winning margin of 20 goals. We won the flag too. What a relief. (Definition of pressure – undefeated side in the hours leading up to a grand final.)
I totally agree with the focus. On having fun and for me on developing character traits I think are important. Most kids seem to want to develop those traits anyway so thats actually easy. Your scrathcie trick is excellent btw, I will steal it. (Tho some of the kids I have coached have gone on to make money from sport and have a chance at building a career out of it. Lots of talent in this part of the world.)
And to be even more boring I agree with pretty much everything you said in that post. I actually still play seniour Aust rules and my side hasn’t won a game since 2005 (tho we folded for a year that year and coming back has been a huge strugle.)
Tho as far as my comments above go, well i’ll be the example again.
I started playing again in a struggling country side in my 30s, half way through the season (mid life crisis I think). The side I played for hadn’t won a game all year. That year we won one game. But made the finals (4 team league that year), and lost our semi by 8 points. Our average losing margin was about 12 goals all year.
The next year we made the Grand Final only to lose after not losing a game in the second half of the season. (If half the side hadn’t been at a doof off their heads the night before we would have won, bastards. Things went downhill after that.)
My point about morale is that any analysis of stats is irrelevent. Its about the next game, the future, and thats why the chances of winning are always 50% (or just under) whatever the actual stats say. Thats what drove my teams success.
That applies to elite sport as well. Its in the nature of supporting a side.
But also the professionalism of it levels the playing field.
11 Sides have won the last 19 AFl premierships, thats approximately two thirds of the teams in the competition, and there is a 50% chance that will be twelve after this years GF. (IE St Kilda or the Bulldogs have to make the final and they have not won a GF since 1990).
So as far as morale goes you could argue that over two thirds (and 75% if St Kilda or the Bulldogs win this year) of AFL fans have had their morale improved due to the AFL over the course of a year. During the last 20 AFL seasons. A Grand Final win trumps everything else in terms of supporting elite Australian Rules Teams. Therefore a Premiership has a huge morale value compared to everything else in the game.
That one example doesn’t prove my point. But it strongly supports it, especially given the cultural power of Australian Rules football and the AFL in Australia. (BTW non aussie rules people, AFL is the name of a league, Australian Rules is the name of a game, calling the game by the name of the league contributes to the power of the league to define the game on its terms. Please don’t do it.)
I haven’t done any serious analysis of this on any level tho, discussed it with other footy fans sure, and those discussions are a big part of what made me go WTF in repsonse to your comment.
I don’t know whether a similar analysis of other popular elite team sports would provide the same impression/result.
There is another aspect to the morale building effects of elite sport. You don’t have to be a Jamaican to celebrate the performances of Ussain Bolt last month, things like that inspire everyone who is a fan, cos they constantly remind us that as humans we are always capable of surpassing our limits and extending the possibilities that life offers us. (OK it may be hard to that from a flat in gaza, or a village in the Congo but …)
“Every time a scientist, philosopher, artist or athlete pushes our thresholds to new ground the whole race evolves.”
That other aspect of morale applies to the AFL (for example) as well. If your side isn’t playing you can get enormous satisfaction from a great game because you have no stake in who wins or loses. You can be inspired (improve morale) by the performances of both sides. And of individuals on both sides.
There’s even the joy of seeing a team you don’t like suffering a loss. (There’s a dark side to everything.)
BTW I think your insight re the scatchies makes perfect sense. It isn’t perverse at all. People play sport primarily for the fun of it, and winning is far less satisfying if there is no fun involved. Somnetimes the pressure of being required to win, and to want to win interferes with peoples (eps juniors) enjoyment of the game. The scratchie trick is a great idea and a brilliant way to legitimise enjoyment in sport. Well done.
Also if you coach underdog sides that article is definitely worth checking out.
Anything that connects him to 9/11 via his capture, questioning and trial is compromised. There is no way it can be considered a fair trial and so any connection to the attacks that cannot be considered reliable, KSM was placed under extreme duress. Somewhere there are claims by people that his children were abused to get him to co operate in Pakistan, and the people making the claim are prepared to swear affidavids to that effect.
I dunno how true that claim is and aren’t interested in finding out myself but you might want to check it out Daggett.
Tho how you or anyone can claim the uncontrolled collapse of the 2 WTC towers looks anything like a controlled demolition is beyond me. Building 7 might, but its collapse looks nothing like the twin towers anyway.
Calling the collapse of the twin towers a controlled demolition is the sort of abuse of language that makes anyone with a brain look at “truthers” through very narrow eyes.
Firstly, thank your supporting my point re Khaled Sheikh Mohammed.
In regard to the ‘collapses’ of the Twin Towers, even on the day at least one news commentator commented on how the ‘collapse’ reminded him of a controlled demolotion.
Obviously they would have been of different kind of controlled demolition to the standard bottom-up demolition designed to use the force of the collapsing building to minimise the need for explosives. Nevertheless, there is no ironclad rule that says the buildings must be demolished from the bottom up.
Clearly, if the twin towers had been programmed to be destroyed from the bottom up the claim that the planes caused the collapse would have been immediately seen through.
In regard to WTC Building 7, its collapse was indistinguishable from traditional controlled demolitions as another news commentator also commented on that day. If you agree with me that that is the only possible way that what we observed can be explained, then surely we have to ask: Why wasn’t that hypothesis even considered by the NIST which was charged with explaining what would have surely otherwise been an unprecedented engineering disaster with far-reaching implications for building construction?
That they did not investigate this hypothesis and chose to lie about the collapse demonstrates to me that the ‘investigation’ was, in fact, a cover-up.
For more information, please vist Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth at ae911truth.org.
You: a country bored of prosperity and consumerism, longing for war, sacrifice, oil and profit.
Me: a rampaging monster war-criminal of your nightmares, with all the cover-ups already turned down low, and the bed of nails for our ravenous future conflicts all prepared. Let’s make freaky conspiracies with no particular strategy, except to challenge in difficulty every heretofore executed cunning plan. With scented candles.
You’ve got questions, I’ve got innuendo.
it’s EASY to hijack two planes and fly them into tall skyscrapers where mysterious men carrying TOOLKITS (oh heavens!) have laid explosives timed to mimic the collapse of skyscrapers after the two planes laden with aviation fuel have hit the buildings.
The HARD part is convincing a sceptical world that you achieved such a fiendishly clever plan….
But none of this is as difficult as giving (home) birth in a fiery bus flying above the massed ranks of burning motorbikes in the Boys’ Own Extreme Home Birthing Comp (semi-finals)
Its all a GOP Plot!. Using superior American technology Bush and Company organised for a hollywood horror spectacular to be screened simultaneously on every TV in the world. Even those people who’d never heard of America, believed 9/11 happened so he could declare war on Iraq so he could purloin Iraqi oil. But, in fact, like the moon landing it was just one gigantic hoax. And Ratty was in on it.
How long do you think it’ll take that one to fly around the intertubes? Or has somebody else already thought of it?
(ahem) As a former commo-sewer of conspiracy theories, I think I had something like your suggestion whipped up within minutes. Discounted almost immediately, of course, because a) none of those people are bright enough to dream something like that up and b) even if they were, someone would’ve Deep Throated it within days.
Anything that connects him to 9/11 via his capture, questioning and trial is compromised. There is no way it can be considered a fair trial and so any connection to the attacks that cannot be considered reliable, KSM was placed under extreme duress. Somewhere there are claims by people that his children were abused to get him to co operate in Pakistan, and the people making the claim are prepared to swear affidavids to that effect.
Jules, legally torture would only invalidate his confession and exclude it from evidence. It would not exclude a trial where evidence independent of the impugned confession was available and sufficient to prove guilt.
Also re the allegations of abuse of his children, however repulsive if true, would only be evidence supporting the impugning of any confession he made. The abuse of his children (or even a threat to abuse his children) would of course be criminal acts in themselves and if there is sufficient evidence of them the perpetrators should be tried for it. However I would not get to excited about the fact that people are prepared to swear affidavits about it. There are people prepared to swear affidavits about all sorts of things.
I understand that KSM wants to be tried before a court or tribunal and plead guilty with open admissions. If that were to take place then whether he had made an impugned confession would be legally irrelevant, although to 9/11 Truthers even that would be insufficient to establish his guilt. They will believe what they want to believe come what may.
Greg a legal system that justifies torture is (imo) invalid by definition, so whatever other evidence it comes up with is irrelevent too. Its got no business making judgements and won’t have till it pulls its head in.
Thats just me tho.
Personally I think there are a lot of questions that need answering about sept 11. The most obvious being why weren’t Bush and Cheney impeached or hung from a lamppost for gross negligence the next day?
If there’s a similar attack tomorrow Obama will be.
They were responsible and they failed in their duty of care to the American people. Whether that was deliberate or cos they are incompetent … I don’t really care. The fact they immediately got everything they wanted raises some other questions about whether Americans are mature enough to actually handle democracy.
However I don’t think any of those serious questions about the event or its surroundings relate to CD, no matter how flawed the NIST report was.
I’m not American and even if I was there are countless more important things. Like I said 9/11 is a brand.
People define themselves by it and the idea that any serious investigation of the myriad failures that preceeded it or the stunning corruption in the US that helped enable it is never gonna happen. Its one of those identity things, and it’ll be stuck in the realm of the mythological forever.
Which is a pity cos our (Western culture’s) reaction to it has been appalling, on nearly every level.
But the way so called right thinking people dismiss any questioning of it as loony “conspiracy theory” (a thought killer of a term if ever there was one) is functionally identical to Creationists rejection of evolution.
At least in my opinion.
Maybe part of my scepticism stems from the fact that someone was reporting finding a hijackers passport in the rubble by 10.30 wednesday our time.
Perhaps part comes from the simple fact that within hours of the event people (ie US FEd officials) were naming Al CIA..duh as the main suspects.
That didn’t happen with OKC bombing despite the fact that McVeigh was in custody within hours, and its pretty damn rare with any police investigation.
Osama made a statement within days strenuously denying any connection with the event, which seems odd given the way Al Quaeda (HTF do you spell it anyway?) operates and that also seems sus, well it does if it was them.
I have no idea if the hijackers acted alone or not, but I suspect they didn’t.
Even if they did the consequences of the event for our democracies and for muslims all over the world suggest it should have been investigated more and many questions surounding the event itself, what lead up to it and what we have done since should probably be answered.
Thanks for your comments Jules. As should be clear though, my observations were focused on elite sport rather than grass roots stuff, which I think is very commendable when well run.
I did look at the article and it did make sense, though I’m not a basket ball afficionado. As a teacher though, I have always approached sport from a management of outcomes/individual learning needs point of view and that’s what I took into my coaching. That’s probably why, given that I always got the teams nobody wanted to coach, it worked so well. I’m very big on the whole group morale work-as-a-team thing — given my politics that makes sense. Seeing sporting contests as a series of strategic exercises made sense for me.
We had some tremendous fun in our cricket matches.
“As should be clear though, my observations were focused on elite sport rather than grass roots stuff, which I think is very commendable when well run.”
Paul, or some other Green present
.
There’s a thread on Bob Brown’s critique of the stimulus package at Catallaxy. I know you’re reluctant to face the abuse, they do like to bash Bob, but I’d appreciate some comment viz the rationale for it.
That’s mighty fine near-ground rainbows you found, Professor Griff.
Old Isaac Newton, if they’d a had lawn sprinklers in his day, he’d a been onto that quicker than a flash.
Ain’t no mystery. Don’t need no contaminated water.
Hell, we saw dat in suburbs o’ Melbourne (Awstralia) when we wuz kids. Eisenhower wuz Prez. Menzies wuz PM. Conspiracy was Japs bombing Pearl Harbour, or Pig Iron Bob pullin’ Vladimir outa the hat for an election.
“If that were to happen, it would require that the person concerned would have reflected upon his/her actions and have changed from being a cold-blooded killer into a person capable of feeling remorse.”
Get real – what person who goes off to work on this massive project doesn’t mention this work to anyone? Just accidentally , one night when doing what we humans do so well and let loose sometimes?
What about the supplier of the plan the secret agents need so they know where to place the explosives?
Oh that’s right – it is all done by government agents and we all know how secure anything confidental or secret is within a government.
.
“Furthermore, blowing the whistle on the controlled demolition of the three WTC towers would obviously entail enormous personal risk. If anyone who were to come forward to blow the whistle, they would need immediate round-the-clock protection, or his/her life expectancy would be very short.”
So what does this mean? You live in a darkened cupboard and eat food passed through a small door after the taster has sampled it?
.
“And even then, what guarantee would there be that the Newsmedia which has already covered up so much news contrary to the Official Conspiracy Theory would even report it?
Who is to say that someone may not have already attempted to step forward but been silenced?”
Primarily the fact that thousands of people who believe they have been probed by extraterrestials seem sane compared to those who believe in the World Tower Conspiracy and yet all other readers of media get exposed to these ravings
constantly.
Oh plus the fact that when you just scratch the surface of these sites or “organisations” gross antisemitism oozes out is just repulsive.
Home grown metaphors …thats the thing isn’t it Fran, and FDB.
Elite sports and grass roots are mutually dependant, neither can really exist without the other.
And in Australia sport is a part of culture and identity, hence the value of both. But the imbalance needs addressing. Elite sport generates huge amounts of cash and it returns very little of it to the grass roots IMO. That needs to be addressed. imo its fundamental to the health(mental, physical, emotional and spiritual) of our society.
The underdog strategies are great learning tools btw. The world constantly pushes us into situations where we are “underdogs” and we need to react to a greater level of force, energy delivered, power or skill. Its important to be able to understand the dynamics of those relationships.
I look at some of our fire fighting tactics in the RFS in that way. A fire thats serious (tho not catastrophic) delivers greater energy than the people dealing with it can withstand. Classic underdog situation.
But an understanding of how fire works (ie the fire triangle, heat, O2 and fuel) gives us tools for dealing with the fire. Remove the fuel for example and the fire collapses. thats how we fight fire with fire (aka backburning).
The 9/11 attacks were also a classic underdog strike.
John Robb’s Global Guerillas site is good for that sort of analysis, open source warfare (and everything else) and decentralised networks, and their use in systems disruption is where its at.
Greg a legal system that justifies torture is (imo) invalid by definition, so whatever other evidence it comes up with is irrelevent too.
Oh, Jules. You’re not a member of the school of Humpty Dumpty definitions as well are you? That you make up definitions as you go along, and everyone has to agree with you? If you reflect upon it, it’s not a very intelligent way of thinking, is it?
If so ,and I hope it is not true of you, it just makes you opinionated but smug and ignorant in your opinions.
Legal systems don’t justify torture. They reject it. They exclude “evidence” – for it is false evidence and illegally gained- obtained from it. That does not mean that they do not go about determining breaches of the law proved on other evidence obtained and submitted to the exclusion of that false evidence. This is the intelligent way of behaving and that is the way the law operates.
They also punish of those who seek and submit to them such false evidence, while according to them the same legal rights as those who were falsely accused.
That is the intelligent approach, even if it does not satisfy the smug and unintelligent who think that their uninformed opinions should be accepted, by their own definitions, as law.
Greg a legal system that justifies torture is (imo) invalid by definition, so whatever other evidence it comes up with is irrelevent too. Its got no business making judgements and won’t have till it pulls its head in.
Thats just me tho.
Sure I make up definitions as I go along, but no one has to agree with me. We are commenting on a blog FFS not writing the Gospels.
Why don’t we agree on a consistant definition of a legal system, torture and then we can see if there is one that justifies torture, accepts evidence gained under extreme duress and uses it.
“Legal systems don’t justify torture. They reject it.”
What all legal systems, ever? Ok then…
I still think KSMs trial was far from fair. For a start he didn’t seem fit to be tried.
But again thats just me, based on my opinion, having NOT ACTUALLY BEEN THERE.
The 9/11 attacks were also a classic underdog strike.
By whom? the US government, as daggett, whose opinions you seem to think we should give credence, proposes.
or do you have some other nutcase theory that you want to expose to the world?
Also, just a point of due diligence here,(for there was a previous commenter here called jules who was one of jinmaro’s many manifestations) are you the latest manifestation of LP’s hydra (and psychologically struggling interlocutor) in one of her infinite forms?
If so best wishes to you. I’m glad I don’t have the cross you have to bear.
And if it is so I will respect your privacy and comment no more on your posts.
So what you are saying, metaphorically speaking, is that the role of the grass roots is to feed athletic flowering heads – which will explain why so many are dopes.
Once the heads have flowered, h. rumensis grazes the sports pages ‘consuming’ the athlete and belching out massive amounts of gas in order to breakdown the hemi-cellulose athletic sheath and convert its worth to a kind of morale boosting protein. And even the feacl matter can culture new athletes in our suburban parks.
Fascinating.
A favourite Monty Python skit comes to mind:
Newscaster: Ah. Well I’m afraid that we’ve lost Brian. While they’re sorting
that out, we have a report from Barry Loothesom in Lughtborrow on
the British preparations for this most important event.
Loothesom: Here at Lughtborrow are the five young men chosen last week to be
eaten by a crocodile for Britain this summer. Obviously, the most
important part of the event is the opening 60 yard sprint towards
the crocs. And twenty-two year old Nottingham schoolteacher Gavin
Watterlow is rated by some not only the fastest but also the
tastiest British morsel since Barry Gordon got a bronze at
Helsinki. In charge of the team is Sergeant Major Harold Duke.
Duke: Aww, well, you not only got to get in that pit first, you gotta
get EATEN first. When you land in front of your croc, and ‘e opens
his mouth, I wanna see you right in there. Rub your ‘ead up
against ‘is taste buds. And when those teeth bite into your flesh,
use the perches to thrust yourself DOWN his throat…
Loothesom: Duke’s trained with every British team since 1928, and it’s his
blend of gymnastic knowhow, reptilian expertise and culinary skill
that’s turned many an un-appetizing novice into a crocodilic
banquet.
Duke: Well, our chefs have been experimenting for many years to find
a sauce most likely to tempt the crocodile. In the past, we’ve
concentrated on a fish based sauce, but this year, we are reverting
to a simple bernaise.
Loothesom: The British team are worried because Olympic regulations allow
only the competitor’s heads to be sauced. Gavin Morolowe…
Morolowe: Yes, well, I mean, (clears throat) you know, four years ago,
everyone knew the Italians were coating the insides of their legs
with bolinaise, the Russians have been marinating themselves, One
of the Germans, Biolek, was caught actually putting, uh, remolarde
down his shorts. And the Finns were using tomato flavoured running
shoes. Uh, I think there should either be unrestricted garnishing,
or a single, Olympic standard mayonnaise.
Loothesom: Gavin, does it ever worry you that you’re actually going to be
chewed up by a bloody, grey crocodile.
Morolowe: The only thing that worries me, Jim, is being the first one down
that gully.
Loothesom: Well, the way things are going here at Lughtborrow, it looks as
though Britan could easily pick up a place in the first seven
hundred. But nothing’s predictable in this tough, harsh, highly
competitive world where today’s champion is tomorrow’s crocodile
shit.
OK perhaps some confusion arises from the fact that the trial that started in 2008 at Guantanamo hasn’t finished as yet to the best of my knowledge, and is awaiting a plea (which strangely, you know about) thats been delayed due to hearings to determine how nuts his co accused might be. But still, far from fair, and his comments … he sounds a bit like he has lost the plot.
Anyway you have been smugly condescending and can’even be bothered to read what I type, let alone answer my questions. You can find a link yourself, I’m not your waiter.
I’m sure someone will tell you how to use wikipedia.
If you agree with me that that is the only possible way that what we observed can be explained, then surely we have to ask: Why wasn’t that hypothesis even considered by the NIST which was charged with explaining what would have surely otherwise been an unprecedented engineering disaster with far-reaching implications for building construction?
FDB, my comment was addressed to Jules who had acknowledged that the collapse of Building 7 might have been a controlled demolition.
If anyone has any doubt that the collapse of WTC 7 was not a controlled demolition, please check out these videos by US Physics teacher David Chandler.
Each is at the very most 10 minutes. The presentation style is quite lively. The videos of NIST people finally admitting to what David Chandler had maintained all along, but they had previously adamantly denied, that is, that for over two seconds WTC 7 collapsed at accelarations indistinquishable from free-fall, is not to be missed.
However I don’t think any of those serious questions about the event or its surroundings relate to CD, no matter how flawed the NIST report was.
Please think more carfully about this. The NIST was, very belatedly, after the 9/11 Commission tried to pretend that WTC 7 had not even ‘collapsed’, charged with establishing how WTC 7 had ‘collapsed’. They have clearly failed to provide an explanation that makes sense and they have failed to consider any of the overwhelming video evidence and eyewitness testimony in support of the controlled demolition hypothesis.
Do you think that that is good enough? Why aren’t the US taxpayers and, more importantly, the construction engineering profession, given a clear picture of what happened that is, unless the ‘inquiry’ was intended to cover up a crime.
As I have pointed out, large numbers of US citizens are demanding a new and proper inquiry into 9/11 including into the ‘collapses’ of WTC 7 as well as the Twin Towers, so that we can discover the truth of what happened on that day one way or the other.
So, why shouldn’t a proper inquiry be set up as the 9/11 Truth Movement demands?
I understand that KSM wants to be tried before a court or tribunal and plead guilty with open admissions. If that were to take place then whether he had made an impugned confession would be legally irrelevant, …
Of course, I would be most interested to see Khaled Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) openly admit to having helped mastermind 9/11 in a court room. I would also be most interested to learn where and how he and his alleged co-conspirators plotted 9/11 and I would be most interested to see that evidence corroborated by other witnesses and other evidence.
In the meantime, until that happens, I think I have every right to remain extremely skeptical given the total lack of any other creidble evidence after eight years and given the vastly stronger body of evidence which implicates senior figures within the US Government.
In fact, 9/11 appears, to some extent, to have been carried out by patsies who genuinely believed that what they were doing was going to strike a mortal blow against the infidel West. It may well turn out that some of those patsies did operate from Afhanistan and KSM may have even been one of them, but we have yet to see any solid evidence that they did, as even you acknowledge.
I wonder if it is time to comment on the Dennis Ferguson case. It is particularly pertinent for me, since he is staying five-seven minutes by car from where I grew up and I still have primary-school-aged family members in the area.
Now DF is not one of nature’s gentleman, and I can’t say that I’d befriend him or even giver him the time of day if the occasion arose, but I do accept that he has a right to live, which clearly implies a right to live somewhere, and provided he is getting an appropriate level of ’support’ it might as well be in Ryde as anywhere. It’s hard to imagine that he could in practice be a threat to anyone, and the protests are, it seems to me, an exercise in pure animus, which reflects poorly on those involved.
I heard one of the protesters complaining that he keeps moving from place to place, which probably qualifies as one of the more ironic claims in the public discourse I have heard. I’d have loved to ask the woman why she thought that was and what could be done about it.
Re Dennis Ferguson. i suspect he’s too old to be a threat to anyone. I agree that now he has served his time he has the right to live peaceably and quietly at a reasonable distance away from schools, playgrounds and other places where children gather.
The thing that bothers me about the way he’s being treated by a lot of understandably terrified parents, is that, according to a forensic psychologist I saw on TV last night or this morning, if he is harrassed in this way and not allowed to live a normal life (eg grow red flowers in pot plants) there is a grave danger he might re-offend, because the community does not allow him to adapt back into society.
For all we know he might be “cured” -though I wonder if that is possible. But he has got himself engaged in some peculiar jobs that might bring him in contact with children. I can’t help being suspicious. But then again such news comes from the Murdoch stable, so it might be a lie.
btw, isn’t wonderful the way these Saturday Salons are turning into real gab-fests? I like it, anyway.
I doubt he is cured but that’s not the same as claiming that he is an ongoing threat.
In any event, the crime for which Ferguson was convicted involved systematic grooming. He didn’t snatch a child at random from the streets but befriended a woman whose husband Ferguson knew to be serving time for sexually abusing the very children in question. Then, in concert with another man, persuaded the mother to allow him to take these vulnerable and very young children on holidays. That’s his MO.
He’s one of Australia’s best known hate figures, so how likely is that in the current context? Zero. One may assume that all the people with children in the area have cautioned their children, so really, apart from an extreme version of not wanting unpleasant neighbours in the street, I don’t see the problem.
If you’re not going to have a death penalty or a life without parole for single low level sex offences (and on the evidence by the crown in 1987, he was interrupted in the nick of time) then you have to allow even very undesirable characters to live somewhere.
The most pathetic comment that I heard regarding the unfortunate Dennis Ferguson is that he should be in an area away from young families, of which there are apparently a preponderance in the Ryde area. Unlike most other areas of Sydney? WTF? I live (sadly out of place) in the ultra trendy inner west area, and even here it’s full of young families infesting the footpaths and cafes with their four wheel drive prams and ordering skinny babychinnos for their delightful offspring.
So where the hell is he supposed to live? The only place I can think of that doesn’t have young families nearby is jail.
Daggett, you have every right to remain skeptical, if by skeptical you mean the process of reserving judgement about something and keeping an open mind. But that’s not what you’re doing is it?
What’s your suggestion? What’s your theory about what happened? What could possibly satisfy you that there was not a massive conspiracy to whip Americans into war-frenzy? Is there any evidence that could be presented to you that would change your mind about the invalidity of your so-called Official Narrative? Unless there is it’s on you to suggest a reason why your Senior Government conspirators would have done it, and innuendo just doesn’t cut it. You’ll just keep reaching for ever more tenuous “facts” to support your paranoid fantasies.
The September 11 attacks had no secret agenda. They were just tragic, senseless violence, and should be remembered as such.
Yours is not a search for “truth”, it’s an obscurantist, occultist search for hidden gnostic pearls, rejecting all fairness with primary sources, and it’s the opposite of history. I will not watch your videos. I will not read your Questions. I will not debate you on the differences between detonation and deflagration and the finer points of aluminium thermite’s utility in demolitions. I utterly reject the idea that your argument can be dealt with fairly or reasonably. Your “movement” should be engaged with only with derision, mocking and contempt.
So in that here’s some fucken’ youtube of a bloke wheelieing his bike on a skyscraper. Enjoy.
GregM I am not whoever you think I am. (I missed you question last nite or i would have answered it then.)
My take on 9/11 is a lot more complicated than most people on either side of that pointless debate would have.
I think its stupid to assume their were no hijackers involved, but equally stupid to assume there was no dodgy bullshit going on at the time. Dodgy bullshit the hijackers might not have been aware of.
I have known people in the “truth” movement for years. Most of them are pretty upset that the focus is on how the buildings collapsed rather than the drugs, arms people smuggling networks that intersect intel agencies and terrorist groups worldwide.
The only theory I have is that you can’t trust unaccountable power.
if thats a nutcase theory fine.
oh I hve another one.
Any discussion of 9/11 feeds the egregore.
Daggett – all that stuff about building 7 may be true. I don’t know and I don’t really care.
At a guess 15, 000 kids have died from poverty and disease since I last posted on this thread.
Who gives a fuck about 3000 dead yuppies nearly 10 years ago?
That comment was way too harsh and unreasonable and an insult to the firemen, cops and other people who died trying to help save lives. ASnd the ordinary working people who went to work that day expecting to go home to their families friends and lives. Its also completely bogus to call the janitors, cops and firemen and whoever else was there “yuppies” when odds are they weren’t.
I apologise to the families of the people who died there for letting my frustration drive me to make such a tasteless comment.
Like most people who hacve paid attention to the events of 9/11 I rather doubt the full account has come out. Certainly anyone who read that book on the 9/11 Commission would have cause to believe that there is more to come out.
On the other hand, I think it utterly implausible to imagine that anything that could be described as a high-level government conspiracy took place to either facilitate the attacks or engineer events to look like same (as some “truthers” claim). To carry such a thing off would have entailed far more organisationasl coherence than the Bush Administration was capable of and implied literally thousands of people keeping stum for years after the events when there was a huge incentive to spill the beans and practically no incentive not to.
It might well be said that the Bush Administration was asleep at the wheel, and it is perverse that on the morning of the attacks the SAC was running a simulation of the attacks in question and it is bizarre that the towers collpased as neatly as they did and much of the steel reinforcement material that would have been evidentiary was apparently removed, but much as I would like good answers on these things, filling these curiosities with outlandish and often contradictory conspiracy accounts serves no good purpose.
I can’t believe i am gonna type more pointless stuff about 9/11.
But here goes:
“In fact, if there were any conspiracy here, I’d be far more inclined to believe that this whole movement was cooked up by Karl Rove as a kind of mass cyber-provocation, along the lines of Gordon Liddy hiring hippie peace protesters to piss in the lobbies of hotels where campaign reporters were staying.”
Thats about the only intelligent thing in the article. Its probably true, too, cos all we hear in the media is CD this and holograms that coming from those troofer nuts.
And it obviously worked cos Taibbi didn’t even mention Indira Singh or Sibel Edmonds.
Now I’m gonna ask a question thats been drowned out by the banging on about buildings that collapsed into a huge mess at significantly less than free fall speeds outside their own footprint. (Don’t believe me daggert, analyse the collapse for yourself. I have.) So far outside that footprint that a huge chunk of them slammed into building 7 as is clearly visible on any video of the event.
That question.
What orders were Dick Cheney referring to when he said “The orders still stand” (as quoted by Norman Mieta in his testimony to the 9/11 commission) at approximately 9.30 am on 11 sept 2001. Truthers claim Cheney issued stand down orders that morning, which is another misinterpretation (at least) of the evidence.
Is Cheney referring to the revocation of the shoot down orders that were in place pre July 01 wrt hijackings in the US. (IE shoot down orders were revoked in July, not the morning of the attack as some nutjob conspiratainment superstars like Alex Jones claim.)
Orders that came suspiciously close to the numerous reported briefing of potential Al Qaeda attacks that could well involve hijacking of planes to use as weapons. (Briefing to, if I remeber rightly, Rice, Addington, Ashcroft and numerous dept heads in the FBI, CIA and other alphabet agencies that sem to infest the US and the rest of the world.)
I believe theres even a record of Mossad trying to make these warnings clear to US somewhere (apparantly they did this on more than one occasion in the months leading up to 9/11), something the wanna be Nazis that hijacked the troof movement to further their own vile agenda never acknowledge.
This may all be innocent, and it may simply be a case that Cheney couldn’t bring himself to order the deaths of hundreds of hijacking victims. I can certainly relate to that. (Tho I seriously doubt it.)
Either way it has to be investigated properly. here we have testimony that clearly states Cheney was in the bunker at 9.25 am, while the commission itself claims he didn’t enter until 9.58 am. This sort of inconsistency deserves to be investigated.
Conspiracy or incompetent negligence who cares.
The fact that bush and cheney weren’t locked up, shot or hung from the white house chandeliers for such a massive failure in their duty of care to the US, but instead got everything they wanted as they proceded to dismantle centuries old legal protections and disappear people into a worldwide network of bases uses for detention and torture of anyone unfortunate enough to get in caught up in the mess, while at the same time they acted against the very constitution they were sposed to be bound by, and procdeed to start an illegal war with no rel;ation to the attack itself… (takes a deep breath)
That is something that really needs answering.
Anyway i’m off to give myself an exorcism.
Sorry for all the typos and poor grammer but really I’ve sunk enough energy into this black hole already.
In Mein Kampf, Hitler explained the believability of the Big Lie as compared to the small lie: “In the simplicity of their minds, people more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have such impudence. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and continue to think that there may be some other explanation.”
What the sociologists and Hitler are telling us is that by the time facts become clear, people are emotionally wedded to the beliefs planted by the propaganda and find it a wrenching experience to free themselves. It is more comfortable, instead, to denounce the truth-tellers than the liars whom the truth-tellers expose.
…
The staying power of the Big Lie is the barrier through which the 9/11 Truth Movement is finding it difficult to break. The assertion that the 9/11 Truth Movement consists of conspiracy theorists and crackpots is obviously untrue. The leaders of the movement are highly qualified professionals, such as demolition experts, physicists, structural architects, engineers, pilots, and former high officials in the government. Unlike their critics parroting the government’s line, they know what they are talking about.
…
People don’t even notice the contradictions. Recently, an international team of scientists, who studied for 18 months dust samples produced by the twin towers’ destruction collected from three separate sources, reported their finding of nano-thermite in the dust. The US government had scientists dependent on the US government to debunk the finding on the grounds that the authenticity of custody of the samples could not be verified. In other words, someone had tampered with the samples and added the nano-thermite. This is all it took to discredit the finding, despite the obvious fact that access to thermite is strictly controlled and NO ONE except the US military and possibly Israel has access to nano-thermite.
The physicist, Steven Jones, has produced overwhelming evidence that explosives were used to bring down the buildings. His evidence is not engaged, examined, tested, and refuted. It is simply ignored.
…
What I find puzzling is the people I know who do not believe a word the government says about anything except 9/11. For reasons that escape me, they believe that the government that lies to them about everything else tells them the truth about 9/11. How can this be, I ask them. Did the government slip up once and tell the truth? My question does not cause them to rethink their belief in the government’s 9/11 story. Instead, they get angry with me for doubting their intelligence or their integrity or some such hallowed trait.
The problem faced by truth is the emotional needs of people. With 9/11 many Americans feel that they must believe their government so that they don’t feel like they are being unsupportive or unpatriotic, and they are very fearful of being called “terrorist sympathizers.” Others on the left-wing have emotional needs to believe that peoples oppressed by the US have delivered “blowbacks.” Some leftists think that America deserves these blowbacks and thus believe the government’s propaganda that Muslims attacked the US.
…
In New York today there is an enormous push by 9/11 families for a real and independent investigation of the 9/11 events. Tens of thousands of New Yorkers have provided the necessary signatures on petitions that require the state to put the proposal for an independent commission up to vote. However, the state, so far, is not obeying the law.
Why are the tens of thousands of New Yorkers who are demanding a real investigation dismissed as conspiracy theorists? The 9/11 skeptics know far more about the events of that day than do the uninformed people who call them names. Most of the people I know who are content with the government’s official explanation have never examined the evidence. Yet, these no-nothings shout down those who have studied the matter closely.
Is anyone getting so sick of the ABC that they would advocate that the government sell off most, if not all of it. To put it another way, what is the point of a public broadcaster that:
-Is relentlessly partisan to one side of politics, and does little more than repeat coalition/News Ltd talking points ad nauseum.
-Is dumbing down most of its news/current affairs content (particularly on-line) to the extent that it is virtually indistinguishable from commercial networks.
- Produces little local content of any significance apart from the odd quiz show and embarrassingly bad ‘dramas’ that attempt to mimick their most recent success, Seachange (and that was 10 years ago).
- Whose only programs that are of any quality are usually imported from overseas, and could be sourced through other means if the ABC didn’t exist.
Please, someone tell me why we need the ABC in its current form?????
Rage, although the programming on that has been a bit suss lately too. In a three hour period all the good songs were by women, and all but two of the songs by men were sung by Australian Idol contestants. Also, Backstreet Boys now that you are in your 40’s (or very late 30’s at least) don’t try and cash in on the Vampire phenomenon and take yourselves seriously at the same time. You have to take the piss or retire.
Part of the problem with the ABC is that has become infiltrated with employees of News Limited. Three names which come to mind are Madonna King, Sally Neighbour and Phillip Adams. The fact that they selected Rupert Murdoch to deliver the 2008 Boyer lectures is a symptom of that problem. stopmurdoch.blogspot.com has a lot to say about this.
If it was sold to News Ltd, then at least it would have to abandon the pretence of independence, and maybe we could use the money to fund something useful and worthwhile. The ABC is neither of these at the moment.
Anyone who posts article which includes the eye-opening sentence:
What the sociologists and Hitler are telling us
Is just asking for some arsehole to come along and link to Mein Kampf to draw your analogy out, daggett, and I hope yu’re happy. Omitted from the Roberts quote you linked to is the rather essential sentence in my italics:
For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes. From time immemorial however, the Jews…
Hitler argued that Jews were behind the Big Lie of German leaders’ responsibility for the defeat in 1918. At least the Fascists were honest in having a positive target to conspiratorial paranoia. When you look through the Big Lie you claim is there around 9/11 what do you see?
And while we are doing controversial stuff … isn’t it time the ISAF forces left Afghanistan?
It appears that opposition in the US is now over 50% and it seems unlikely, with Mike Mullen describing the situation as serious and deteriorating, that it will become more popular any time soon. The recent elections underscored the difficulties involved. The exchange with Lindsay Graham “how many tanks have the Taliban got?” was devastating.
Obama would lose face leaving, as he (unwisely in my opinion) pledged support but in the longer run, as they say, all politics is local. He only needs to find a face saving way to leave — perhaps retreating to a watching brief in neighbouring states and he can say they are ready to send in troops if anything of national security concern develops. That would radically cut the cost of the intervention in money and bodies and many of the people the West doesn’t like could shoulder the business of killing each other.
The project was always unworkable. There is no significant group of persons upon which one could found a viable inclusive state, even with armed support from the outside. Accordingly, Afghanistan has never been a nation in any meaningful sense. What we have there is a largely 8th century patriarchal tribal culture equipped with the rudiments of late 20th century technology — an ugly mix.
Admit you got it wrong, and get the hell out of there I say.
PS … can anyone recall when the last time someone in power claimed that apprehending OBL or Mullah Omar was seen as a goal of the occupation? I think Obama mentioned it before becoming President in relation to Pakistan.
Daggett, did you read it? I like the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld planning session especially, and also this:
“the “conspiracy” they’re describing is impossible everywhere outside a Zucker brothers movie — unbelievably stupid in its conception, pointlessly baroque and excessive in its particulars, but flawless in its execution, with no concrete evidence left behind and tens of thousands keeping their roles a secret forever.”
On the ABC. Part of the reason they no longer do a lot of local drama is a) Howard and his cronies forced them to outsource it -ten years ago.
b) Their budget was cut to the bone by the Howard Government. i know Rudd sort of restored it, but it takes a while to get good drama series up.
Eventually Rudd will get sick of the Murdoch propagandists and put a broom through the place.
That’s very true, Paul Burns. The commercial broadcasters have local content quotas they have to meet, but strangely enough nether ABC nor SBS has had to do that. That’s a good thing because after they were cut to the bone by the Libs, they didn’t have enough money to make sufficient programming to fulfill a quota. That’s one reason why you see so many cheap and cheerful panel shows – they’re dirt cheap to produce.
The Labor Party promised that both that the ABC would have to meet local content quotas in the future and increased the funding, specifically for drama production, in the last budget. So, we should be seeing the fruits of that in 2010. Bear in mind that drama production costs $500,000 – $800,000 per hour to produce, whereas it only costs about $50,000 per hour to buy in a top rating British or US series.
I’d love someone to explain to me what the point of the ABC is in its current form. OK we may get some decent drama in 2010 or whatever, but maybe the ABC isn’t the best vehicle to deliver this drama, given its track record.
Yes, I know it’s more than TV – the radio news and current affairs content is even worse than the TV counterpart. Anyone remember when AM and PM used to be genuine current afairs programs?
If it doesn’t really have any point, why not use the money for a worthwhile media initiative?
I think that it’s the old boiling frog routine. We have gradually come to accept less and less from the ABC and react against any calls for its sale more from some imagined ideal of the past rather than present day reality.
Prevaricateur? Get crackin’, FDB.
Monsieur L’Agent, Yahtzee is forbidden by my work’s access policies. Unlike Adolf Hitler’s major work—make of that what conspiracies you please.
Well, grammatically a nonsense, but in the struggle to use our moniker to segue from something daft someone else has just said to our own youtube clip, we work with what we’re given eh?
In this case, 2 years of high school French and a lazy afternoon bottle of Cooper’s Sparkling in the sun.
isn’t it time the ISAF forces left Afghanistan?
.
They can’t. If they do it will be percieved as a defeat and those people who’d side with the Taliban and Al Qaeda would flock there in droves to train for other 9/11s. Eventually another war would obtain.
.
Of course that’ll probably happen anyway. We should never’ve gone to war in Afghanistan in the first place.
On the fearsome Dennis Fergusson I want to grab these rabid mothers and raging fathers and force them to acknowledge that the responsibility for keeping their children safe is entirely theirs. Stranger danger certainly can’t be an issue in this case, parents can surely warn their kids of his “oddness” without unduly alarming or distressing them.
As well they need to be reminded that most child abuse occurs within the family, whether immediate or wider, or is perpetrated by someone known to and often trusted by the family in church, school or the neighbourhood at large. And of course most of the outrageously real statistics about child sexual abuse shows it to have been perpetrated in institutions into which children were taken for so called “care”.
Child abuse was not bruited about in my long ago infancy and primary school days,
but I can tell you it was real. I vividly recall the 1947 suicide in his about-to-be consecrated newly re-built church of a popular, married Anglican priest. Adults were totally astonished and postulated ideas about over-work (he had done so much to raise funds for that restoration) and money worries (he was already the father of five with another on the way). The children at his youth club knew differently. He had for some time been “playing with” some of the girls and inevitably they whispered their sad little stories to each other. Some of the boys heard about it and being particularly straight thinking they went as a group and told him he had to stop it! They could never have foreseen the tragic outcome. The true story never surfaced publicly.
In those days most children were left to their own devices for hours and days on end, some because their parents worked or many out of “benign neglect” and the belief that children needed to develop self reliance. There was little thought of sexual exploitation.
I am not sure that today’s full awareness of the extent of sexual predation makes children any safer. Parents still leave their children too much to their own devices without giving them the information and guidance which would protect them against abuse. Why are youngsters still left unsupervised in playgrounds and swimming pools? Why do we need internet censorship when parental supervision and monitoring of cyber-contact is so easily done? Because parents are lazy and expect someone else out there to do it all for them. Those making the loudest protests are often the least ready to take personal responsibility for what happens to their kids.
On the fearsome Dennis Fergusson I want to grab these rabid mothers and raging fathers and force them to acknowledge that the responsibility for keeping their children safe is entirely theirs.
Why do we need internet censorship when parental supervision and monitoring of cyber-contact is so easily done? Because parents are lazy and expect someone else out there to do it all for them. Those making the loudest protests are often the least ready to take personal responsibility for what happens to their kids.
Well said, Patricia WA. Ditto bans on junk food advertising. Get off your arse and parent your kids for Goddsakes, it’s not the TV’s fault their stuffing their face with McDonalds.
It makes no difference either way. If people are determined to create new 9/11s then whether western troops are bleeding in Afghanistan is neither here nor there.
Right now the war is bleeding the west and making it look ineffectual. There is a victory for the other side of this asymmetric war right there. Whether the west admits defeat or not, everyone know it is defeated — it’s just here, nobody in power wants to say it out loud, and even worse, admit the death and injury toll has been for nothing.
To keep going though — for ten years which is what they are saying, throws good resources after irrecoverable resources for ends that are utterly improbable. The separation of church and state, the creation of a distinct civil sphere, or modernity took hundreds of years in the west and it wasn’t peaceable either. Afghanistan isn’t getting anything like that inside 50 years and certainly not at gun- and drone-point.
On the fearsome Dennis Fergusson I want to grab these rabid mothers and raging fathers and force them to acknowledge that the responsibility for keeping their children safe is entirely theirs. Stranger danger certainly can’t be an issue in this case, parents can surely warn their kids of his “oddness” without unduly alarming or distressing them.
and Michael Sutcliffe who agrees with her.
Except for one thing: from Fran Barlow @175
In any event, the crime for which Ferguson was convicted involved systematic grooming. He didn’t snatch a child at random from the streets but befriended a woman whose husband Ferguson knew to be serving time for sexually abusing the very children in question. Then, in concert with another man, persuaded the mother to allow him to take these vulnerable and very young children on holidays. That’s his MO.
I take it that what Fran has written is true.
If it is true then that is nothing, short of stifling their child, a parent can protect them from such a calculating predator.
In such cases society should, through its instrument, the Parliament, pass laws to protect children from predators who do those things and in the face of such predation continue those laws through the life of the predator.
Fran’s conclusion (that we, as a society, should do nothing) from the facts she has laid out are, of course, nonsense. If she took the time to research the literature she would find that for pedophiles it is the impulse and the opportunity, not the MO, which drives the criminal behaviour.
Afghanistan is a classic example of why asymetric warfare tends to favour the underdog or “weaker” party. For a start the definition of weaker is problematic. The language used is not appropriate to the situation. Greater access to tech, more advanced tech, and greater access to resources on a scale bigger than the place where the conflict is taking place doesn’t translate into greater access to resources and tech in the actual theatre of battle.
A fair bit has to do with the nature of combatants. Greater access ot resources means greater centralisation and anyone familiar with how fire fighting in Victoria works will be aware of the problems with that.
Afghanistan is called the graveyard of empires for good reason. Its a logistical nightmare. Empires (and the US is an imperial force these days) get their advantages from greater access to resources, and without the logistical networks to supply these resources the empires are immediately disadvantaged. This is Afghanistan all over.
Of course there is more to it than just that, but its a start.
As usual GregM, you are mistaken on anumber of matters.
At no point do I claim/imply that “we, as a society, should do nothing” about sexual predators. I merely point out that as long as we don’t have life sentences or death, then they have to live somewhere. As a matter of practice, it’s probably unrealistic to house them in the suburbs — as the events in Ryde suggest. Rational or not, this is the reality, so maybe a next best solution is some sort of gated community designed to house them at some distance from regular folk.
I disagree though that parents have no role to play. Handing your already-abused kids over to some person for a “holiday” who has suddenly befriended you sounds like pretty poor judgement to me. If no alarms go off in your head at the suggestion, you probably aren’t up to the job of parenting.
Even as children you knew the parts of the neighbourhood with dangerous dogs and you took that into account when making your way home. This is no different in principle.
Finally we are not talking of Ferguson’s impulses but the threat he poses. These are quite separate.
Afghanistan isn’t just asymetric warfare, its 4th generation warfare, its a classic example of it, and the Taliban are using 4th gen tactics to great advantage. They have succeeded in delegitimising the state, tho its wasn’t that legit to begin with, and increasingly they are delegitimising the occupation forces, tho they, well we, have done a fair job of that themselves.
* The difference between 4th gen war and traditional insurgency is not always apparant, not always existant even, 4th gen warfare is jargon, but its useful jargon.
The only legitimacy left is basically with tribal groups and traditional elders. This is hardly great for “demcracy” and probably not real good for the future of human rights in there.
But it does provide an opportunity for the US to strike back. And they apear to be about to take it. (Tho whether they will, time will tell.)
Open source is where its at apparantly. And the US has decided to repeat its (successful it seems) experiment in open source counter insurgency.
You might remember the serge in Iraq? Along with the increased troop numbers the US poured a fair amount of resources and effort into arming, training and protecting Sunni militia. The also gave them a fair amount of autonomy to act, in the understanding that the militia would direct its own efforts against other insurgents that the US had been fighting and losing to.
With this tactic it effectively co opted the insurgency and used it to further the US’ own ends. This was a radical departure from previous Counter Insurgency policy which was based on maintaining and extending the legitimacy and sovreignty of the state.
Not quite sure why, Michael, @ 217, but I disagree with you about the McDonalds and other junk food ads. I think it’s because drawing the same analogy as yourself from my comment would mean I thought it OK for pedophiles to be trawling the internet and openly offering abusive sexual experience to any takers.
Junk foods are determinedly and openly targeted at children during their prime time viewing. Advertising by manufacturers and retailers in supermarkets is carefully designed to achieve maximum effect i.e. to push their products at parents through their kids. The ban on advertising for smoking seems to have had a healthy impact on the population at large over the years so I don’t see why some control of junk food advertising targeting kids shouldn’t work too. And that’s not just good for the particular kids who might grow up into healthier adults, but it’s good for the national budget too.
And yes, I do think parents should be mindful of what their kids are watching on TV. Unless, however, you can be like my daughter and other like-minded parents, and don’t have TV on for kids at all, then we should be able to look for some social controls on what is beamed into our homes. By the way, initially I was sceptical that the TV ban next door was practical, but it has been and the pay-off in happy, active and creative kids is huge. But as a one time working parent who relied on Skippy, Gilligan’s Island and Hogan’s Heroes to entertain my kids while I made tea and unwound from the job I can sympathise with the vast majority of Mums and Dads out there struggling with what their kids are exposed to.
So how is that different from my feeling that parents are directly responsible for their children’s moral and physical welfare with particular reference to sexual abuse? I’m thinking hard about it and I’d be glad of help on this!! After watching the 7.30 Report just now I was really glad there are people out there at least threatening arrest to these predators. However I still think general censorship like the clean feed will just make parents more complacent and feel less directly responsible for giving these sick individuals the opportunity to satisfy their impulses (thanks GregM) with children who clearly feel alone in their world.
This flies in the face of what Mullins is reorted to have said today. But it appears Mullins wants a surge in AfPak. He reaffirmed his committment to tradition CoIn, but obviously thats not compatible with a surge strategy. Of course expecting a military leader to come out with his actual tactics in the news media is dumb as so when they do it you have to wonder they actually plan to do.
There’s not alot of difference between using militias and open source CoIn, but the major diffrerence, and its fundamental I reckon, is the shift from maintaining and extending the state’s sovreignty.
Anyway hopefully this shift to Open source CoIn might create a situation that enables a quicker withdrawal.
Cos “We should never’ve gone to war in Afghanistan in the first place.”
underdog or “weaker” party. For a start the definition of weaker is problematic. The language used is not appropriate to the situation
Are we to take it, jules, that you are arguing in favour of symmetric warfare, (posited as its contrast- and I have used the word posited here only to excite the interest of Fran who uses big words she doesn’t understand, and I think it is only charitable that I indulge her in that) where the combatants bring every resource at their disposal to bear, so as to prevail over their enemy (essentially the story of WW2)?
And on that basis the stronger party, which is overabundantly armed with nuclear weapons should just nuke every last place held by its enemy so as tc end the war?
That’s what symmetric warfare is.
Note that I haven’t expressed my views on the topic, Ive just asked for yours.
GragMan it really seems as if you have comprehension problems. Then again that was a pretty long winded up meself way of saying: “expect the coalition in Afghanistan to move away from supporting Khazai and pump more resources into tribal groups.”
It was annoying enough to write so I can’t blame anyone for finding it hard to follow and incoherent.
The only real significance of that is the shift away from traditional US counter insurgency. The implications of that shift are interesting and will be far reaching.
I’d never argue in favour of any warfare, unless I’m/we’re under a direct threat, its a waste of energy and resources.
Anyway wrt the quote you used, if weaker parties are actually weaker why are tho so successful in those situations referred to as asymetric warfare?
Sure in a symetric conflict the weaker party would get flogged, but asymetric warfare isn’t symetric wherefor, obviously. So using the same sort of language and the same sort of values to judge and define asymetric conflict is dumb. You’re already ata disadvantage cos the language you use interferes with your ability to accurately describe and therefore to accurately understand whats going on.
Its interesting tho, cos the nation state is on the way out and this conflict is a great way to see how the nation state in its most powerful incarnation (the US) copes with that, and what tactics it employs to slow the process.
Now I’m gonna ask a question thats been drowned out by the banging on about buildings that collapsed into a huge mess at significantly less than free fall speeds outside their own footprint.
What do you mean “significantly less than free fall speeds”? I don’t have the precise total collapse time at the tip of my fingers, but it was not much less than free-fall speed.
How could a building with so much redundant strength in its supporting structural steel collapse at anywhere near that speed through the path of greatest resistance?
One thing that is totally inexplicable if we accept the explanation that the collapse was due to gravity alone was that during one measured interval the speed of the front of the wave of building collapse on the North Tower actually exceeded free fall speed. See for yourself in US Physics teacher David Chandler’s video “Race With Gravity”.
Something other than gravity must have driven that collapse.
(Don’t believe me daggett, analyse the collapse for yourself. I have.) So far outside that footprint that a huge chunk of them slammed into building 7 as is clearly visible on any video of the event.
So, what point are you trying to make?
As I have already acknowedged the Twin Tower ‘collapses’ were obviously different from standard bottom-up controlled demolitions. Surely I don’t need to point out again that if the Twin Towers had been demolished in the conventional way there is no way they could have passed the collapses off as having been caused by the impact of the aircraft.
Although I am not an engineer, far less a demolition engineer, one would expect that it would be much harder to make the building collapse completely into its own footprint if the detonation sequence was top down.
The fact that so much building material was ejected such great distances would be due to the fact that those who set up the demolition would have erred on the side of using too much explosives to be more certain that no incriminating evidence would be subsequently found.
The critical point with the Twin Towers is not how well what we saw conforms with traditional controlled demolitions, rather it is whether the sudden total loss of structural strength can be fully explained by the impact of Flight 11 and the fire.
If not, then we have to ask what else could have so suddenly removed that strength. The only explanation offered is that it was removed by planted explosives detonated in a rapid sequence from the top down.
The term I choose to use for this and whaht news reporters used on the day is ‘controlled demolition’. If you want to use a different term, than that is fine by me.
A proper investigation that was seriously intended to explain how the towers collapsed would have investigated this hypothesis and taken account of the recorded evidence and numerous eyewitness accounts in support of that hypothesis, but it did not.
Thank you for pointing out that when Hitler enunciated the principle of the Big Lie, he was meaning to accuse Jews of employing the technique. At least that explains to me why Hitler would have included that in Mein Kampf. It would hardly have helped his cause if he had announced to his own followers that he intended to use the same propaganda technique that he accused jews of using.
Regardless, the passage acccurately explains how that technique works and so it seems appropriate that Paul Craig Roberts chose to use that quote in his article.
Liam at #177 “Yours is not a search for “truth”, it’s an obscurantist, occultist search for hidden gnostic pearls, rejecting all fairness with primary sources, and it’s the opposite of history.”
Daggett I am not having the same argument with you that I have had countless times with countless others.
Just consider for a moment.
You are asking people to accept that something can fall faster than free fall. Both in the case of the towers and building 7.
The towers obviously didn’t fall at free fall speed – debris from them clearly does, thats why it is falling ahead of the collapse. IE when you see a photo and there is a huge chunk of wall falling beside the building, ahead of the collapse wave or whatever you call it, then clearly that debris is falling at free fall speed. When the building takes 50% longer to fall than an object in free fall would its obviously wrong to say it fell at free fall or near free fall speeds. I accept the NIST report also makes ridiculous claims about the speed of the fall etc etc trying to fit some pre concieves norion of what happened thats no reason to imitate them.
also if ….
Arggggh fuck I can’t believe I’m typing this.
Sucked in again…
Did you (everyone besides Daggett, he should already know this,) know Mohammed Atta went out with Amanda Keller.
How could a building with so much redundant strength in its supporting structural steel collapse at anywhere near that speed through the path of greatest resistance?
Why would a Wookiee, an eight-foot tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of two-foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case?
Regardless, the passage acccurately explains how that technique works
I know. That’s why I showed it to you.
People who look through Big Lies usually see something on the other side, daggett. Apart from fluff and bluster and pre-emptive Chewbacca defence, what’ve you got? A secret Cabal blew up buildings to hide the fact that planes wouldn’t destroy them? I mean, why bother with the planes at all? Why are we arguing about freefall “speed” when it’s really on you to answer WHY THE HELL THIS SUPPOSED CONSIPRACY MAKES ANY SENSE?
The fact that so much building material was ejected such great distances would be due to the fact that those who set up the demolition would have erred on the side of using too much explosives to be more certain that no incriminating evidence would be subsequently found.
PatriciaWA, I think you are a bit out of touch re. these “benignly neglectful” parents of today. The prevailing culture at the moment is not to let the children out enough , to drive them most places and not let the poor things have an unsupervised moment. This brings with it its own different risks – a naive and sheltered teenager or 20something is also at risk of sexual assault and other harms. The pendulum needs to swing back more towards the benign neglect, IMO (and that of others – there have been a few discussions of this topic on the blogs lately). My twelve year old is allowed to walk around the neighbourhood and visit his friends and vice versa. If Ferguson moved in next door, we’d simply tell them not to have anything to do with him.
Actually, Liam, what nobody ever seems to mention is that the WTC towers were in fact made completely out of explosives. It’s really sort of amazing that they didn’t blow up long ago. Why they chose to build them that way is something that nobody in NY ever really understood.
I remember when we were kids, we used to take the trolley over to lower Manhattan during the summer, and chip off little bits of the WTC to bring home and use as fireworks at Fourth of July picnics.
True story. Although these days I can be “disappeared” for relating it.
Please contemplate the fact that a monstrous crime was committed on 11 September 2001 and millions of people around the world who have looked at the evidence believe that people innocent of having committed that crime have been blamed for that crime. As a result hundreds of billions have been spend on wars, well over one million have died, many more have been maimed or displaced.
So, some of us believe this is important. Some of those people happen to have had loved ones killed on that day. They include Jean Canavan, Manny Badillo and Bob McIlvaine. Please take all of 50 seconds to hear them appeal for your support for a new and proper inquiry into 9/11 in a youtube broadcast embedded at nyccan.org. They include the Jersey Girls who fought heroically against the Bush amdministration to even have the 9/11 Commission held as rigged as that was.
You rightly apologised for having written the words “Who gives a fuck about 3000 dead yuppies nearly 10 years ago?” If you were sincere in that apology and, even more so, sincere in your professed concern for people in third world countries who have died because they were wrongly blamed for the murder of those 3,000 people, then you would also retract those words.
Incidentally would it have been acceptable to you if those who had known Lindy Chamberlain to have been innocent of the crime murdering baby Azaria to have remained silent and left her behind bars?
I don’t know where you get the figure that “the building takes 50% longer to fall than an object in free fall”.
The 9/11 Commission (obviously erroneously) accepts that it was 10 seconds. Another figure is between 14 and 16 seconds. As the height of the taller tower is 417 metres, then my calculation of the time taken for free-fall speed is 16.7 seconds, so even that figure seems not to be right (that is unless my calculation time = sqrt(2*1368/9.8) is wrong).
Whatever, the speeds of the collapses seem to have been significantly less than “50% longer” than free-fall and vastly faster than what the time should have been given the enormous amount of strength in the structural steel that had to be overcome.
Do you seriously maintain that the strength of all of that steel could have been so suddenly lost without the use of exploseives?
If you want to stop wasting time, then why not at least accept my simple point that a new inquiry into the ‘collapses’ should be held so that we can find out why the Twin Towers and WTC 7 did collapse?
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sublime cow girl, FDB and Lando Calrissian now that we have reached over 233 comments, we desperately need many more such comments which help so greatly to clarify the question we are discussing.
sublime cow girl, I have never read one Dan Brown novel, nor watched the movies, nor even watched The Simpsons parody of the first of those movies. I think you will find that as Tom Hanks, the main actor in the movie,s wants to make a movie that is intended to disprove any suspicion that JFK was murdered by elements within the US state, that he would be on your side on the question of 9/11.
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Liam demands yet again that I explain “WHY THE HELL THIS SUPPOSED CONSPIRACY MAKES ANY SENSE”.
It makes sense because it enabled the Project for a New American Century cabal that gained control of the White House in 2001 to achieve their domestic and international geopilitical goals. They said themselves in their document “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” on page 51:
Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor. Domestic politics and
Perhaps Liam should ponder the question, “what sense did it make for Muslims to launch 9/11?” How did the consequent invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan help them achieve their political goals?
Liam’s sole argument in defence of the Official Conspiracy Theory is that in order to stage 9/11 thousands would have had to have been involved in the conspiracy and it would not have been possible for so many people to have been kept quite. Another estimate that I read is that around 500, from my recollection, needed direct knowledge of the plot in order for it to carried out.
In any case, how many were involved in the Manhattan Project? Or in the Bletchley Park project to break the Enigma code?
This single argument hardly amounts to a reason to ignore the mountains of other evidence that flatly contradicts the Official Conspiracy Theory that Liam is evasively attempting to peddle. It hardly amounts to a reason not to demand a new inquiry which seeks answers to the 70% of questions asked by the Jersey Girls that were ignored by the 9/11 Commission.
Jules, please look again at the broadcast “Race With Gravity” that I referred to above. No-one is arguing that any physical part of the Twin Towers actually fell faster than free-fall speed, but at one point the wave of collapse clearly moved faster than an object falling that was falling at free fall speed.
Such a wave of collapse could not conceivably have been driven just by the weight of the building falling from above.
The only way that could have been possible that I can come up with is if explosives had been used.
Fran – If people are determined to create new 9/11s then whether western troops are bleeding in Afghanistan is neither here nor there.
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Americans like their wars fought in other peoples’ countries. I do suspect you’re right however. You go to Afghanistan everyone dies. If they pull out it will be a mistake tho’ the way Clinton snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in the Battle of Magadishu was.
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And if they stay it will probably also be a mistake. I do imagine that they’re be deploying less troops and more robots however. And that may make a difference. And as always ordinary innocent people are the ones that will pay. But Mr Bush’s bonehead plays are going to cost us all.
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Even more.
I haven’t upgraded since Media2 started in 2004! And I share the domain with Barista, so you can imagine the internet odium that would descend on me if I started trying do this with cheery abandon and deleted possibly Australia’s best loved blog… Going to have to do something about it, anyway!
If your blog is hosted on Wordpress.com you don’t have to worry.
Now, why don’t you go and prove to me that your face is not made of poo, following the same rules of evidence (sorry, EVIDENCE!!!) that would satisfy you that you are wrong about 9/11.
dagget and the rest,
There are plenty of well qualified structural engineers that have opined that the strike of a heavier aircraft that existed when the buildings were designed and built, carrying more fuel than had been believed possible at that stage was more than sufficient to cause the collapse of the towers in the manner in which they collapsed.
Further – getting sufficient explosives into the building would have taken weeks, lots of preparation and many people.
There is no evidence that this happened. None at all – other than a lot of unqualified people speculating.
there is a point of error in your missive numbered 236, on the matter of how long it takes for an object to fall freely.
You have used the right method to calculate this
sqrt(2*H/g)
for a height H, and acceleration g.
The time is the square root of twice the height, divided by the acceleration.
But you said the height was 417 metres, and g is 9.8 metres per second squared, so the time is 9.23 seconds.
I believe you used the conversion factor 3.280 (feet in a metre) and converted 417 metres to 1368 feet. But then you used the acceleration in METRE units (9.8), rather than 32.2 feet per second squared.
As to the rest, you remind me of my acquaintance Simplicio.
Has it occurred to anyone that the only cabal ruthless and singleminded enough to pull off the destruction of a large chunk of downtown Manhattan would be New York Property developers.
Another flakey theory it’s true but on the other hand, who wouldn’t wanna see Donald Trump perp walked and then executed by lethal hair transplant?
Just as the WTC projected itself into the NYC skyline (lot harder for a visitor to navigate around downtown without the towers as a reference point I can tell you), its absence allows anyone to project anything into the space left behind.
And really, if the powers that shouldn’t be but are were smart enough to pull off such a conspiracy off without a leak, then how did they then fuck up the US’s current Totally Bogus Central Asian Adventure?
There’s probably a plausible case to be made for LIHOP but in that case, I doubt “they” had the sheer balls to go for it – never mind the competence to so believably accidentally fuck up in response.
Thanks for spotting my error. I did say, after all, that my figure did not seem right.
What had happened is that I pointed my spreadsheet formula to the cell containing the height of the first tower in feet and not in metres.
So, it turns out that on one question, Jules was right, after all. My apologies, Jules.
It seems that the towers did indeed take “50% longer (14-16 seconds) to fall than an object in free fall (9.2 seconds) would [have taken].”
Nevertheless, that remains a phenomenally short time for all that massive structural strength in all that steel to have been overcome. Furthermore as David Chandler showed on the YouTube broadcast “Race With Gravity” that I referred to above, at one short interval the wave of collapse actually moved faster than a falling object.
The only possible explanation for all of this that I can come up with is that explosives had to have been used. Given that that is exactly what it looks like happened and given that that is what numerous eyewitnesses attested to having witnessed, then I would suggest that that the evidence that explosives were used is conlcusive.
I am not aware of any credible document by any structural engineer that shows how either of the Twin Towers could have collapsed the way they did as a consequence of the impacts from the 767’s. Please show me any you know of. The Towers were designed to take a head on impact from a 707 a plane of comparable size to a 767. The 767’s did not hit front on and computer analysis shows that sufficient intact or partially damaged columns should have been left to easily allow the full weight of the building above to be supported.
Also, there is plenty of eyewitness testimony of strange happenings in the twin towers in the weeks before 9/11. Please refer to my post @ 139.
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Did I miss some subtle and clever humour in FDB’s post @ 240 or is it what it appears to be?
Why is this person still allowed to contribute to this forum?
“Why is this person still allowed to contribute to this forum?”
Yep Daggett, that’s the way to encourage free ranging and vigorous debate about bringing the truth to the surface.
Speaking of which, can you prove you’re not an agent provocateur muddying the waters with waffling minutia in order to deflect attention from the real conspiracy?
you did say your figure seemed wrong. It is good to be humble
Perhaps you would prefer that I contributed the same amount of facts and ideas to this discussion as FDB has.
It’s far easier to avoid making mistakes if you say nothing and do nothing.
In any case, as I have shown, even the 9/11 commission mistakenly stated that the Twin Towers fell to the ground in 10 seconds, perhaps amongst the least of the almost innumerable glaring mistakes they made.
So, Galileo Galilei, did you mean to imply by making that link to a YouTube broadcast of a part of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” that you dispute that the Twin Towers were designed to withstand a head-on impact from a 707?
“Although I am not an engineer, far less a demolition engineer …”
Me either thats why I am in no position to actually evaluate any of the claims wrt the collapse from any side, and thats why anything i say about it will be functionally meaningless. And anything I think about it has to be filtered through the “I don’t actually know wtf I’m talking about” filter.
Unless I sit down and follow all the specific maths that specific people (steve jones for example, or NIST,) use, then learn what they mean, and the maths they use that I don’t understand then i’m not in any posisition to make any kind of comment beyond the ones I have already made.
“As a result hundreds of billions have been spend on wars, well over one million have died, many more have been maimed or displaced.”
10 times as many children died that day as people who died in the attacks, and every day since as a result in the inequities in the world that are directly caused by our culture being dominant and controlling access to resources. That doesn’t include the countless children and adults killed in minor conflicts over resources and access to them in places like the Phillipines, West papua south America central and east Africa etc etc etc.
Whether the attacks occurred or not the US would have invaded Afghanistan and Iraq anyway. they would have found some pretext cos ultimately they need to be able to guarantee their access to resources.
The Patriot act and the Invasion of Iraq, or our anti terror laws are all a direct result of 9/11 yet these things can be challenged on their merits and should be, without the need for reference to the possible involvement of certian corrupt US govt officials. The fact that people who should have helped engage those issues on their own were distracted by trying to find some holy grail truth about the 11 sept attacks were too busy with something else that still hasn’t produced any results makes me wonder if the whole movement wasn’t a distraction in the first place.
“Sometimes a black swan is just a black swan.”
Yeah true.
BBut Bush and Cheney are responsible for it.
Whether it was MIHOP, LIHOP or sheer incompetence, they are still responsible, and should have been pitchforked immediately, Cheney probably should have faced impeachment, or ewhatever version VPs face for his actions in taking control in the bunker despite the fact that its not constitutionally allowed, but I guess the US constitution didn’t mean much to that admin.
They are responsible cos it happened on their watch, and afterward when asked for an explanation the only excuse they actually had was their incompetence and the failures of the departments they are ultimately responsible for.
This should be basic, obvious, look at what some people are saying about the leadership of the CFA in Victoria after the fires.
And honestly they deserve a lot more “slack” for what happened than the US govt did years ago. Then again communication and decisions making pathways in emergency responses in Victoria are a bit of a basket case.
There are serious doubts about the legitimacy of the Bush 00 admin to begin with, then their first serious test comes along and they say:
“Oh sorry, we weren’t up to it. Tell you what, here’s the patriot act, that’ll fix it.”
No of course not. But it is one of the many rabbit holes that lead to information that makes me go WTF? How does that reconcile with what we accept as the consesus view of the event.
But what I actually find far more interesting is the way that event was predicted by so many little referneces in art and pop culture.
What about the end of fight club? The proposed album cover by The Coup, a radical hip out outfit from the US:
(In no way does linking to that image indicate my endorsement of anything Lew Rockwell has ever said. At the least he’s a Rothbardian wanker. It was the biggest image on the first row of the first page of a google image search.)
I know plenty of people who dreamt about the event, I did many times, over 10 years before it happened (tho at the time I put it down to anxiety about growing up under the threat of nuclear war between the US and USSR). Or dreamt about planes in the days leading up to it, and although that on its own might seem like nothing, the context is that it was unusual for them, unusual enough that they would bring it up.
There are countless comic book images and images in art from the last 40 years that show similar images/concepts. maybe not countless ones, but enough.
There’s the Global Consciousness Research Project at princeton, though after a fair bit of examination that looks less and less credible.
I once saw someone have a psychotic episode (in 1999) and in the middle of it they just happened to describe the events that took place two and a half years later.
The event obviously had a huge effect on the people who use electronic media to structure their world (and a huge effect on people in Iraq and Afghanistan afterward, tho a completely different one.)
Thats whats really interesting about it.
Of course most people would probably consider that even less rational than the stuff troofers go on about, but rationality is over rated anyway.
And most people don’t even understand their own minds or motivations so … its not like they have anything other than noise to offer.
Unless I sit down and follow all the specific maths that specific people (steve jones for example, or NIST,) use, then learn what they mean, and the maths they use that I don’t understand then i’m not in any posisition to make any kind of comment beyond the ones I have already made.
Then how do you suppose the jury trial system works in cases where forensic evidence is disputed?
The fact is that in order to see that much of the Official explanation of the Tower Collapses cannot be true, one only needs a year 10 level understanding of physics. Sometimes not even that is necessary.
Quite a few other people I know who were sceptical about the claims of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, or even hostile to them, have easily grasped their case once shown their video presentation. So, I don’t see why you shouldn’t also be able to.
Jules wrote,
Whether the attacks occurred or not the US would have invaded Afghanistan and Iraq anyway.”
Nonsense!
In any case, you almost immediately contradict yourself when you write:
“The Patriot act and the Invasion of Iraq, or our anti terror laws are all a direct result of 9/11 …”
Do you believe that the US Congress could have passed that motion supporting the bombing of North Vietnam if it had not been for the staged “Gulf of Tonkin” incident in 1964?
They got away with their crimes against Vietnam as long as they did because not enough people were able to see through that lie.
The same is true of the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and there is no way that they would have had congress pass the Patriot Act if not for 9/11. The Project for a New American Century understood that as I have shown above.
Why can’t you?
Jules continued:
… yet these things can be challenged on their merits and should be.
Why can’t you see that a good many people out there believe that the argument, that the people who committed the 9/11 and other terrorist atrocities did so from the sanctuaries of Afghanistan and continue to do so to this very day, has ‘merit’?
Precisely that argument was put in the Courier Mail editorial that I quoted above. That is only one of many I could have quoted. That is also how Rudd, Obama and Brown repeatedly justify the war in Afghanistan and, now, Pakistan.
If that lie is not challenged, then I believe it will be impossible to stop them launching yet more wars and taking away yet more of our democratic freedoms.
If you think I am wrong, just recall how, in early 2003, what seemed to be a rock solid majority of public opinion opposed the invasion of Iraq. At the time I was euphoric. I could not conceive of John Howard daring to procede with the war in those circumstances.
Yet he did so brazenly and the solid majority, instead of become an even larger and more outraged majority, somehow changed into a minority to my enormous dismay.
Not only that, but John Howard actually was re-elected in 2004 and gained complete control of the Senate.
It took many more years and almost incalculable harm to Australia and the rest of the world caused by a re-elected Howard Government for that minority to become a clear majority again.
The best explanantion I can come up with to explain that is that the anti-war movement failed to challenge the Big Lie of 9/11. In spite of all the warm and fuzzy arguments against the invasion, and in spite of the tenuous basis of the claims for links between Saddam Hussein and ‘Al Qaeda’ people still felt threatened as Hermann Goering would have put it, and so they decided then to support the war (even if only by a small majority).
You rightly state that figures in the Bush administration should have been jailed for what could at the very best describes as their glaring failure in their duty of care to the American public.
Yet this has not happened.
These people, that every informed person agrees had to be, at the very best, grossly incompetent, were allowed to overtly wield the reins of US Government for 7 more years causing incalculable harm to the world in that time.
The 9/11 Truth Movement believes that that is just not good enough and are doing their utmost to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.
The best way to ensure that that does not happen again is for those responsible for 9/11 and the other false flag terrorist atrocities of recent years to be unmasked and held to account for what they have done in criminal trials.
So why won’t you support them?
If the 9/11 Truth fails in this then we are doomed to go on fighting costly and bloody wars at least until either the exhaustion of our non-renewable natural resources or ecological calamity make it no longer possible.
I did not link to a youtube, Sgr daggett.
That was someone called 39 Steps.
I don’t even know what a “youtube” is.
Me, I’ve got enough troubles.
I’m under house arrest. They want to silence me. I want to write about mountains on the Moon, and little stars orbiting Jupiter, and why Copernicus should be taken seriously.
Speaking of tubes though, I made an optical tube that you can use to look at the Moon, or examine ships far off. Care to see it?
I think the Patriot Act passed partly cos someone got anthrax in the mail, but in a hypothetical world where 9/11 never happened the Bush admin would have invaded Iraq and Afghanistan anyway IMO.
“Then how do you suppose the jury trial system works in cases where forensic evidence is disputed?”
Honestly I don’t know. I’d hope the jurors make the effort and take the time to understand as much as they can about the processes that generates the forensic evidence and then employ critical thinking in their examination of the evidence itself. I would hope that juries have the time and resources available to make those decisions then act on them.
Thats how it would work in an ideal world.
If I was on a jury judging 9/11 building related evidence then I assume I would be given the time and resources to satisfy myself that I understand enough about whats going on to make a valid judgement.
I’m not in that position and have more important things to consider.
PNAC’s got nothing to do with it. If populations were genuine about controlling their governments then none of the things you refer to (vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan) above would have happened. End of story.
“…the anti-war movement failed to challenge the Big Lie of 9/11.”
True, but the big lie of 9/11 isn’t dependant on why the towers collapsed, and that event had such an impression on people, it was on the level of imprinting, not conditioning. Its dependant on what allowed the planes to hit in the first place.
And that isn’t dependant on whether it was incompetence, complicity or worse. The best that can be said about why 9/11 happened is incompetence – that should be enough to challenge the wars and dismantling of human rights and democratic protections that followed. Do you really think exposing 9/11 would make any difference on top of that.
people are imprinted with the idea of the official story.
It doesn’t matter how many time you bang on about CD or what you actually prove. You won’t change those minds.
Shit, I don’t believe the official story, on its own. There’s enough doubt about the relationship between al qaeda and elements of the US lolitical and intelligence infrastructure to mean the official story can’t be taken on face value.
Yet you are berating me for not dogmatically accpeting the official “troofer” story, I don’t agree with the whole CD cult so I blindly accept what the govt says.
You are as bad as the people who insist considering any “conspiracy theory” about 9/11 is a sign you are incompetent as a human being.
Its like being caught in an argument between Catholics and Protestants or Christians and Muslims about whose God is real.
The 9/11 troof movement doesn’t believe in bringing Bush to justice for his failings on 9/11. they don’t even recognise they might be failures.
the 9/11 troof movement is concerned about validating its dogma and defining the world in religious terms even tho it can’t see this for itself.
As that famous and justly revered statesman once warned us all, “Don’t be blind to the big surprise, swimming round and round like the deadly hand of a RADIUM CLOCK! At the BOTTOM! of the pooool….”
Interesting. Daggett is making a claim about 9/11 that as far as I’m aware no-one been able to refute. Everytime I ask the free fall question I get treated like a loony but no-one can tell me how it works.
.
They’ll link to some complex document that has a lot of equations and fancy theories that explains how such a freak occurence is possible and there’s nothing untoward about it happening three times on one morning in one place. There’s citations of various experts who’ve written debunking articles but those I’ve read can’t explain it either.
.
Can you? Can you understand? Because this is what Noam Chomsky refers to when he talks about the manufacturing of consent. The issue is inherently outré . This is how Foucault describes our power structure as a demarker of normality, morality, sanity and those that fall outside.
.
And it’s interesting that people who’ve read books by both men somehow play the game they’re describing. By all means ban Dagget. S/he’s obviously crazy.
Chomsky is not a particularly clear thinker on either foreign policy or media. (There, I’ve said it.)
Beneath the thicket of his citations and the appearance of scholarly work is sloppiness, the brute force of very partisan cheerleader polemic (propaganda), and deep ignorance.
His sly criticism of Ponchaud’s book on Cambodia under the KR is a clear case in point. Ponchaud was right about the KR long before Chomsky; Ponchaud had lived in Cambodia and was immersed in the culture; Chomsky was always an outsider and dilettante; yet Chomsky claimed Ponnchaud’s book was flawed because the refugee eyewitnesses he quoted couldn’t really be trusted. Chomsky ignored the fact that Ponchaud quoted KR Radio extensively.
KR Radio lied; Ponchaud realised this. Many admirers (at that time) of the KR were less sceptical of KR Radio.
Take any particular country or regime: read some knowledgeable authors, then read Chomsky.
Then consider carefully what it is “to be an intellectual”. You may wonder, as I do, why folk still call him an intellectual. And why he seems revered.
Then again, you may admire his writings. Feel free.
“Interesting. Daggett is making a claim about 9/11 that as far as I’m aware no-one been able to refute. Everytime I ask the free fall question I get treated like a loony but no-one can tell me how it works.” – Missy H
“It seems that the towers did indeed take “50% longer (14-16 seconds) to fall than an object in free fall (9.2 seconds) would [have taken].”
Nevertheless, that remains a phenomenally short time for all that massive structural strength in all that steel to have been overcome.” – Daggett
Does it? Says who? Some guy in a video? Given there was at least 10 or 15 stories of the core still standing in at least one tower (possibly more) then the idea that then entire core just crumpled to the ground has to be shown for the simplication it is. The collapse started below the top of the building, at around the 80 and 90 floor marks which means lower free fall time for the actual cos the distance is actually shorter, and there was a mass of concrete and steel being accelerated by gravity, so the collapsing mass had momentum. (It also took up space, which could explain why it pushed some of the dust that was released during the collapse outward in pyroclastic looking clouds.)
Missy i think thats why the idea of the towers in free fall should be taken with a few grains of salt. They didn’t fall at free fall speed and the behaved exactly the way I’d expect them to behave if the building collapsed of it own accord. they also behaved in a way that strongly suggests they were aided in their collapse. I’m not denying its a possibility, but its functionally meaningless. I’m not talking about Building 7 either. Just the towers.
Consider tho that if the collapse was aided then the sort of sloppy thinking I’ve outlined above wrt the actual mechanics of the collapse will forever be a thorn in the side of proving it. It doesn’t matter if NIST were as sloppy, if you are trying to provide the extraordinary proof that sort of claim demands then the onus is on you to get your facts right at the start.
“Because this is what Noam Chomsky refers to when he talks about the manufacturing of consent. The issue is inherently outré . This is how Foucault describes our power structure as a demarker of normality, morality, sanity and those that fall outside.” – Missy H
Thats one of the more intelligent comments I have read re 9/11.
I completely agree. Tho I see the same thing happening on both sides of the argument.
Implicit in the 9/11 Truther argument is the assertion that the persons who allegedly smuggled demolition explosives into the buildings were associated in some way with persons who incited Atta et al. to fly their planes into those same buildings.
Now it is an admitted fact that among the more than 100 attempts on Fidel Castro, at least one involved the construction of a very large explosive conch shell. One can only conclude that weirdness and the US Security State are on much more than nodding acquaintance.
However, on the other hand, the CIA of the early 1960s had privileged access to the purest LSD on the planet, a fact which may explain some of their more bizarre exploits of the time.
Alas, nowadays agencies of the US Security State are much more bureaucratic and rule-bound than they were in the great days of the 1960s.
To be blunt, ingestion of psychotropic drugs is now a sackable offence.
Without access to a goodly supply if hallucinogens it would be nigh impossible for any agency of the US Security State to come up with a plot of the utmost baroqueness involving BOTH the setting of “nanothermite” AND incitement of almost two dozen Muslim chappies with their gazes fixed on jihad and a plentiful supply of compliant virgins in the hereafter.
The world is a poorer place without government-sanctioned acid.
If we take the longest estimate of 16 seconds, then the average accelaration would have been:
a = 2 x h/(t x t) = 2 x 415 / (16 x 16) = 3.24 meters per second per second
Where a = average acceleration of ‘collapse’, h = the height of 415 metres of WTC2 (the slightly shorter of the two), and t = longest estimated time of collapse.
The figure of 3.24 metres per second per second is 0.331 or 33.1% of free fall acceleration. Put differently, the tower accelerated at an average rate 66.9% slower than it would have if it had accelerated at free fall. This means that as the tower fell the structural steel underneath exerted 33.1% of the force that gravity would have exerted on the building above. (If it had fallen at free fall speed it would have been exactly zero. If it had not fallen at all the force exerted would have had to have been 100% or more.)
If the World Trade Center Twin Towers had been built with just enough strength to support their own wieght, this would mean that we would have to explain how structural strength equivalent to 33.1% of gravity had suddenly been removed. (In the case of WTC 7 which did fall at free-fall speed for the first 2.5 seconds, as I seem to recollect, we would have to explain how structural strength equal to 100% of gravity had suddenly been removed).
However, the Twin Towers (and WTC 7) had hugely redundant structural strength. I think the figure I read for the Twin Towers was they had structural strength capable of supporting 10 times their own weight, but let’s just, for argument’s sake assume it is 5 times.
Based on that assumption, structural strength of (5 – 0.669) or 4.331 times the force of gravity on the second tower would have had to have been removed throughout the whole building within that 16 second interval.
That is why I regard even 16 seconds total collapse time as still phenomenally fast for such a building. Whatever possible way was there for all that structural strength to have been removed within that interval, but explosives?
And, again, as I pointed out, at one point the collapse front, if not the whole falling building, moved even faster than free-fall which further confirms that explosives had to have been used.
There are enough other interesting points raised above to keep me writing for a week. I will have to return later.
Of course, I thank Missy Higgins (@ 260) her incisive and helpful observations.
Interesting. Daggett is making a claim about 9/11 that as far as I’m aware no-one been able to refute. Everytime I ask the free fall question I get treated like a loony but no-one can tell me how it works.
To be fair, Adrien, this happens even when you don’t ask the free-fall question.
As to Chomsky, Daggett will explain to you that Chomsky is a phony, because he accepts the “official conspiracy theory”. http://candobetter.org/node/1286
That is convincing proof of just how vast and pernicious the cover-up is, wouldn’t you say?
“I know plenty of people who dreamt about the event, I did many times, over 10 years before it happened (tho at the time I put it down to anxiety about growing up under the threat of nuclear war between the US and USSR). Or dreamt about planes in the days leading up to it, and although that on its own might seem like nothing, the context is that it was unusual for them, unusual enough that they would bring it up.
[...]
The event obviously had a huge effect on the people who use electronic media to structure their world [...]”
One of my oldest and dearest friends literally could not sleep at night for months beforehand. When the news came through (to me) at five in the morning, I called him straight away. We spoke for two or three hours.
It was one of the most mysterious events I’ve encountered in my lifetime.
If you know anything about the basics of paranoia, you know about the basics of herd instinct.
To deny instinct over reason…
(Australian conservative-columnist type “instinct”, which it tries to umpire, and constantly stab about looking and feeling for – that ain’t it)
Firstly, my apologies for my mal-formed link (@ 265) back to Jules’ post (@ 263).
Jules, of course I geatly appreciate the fact that you are willing (to a point) to discuss my arguments and that you have not resorted to personal attacks. And I appreciate the fact that you supported my argument that it was ridiculous to accept that Khaled Sheikh Mohammed was one of the masterminds of 9/11 when the only basis for that is confesssions extracted under torture. Nevertheless, much of what else you write, including what you write in regard to the ‘collapses’ of the Twin Towers, is illogical and would undermine the most powerful and conclusive evidence (that is with the arguable exception of the ‘collapse’ of WTC 7) that the 9/11 Truth Movement has if I were to let that stand unchallenged.
GregM (@ 266), why do you think it is that people are treated like loonies whenever they question 9/11?
Why is the Australian far-left seemingly unanimous in its resolve (as Paul Craig Roberts pointed out above) to defend ground which accepts that terrorists, from the region in which our armies are now fighting wars that they say they oppose, did launch 9/11, 7/7 the Madrid bombings, Bali, etc, but refuse to even contemplate examining evidence that would enable them to shift to ground which I would have thought would be much easier to defend, that is, the ground on which it is maintained that the US government itself committed the crimes which it has knowingly and falsely blamed on so-called Muslim extremists. (Words self-plagiarised from earlier discussion on Online Opinion about the movie “Balibo”.) Why, instead of calmly asssessing the evidence to determine whether it just might be true, do so many on the supposed left of Australian politics, instead, spill bucketloads of electronic ink personally attacking 9/11 Truthers?
Noam Chomsky
Of course, part of the reason, but only part, must lie with the influence of Noam Chomsky, who is regarded as an unquestionable guru by many in Australia. In spite of the fact that Noam Chomsky has written some good ideas as Missy Higgins pointed out, I am, nevertheless, convinced that he is a fraud.
In fact, Noam Chomsky, himself, has acted contrary to many of his own good ideas.
Very shortly after the 9/11 attacks, he produced an article which essentially accepted the Official US Government 9/11 Conspiracy and has spent much of his energy since then attacking the 9/11 Truth Movement.
This, together with Chomsky’s absurd insistence that there was nothing suspicious about the murders, in the 1960’s, of all four of America’s most charismatic and effective political leaders who were prepared to stand up to America’s oligarchy — JFK, Malcolm X, MLK and RFK — has resulted in some, including an erstwhile protege, Canadian Barrie Zwicker to question Chomsky’s true motives.
I have written some of this in the brief article “Noam Chomsky, phony American Dissident” that GregM mentioned. I urge people to read that article and to follow the links to other articles and YouTube Broadcasts. The Short Youtube Broadcast “The Shame of Noam Chomsky & left gatekeepers” by Barrie Zwicker linked to from there is well worth looking at.
I would be most interested to know if GregM concurs with Chomsky’s view:
I mean, who knows? And who cares? I mean plenty of people get killed all the time. Why does it matter that one of them happened to be John F Kennedy?
I consider Chomsky’s ludicrous position on Cambodia, which he inexplicably held on to even as late as early this century to be a component of his overall disinformation effort.
Sometime earlier this decade I heard an interview of Chomsky by fellow left gatekeeper Phillip Adams. In that interview he accused the media of being hypocritical for focusing on Cambodia in the late 1970’s instead of on East Timor. It may well be that for a while some of the media was hypocritical, but his point seemed ludicrous. If anything, the Cambodian genocide was an even greater crime than Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor.
Sadly, some on the left had an emotional need to deny that those who had ‘liberated’ Cambodia in 1975 were not gencocidal killers, but surely years after the Khmer Rouge had been used as a tool by the West against the Vietnamese who removed that genocidal regime, that emotional need should have long disappeared.
However, the greatest harm that is done when Chomsky effectively apologises for Khmer Rouge crimes, is not to himself, but to others who oppose US foreign policy, who the broader public assumes to share his views.
GregM (@ 266), why do you think it is that people are treated like loonies whenever they question 9/11?
Then you are good enough to provide the answer yourself:
Why is the Australian far-left seemingly unanimous in its resolve (as Paul Craig Roberts pointed out above) to defend ground which accepts that terrorists, from the region in which our armies are now fighting wars that they say they oppose, did launch 9/11, 7/7 the Madrid bombings, Bali, etc, but refuse to even contemplate examining evidence that would enable them to shift to ground which I would have thought would be much easier to defend, that is, the ground on which it is maintained that the US government itself committed the crimes which it has knowingly and falsely blamed on so-called Muslim extremists.
There we have it.
You would have the vast conspiracy extending to agents of the US Government not merely bring down the twin towers but blowing up the Sari nightclub, the Madrid metro, the London underground and, I guess from your “etc” the Australian embassy in Jakarta, two hotels there (one twice), the US embassy in Nairobi, and even one of their own warships, the USS Cole, not to mention the recent attack on Mumbai, always covering their tracks so well that they get away with it every time, leaving no trace of their involvement but always a trail of false evidence to implicate innocent others and deceive investigators.
This even when the perpetrators of the atrocities make open admissions, at times boasts, of committing the acts.
Daggett I’m not arguing that there was no assistance to the collapse of the twin towers, just that its outside my ability to comment, and I am criticising some aspects of the way the case for it is presented, including the analysis you just gave of the reasons why the collapse was indeed too fast.
The WTC was not a uniform structure, it was a network of places that held the weight. If certain nodes fail then the assumption there is suffieicient redundancy in the system to deal with that is flawed IMO cos we honestly don’t know. As I said there is enough photo evidence to show the entire core didn’t collpase to the ground and that changes everything about the forces acting on it, and on the floors (ie structure) that were joined to the core. I don’t see CD proponents taking that into account, and thats just one example.
Also, many people claim there is no actual evidence the hijackers were on the plane… often while explaining the very things you have explained.
Now the hijackers and their connections and all the dodginess that surrounds them are vital to understanding the actual political situation on the planet right now, imo. Thats what I’d rather focus on. I tend to agree with your assessment of Chomsky tho. He’s overrated. Despite some astute structural observations he makes about western culture, esp American culture.
I kind of agree with him about Kennedy too, he wasn’t the Messiah of truth and kjustice some claim him to be. I don’t buy the camelot myth. But kennedy did challenge the power of the CIA, they have a reputation for killing people and then nothing comes of it. And he did inspire the name of one the best bands evah.
Daggett do you remember the Dateline interview from 2005 with former indonesian PM Wahid? Thats more important info than any discussion on the actual explosions in Bali imo. I feel the same way about the 9/11 attacks, and wonder why you haven’t yet mentioned Sibel Edmonds (or Wolfgang Bohringer).
As I wrote close to the commencement of this discussion, there are two Conspiracy Theories (and possibly a third being a combination of the two) which can be used explain 9/11 and the other spectacular attacks of recent years. If you reject one, you must necessarily embrace the other.
Why should the Conspiracy Theory that you embrace be automatically held to be reasonable and not paranoid?
There are mountains of evidence in support of the Conspiracy Theory I support and have provided only some of it here.
The supporters of the Conspiracy Theory that you embrace have supplied no evidence whatsoever on this forum.
BTW, which “perpetrators of the atrocities” have made “open admissions” and “at times boast[ed], of committing the acts?”
Please supply the evidence.
I am most interested.
—
The statement that no-one involved in the 9/11 Conspiracy has spilled about seems to untrue. It seems that Nicholas Rockefeller had indeed confided in Aaron Russo, the film-maker who produced “Trading Places” details of the 9/11 attack before it occurred. Aaron Russo died in August 2007. Here are Aaron Russo’s words in an interview with Alex Jones:
AR: (Nicholas Rockefeller) told me, 11 months before 9/11 ever happened, that there was going to be an event – he never told me what the event was going to be, but there was going to be an event and out of that event we were going to invade Afghanistan, to run pipelines from the Caspian Sea, we were going to invade Iraq, you know to take over the oil fields to establish a base in the Middle East and make it all part of the New World Order, and we go after Chavez in Venezuela, and, sure enough, later then, 9/11 happened and I remember how he was telling me how we would see soldiers looking in caves for people in Afghanistan and Pakistan and all these places and there was going to be this war on terror of which there was no real enemy, and the whole thing was a giant hoax, you know, but it’s a way for the government to take over the American people.
AJ: He told you it was going to be a hoax?
AR: Oh yeah, Oh yeah, there’s no question. He says, “this war on terror …” – and he’s just laughing. Who are we fighting? I mean why do you think 9/11 happened and then nothing has happened since then? Do you think that our security is so great here that these people who pulled off 9/11, who were able to – can’t knock down another plane? Come on! It’s ridiculous! 9/11 was done by people in our own government and our own banking system to perpetuate the fear of the American People and to subordinate in themselves anything that the government wants them to do – that’s what is about and to create this endless war on terror. And that was the first lie. And the next lie was to go into Iraq – you know to get Saddam Hussein out with his weapons of mass destruction. That was the next lie.
AJ: Now, specifically, this was a little over 6 years ago – 11 months before 9/11 …
AR: Right. An endless war on terror without any real enemy – so you can never define a winner.
AJ: And did he say it was going to be perfect, because you can’t define an enemy and it just goes on.
AR: Yeah, because you just can’t define a winner. There’s no (inaudible) to beat, so they can go on and on forever and they can do whatever they want, they scare the hell out of the American public. Look, this who war on terror is a fraud. It’s a farce. It’s very difficult to say it out loud, because people are intimidated against saying it, because, if you say it, they want to make you into a nutcase. But the truth has to be – the truth has to come out. That’s why I’m doing this interview. The fact of the matter happens to be that the whole war on terror is a fraud. It’s a farce.
All the videotaped bin Laden ‘confessions’ have been shown to be fakes. I will come back to that later.
Even the FBI doesn’t consider them sufficient evidence to justify charging Osama bin Laden for the crime of September 11 and have said so. Why not check for yourself his FBI ‘wanted’ poster?
Yes, patsies who truly believed that they were striking blows against the infidel West played roles in both the 9/11 attacks and the Bali bombings, but they were clearly tools of intelligence agencies without whom their attacks could not have hoped to succeed on the scale that they did.
In regard to Bali, the convicted terrorists could not possibly have planted the second bomb which blew up the Sari club.
As Jules has also alluded to Indonesia’s former president, Abdurrahman Wahid, when asked who planted the second bomb, said in an interview on SBS’s Dateline:
“Maybe the police … or the armed forces.”
“The orders to do this or that came from within our armed forces, not from the fundamentalist people” (reported in the Australian of 12 Oct 05)
I also briefly mentioned this in my own submission to the National Human Rights Consultation on “Terrorism and National Security”.
I dunno about “shown to be fakes” but they certainly have some inconsistancies about them that make some people wonder.
Especially that particular tape, coming as it did less than 2 weeks before the 2004 elections.
And while weare on the subject that was the first time Bin laden claimed responsibility for the attacks despite the fact that in the years before that tape he was considered a hero by the Islamic world cos of his claimed involvement in sept 11.
And what the first time he claims responsibility is just before Bushes re-election. It sure smells funny to me. Then 3 years later he releases a tape praising Noam Chomsky, panicking about global warming and claiming that converting to Islam is the way to go cos the tax rates are lower….
I’d also like to point out that individuals in a govt may not have their primary loralty to said govt, it is probably to their own personal advantage. Therefore to assume that (for example) Cheney was acting on behalf of furthering US interests may not be true. He may have been acting on behalf of his own personal interest. (I dunno if there is actually any evidence to suggest Bush 2 was involved either. I’ve seen footage of him that day, especially in the school and he looks genuinely scared and confused at times.)
“…leaving no trace of their involvement but always a trail of false evidence to implicate innocent others and deceive investigators.”
I’m not speculating about anything (other than 9/11 and wondering about Wahids comments re bali), but there’s plenty of evidence to implicate US intelligence services in the 9/11 attacks. Get to know the history of Muhammed Atta, or even Ramsi Yousef. Or is that the false evidence you are speculating about.
What about the Venice flight school he trained at? Check out its intel and drug connections if you are interested. manufactured consent and the psychological cost of abandoning your most preciously held beliefs (ie that ultimately we are the “good guys” in some global morality tale: that people are all actually loyal to the stuff they say they are loyal too, especially people in power,) have more to do with the failure to examine these convulted but verifiable connections between terrorists, intel agencies, drug, arms and people smuggling and various other trans national nastiness than any form of so called sanity.
I find it amazing that in a country where the only actual terrorist attack in the last 40 years was in all likelihood a state sponsered event that went pear shaped, people are considered insane if they wonder whether a government was involved in a terrorist event, then tried to cover it up and shift the blame away from themselves. That could never happen could it?
All the videotaped bin Laden ‘confessions’ have been shown to be fakes. I will come back to that later.
Every one of them? Can you provide a link? For every one of them.
Even the FBI doesn’t consider them sufficient evidence to justify charging Osama bin Laden for the crime of September 11 and have said so. Why not check for yourself his FBI ‘wanted’ poster?
But Daggett, according to your theory the FBI are at the heart of a vast Government conspiracy, beginning at first with Clinton then Bush and now Obama. Why would you want me to rely on anything they say? With their record of deceit and subterfuge (according to you) anything they said would have to be unreliable and probably done for the purposes of deception.
In regard to Bali, the convicted terrorists could not possibly have planted the second bomb which blew up the Sari club.
You cite Abdurrahman Wahid as your authority on this (although he says they planted the first bomb)? What particular knowledge or expertise does he have about what happened in Bali that puts his comment above anything more than speculation? Of course he would have no love for the Indonesian Army- nasty lot that they are- which facilitated his removal from office for mental incompetence, so he’d hardly be a neutral commentator. You’ll have to do better than that.
“What about the Venice flight school he trained at? Check out its intel and drug connections if you are interested.”
Do you happen to know who Kevin Bacon is, and why many people find him to be of continuing interest?
I am curious to learn what the truthers think about the 1993 WTC bombing. Was that a preliminary, far-sighted, ground-laying false-flag attack, designed to set up a long-term anti-alibi for the greater project they were planning much, much later? And if these nefarious demons planned so carefully to assume Total Control Over America, why did they then give it all up to Obama just a few years later? Even Doctor Faustus got a whole twenty years in exchange for his soul. Is the dollar really that worthless nowadays?
Also, have you ever noticed that the game “pinochle” sounds an awful lot like “PNAC’ll”?
“Do you happen to know who Kevin Bacon is, and why many people find him to be of continuing interest?”
Yeah, and maybe you have a point. Check it out for yourself and make up your own mind.
Or don’t.
Really, I honestly don’t give a fuck. There are more important things.
Seriously.
Cos even if you thought all troofers were nuts, and something I said, or even something Dagett said, well typed on this thread convinced that there was something in it.
And you get over taken by a surge of activist zeal and feel the need to get all activist.
pick something else
seriously
Do something useful.
If “they” are the enemy move on.
They have. This was 8 fucking years ago.
30, 000 kids a day. (at least)
8 years.
The very least you could do would be to contribute to your community. By which I mean your neighbours, and those people who might need help in your part of the world. And you could work to make your community more resiliant, and something you could be proud of. Cos then you don’t need to shout about your beliefs or values, they will be respected cos of your actions.
Arguing on the internet won’t do it. You are dealing with people, not a screen. (cept the trollbots of course… so why bother with them?)
And lets face it. It they are the enemy ask themselves what it profits you to look into the past constantly while “they” look into the future and plan….
Think about it.
Even if there’s no “they” there are still some serious problems facing humanity right here and right now.
Of course if you think that, obviously, people who question 911 are on a par with holocaust deniers and baby raping cannibals or just nuts fine. Think what you want. I doubt you re still reading this thread anyway.
There are still some serious problems facing humanity.
Tho I lack faith in people without the ability to question a media generated taboo to actually deal with those problems.
Especially one generated by a primarily neo con media in the middle of that neo con circle jerk that was the first 8 years of the 21st century.
Well me oh my. How bloody condescending is that. Pray tell, are you con-descending at, um, free fall rate, or only 60% thereof?
What makes you think I can’t ‘contribute’ to ‘my’ ‘community’ in a ‘meaningful’ ‘way,’ and yet also think (that’s “think”!, not “feel”!) that troofers have driven over the cliff… both at the same time?!?
Wow, it’s almost like a regular Dan Brown novel, or sumfin.
O ye of little faith. Never heard of multi-tasking, I guiss.
Without that capability, how on earth do you blog-comment and stay saddled on a hobby-horse, both at the same time?
But Daggett, according to your theory the FBI are at the heart of a vast Government conspiracy, (… blah, blah, rant, rave, blah, blah …)
If you want to regain any credibility in this forum, you should stop wasting peoples’ time with such obviously ridiculous arguments.
The legal basis for the invasion of Afghanistan and its ongoing occupution is the US Government’s claims that Osama bin Laden is guilty for 9/11, yet the US Government’s own leading national law enforcement agency that wants to charge Osama bin Laden with other acts of terrorism against the US has inexplicably omitted 9/11 from the crimes he is to be charged with.
I note that you are silent on the revelations of FBI whistle blower Sibel Edmonds’ revelations that Osama bin Laden worked for the US Government up until at least 11 September 2001.
That probably provides a very good clue as to why Osama bin Laden is not wanted for 9/11 and the whole justification for the “War on Terror” is every bit as fraudulent as Aaron Russo said it was. The FBI knew damn well that Osama bin Laden was a CIA asset up until 11 September.
Other evidence that Osama bin Laden was a CIA asset right up to 11 Sep 2001 include:
You cite Abdurrahman Wahid as your authority on this (although he says they planted the first bomb)? …
If a former head of the Indonesian state says he beleives that the Indonesian secret police played a role in the Bali bombings then I think that that allegation should be taken seriously and thoroughly investigated.
… Of course he would have no love for the Indonesian Army — nasty lot that they are — which facilitated his removal from office for mental incompetence. …
In spite of his age and his near blindeness, he was clearly an admirable, strong-willed and principled leader. He stood up to the Indonesian military in order to end the reign of terror in East Timor and to allow it to gain independence — obviously the kind of leader of whicn neither you nor the Indonesian secret police would approve.
I also recollect his successor President Megawati Sukarnoputri making a similar allegation although I can’t find the source righ now.
There is a massive amount of evidence of the Indonesian secret police deliberately nurturing Islamist terrorist organisations in order to stage false flag terrorist attacks since the days of Suharto, in order to further their own goals. Check out also “Exclusive Interview Inside Indonesia’s War on Terror” of 2 Oct 05.
One convicted terrorist Umar Abduh stated:
… there is not a single Islamic group, either in the movement or the political groups that is not controlled by Intel. Everyone does what they say.
Corroborating evidence for the involvement of Indonesian secret police in planting the second bomb can be found in an interview with convicted Bali bomber in the Times Online interview “We killed too many, say Bali bombers” of 2 Mar 08:
And then [Imam Samudra] said something extraordinary. He claimed the bombers had never meant to kill so many people. What happened at Paddy’s Bar and the Sari Club was “unacceptable”, he said.
Had he made the bomb? “No, no, no!” he said, shaking his head. “I didn’t help to make it, and who made the bomb and when I don’t know.”
The second explosion was much bigger than they had expected, he said.
The only explanation, he suggested, was that “the CIA or KGB or Mossad” – those familiar bogeymen of the conspiracy theorist – had somehow tampered with the bomb. “It is very possible,” he claimed.
Before you demand yet further evidence from me, GregM, how about you either.
1. Refute this and the other evidence I have provided; or
2. Accept that evidence and the conclusions I have drawn from them
I had been meaning to address the many points you raised.
The essential point of 9/11 is that either humandkind takes control of its own destiny out of the hands of those responsible for 9/11, the Bali bombings, the London Tube bombings, the assassinations of JFK, Malcolm X, MLK, RFK, the Vietnam War, the Chilean coup, etc., or it doesn’t.
If it does, we stand some chance of solving all the serious problems confronting humankind, some of which you alluded to.
If it does not, we stand no chance.
As I pointed out, thanks largely to people like Noam Chomsky we lost the chance we had in the 1960’s to bring the murderers of JFK to justice.
Had that happened the whole course of history since then might have been different and so much death, destruction and ecological and economic mayhem that we have endured since then could have been avoided.
Let’s not lose the chance that the evidence of their complicity in the crime of 9/11 has given us today to rectify the problem.
The strongest evidence the 9/11 Truth movement has is that the collapses were controlled demolitions. The evidence bears this out. If you think the case is weak anywhere please provide links.
My guess is that at some time in the past you were thrown by technological gobbldegook from a supposed expert abusing his professional authority as I was, for a while on this forum.
I think if you look again, you will find that the case is rock solid.
The towers were brought down by controlled demolitions.
If elements in the US government did not do it themselves, they had the resources to find out who did, but chose not to.
So, by denying that the towers were brought down by controlled demolitions, and not even considering that possibility, they have covered up a crime.
However, a mountain of other evidence points to the conclusion that people high up in the US administration of former President George Bush did commit that crime.
Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga, who revealed the existence of Operation Gladio, has told Italy’s oldest and most widely read newspaper that the 9-11 terrorist attacks were run by the CIA and Mossad, and that this was common knowledge among global intelligence agencies.…
Before you demand yet further evidence from me, GregM, how about you either.
1. Refute this and the other evidence I have provided; or
2. Accept that evidence and the conclusions I have drawn from them?
Let’s look at the quality of your evidence;
You say @273 that:
All the videotaped bin Laden ‘confessions’ have been shown to be fakes.
I asked you to produce evidence that, as you assert, all the videotapes are fakes. You provide a link that claims that one of them (Tape E)is fake but does so on the basis that another tape (Tape C, released by Al Jazeera in December 2001) is authentic. The problem is that on Tape C Bin Laden states that the WTC towers were brought down by the aeroplane attacks and claims responsibility for it for his group.
You should read the material upon which you rely to bolster your conspiracy theories more closely. They do have a tendency to turn around and bite you on the bum, much to my amusement.
Another instance of this is your statement that:
The legal basis for the invasion of Afghanistan and its ongoing occupution is the US Government’s claims that Osama bin Laden is guilty for 9/11, yet the US Government’s own leading national law enforcement agency that wants to charge Osama bin Laden with other acts of terrorism against the US has inexplicably omitted 9/11 from the crimes he is to be charged with.
But the very same link you provided regarding the tapes provides the reason (at least according to them) for this:
The absence has also provided fodder for conspiracy theorists who think the U.S. government or another power was behind the Sept. 11 hijackings. From this point of view, the lack of a Sept. 11 reference suggests that the connection to al-Qaeda is uncertain.
Exhaustive government and independent investigations have concluded otherwise, of course, and bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders have proudly taken responsibility for the hijackings. FBI officials say the wanted poster merely reflects the government’s long-standing practice of relying on actual criminal charges in the notices.
“There’s no mystery here,” said FBI spokesman Rex Tomb. “They could add 9/11 on there, but they have not because they don’t need to at this point. . . . There is a logic to it.”
David N. Kelley, the former U.S. attorney in New York who oversaw terrorism cases when bin Laden was indicted for the embassy bombings there in 1998, said he is not at all surprised by the lack of a reference to Sept. 11 on the official wanted poster. Kelley said the issue is a matter of legal restrictions and the need to be fair to any defendant.
“It might seem a little strange from the outside, but it makes sense from a legal point of view,” said Kelley, now in private practice. “If I were in government, I’d be troubled if I were asked to put up a wanted picture where no formal charges had been filed, no matter who it was.”
Note that this is the evidence you produce and want me to accept. OK, I accept it. It makes sense to me. Of course it contradicts the conclusions that you draw and want me to accept but then the evidence you produce does have a tendency to turn around and bite you on the bum, as I have pointed out.
I don’t know much at all about Sibel Edmonds. As much as I have found out about her is that she was employed by the FBI as a translator in September 2001 and fired in March 2002, a career of all of six months. She is fluent in Turkish, Farsi and Azerbaijani, though not, it seems, Arabic or Pashtun, languages that are likely to be relevant to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. I would have to wonder how much truly highly classified information a translator would be given access to in her first six months of employment. Nevertheless the central thrust of her claims, that there was a genuine plan by Bin Laden and his cohorts to attack the US with planes, of which the FBI had evidence but which it ignored or failed to act upon, contradicts yours that the destruction of the WTC towers (and presumably the damage sustained by the Pentagon) was caused by demolition explosives.
I do not think it is controversial that there were major intelligence failures leading up to the 9/11 attacks, which had they not occured, may have averted those attacks. Edmonds’ claims seem to be of a piece with that. However that is evidence of incompetence (which would not surprise me at all), not conspiracy.
Let’s look now at the link you provide: “Bush Administration Knew Whereabouts of Bin Laden” which claims that Bin Laden was in hospital in Pakistan, on 11 September 2001, having kidney dialysis -they even provide a pretty picture of the clinic he was in. One problem with the article is that it doesn’t say that, even if Bin Laden was there, the US knew about it. The other is that it doesn’t make the claim at all but speculates on a CBS investigative report led by Dan Rather, a person of absolutely no credibility as an investigator (remember Bush’s military record upon which Rather relied on military records generated from a computer typeface that did not exist at the time of their alleged creation?).
Yet again your evidence turns around to bite you on the bum. Do you ever read the material that you rely on to construct your conspiracy theories? Do you ever conduct the slightest analysis to test its credibility and internal consistency before you adopt it as part of the proof for your conspiracy theories?
Do you not see why this means that to sensible people you have no credibility?
Dagget – in the article you linked too at least the antisemitism isn’t denied or hidden away.
Why keep harping on about what is basically a distraction ?
You want Israel and the jews destroyed but don’t seem to be able to say so.
Why not?
Perhaps I should claim that I deliberately stated, “All the videotaped bin Laden ‘confessions’ have been shown to be fakes,” in order to set a trap to see if those, who had refused to acknowledge the strong evidence about much more central aspects of the 9/11 controversy would, as a result, go over this claim about a secondary aspect with a fine toothcomb.
Perhaps it was rash to state “All the videotaped bin Laden ‘confessions’ have been shown to be fakes,” and perhaps there are weaknesses with the document I linked to.
In science it is always difficult to prove such absolute statements. A more accurate statement would have been “the authenticity of none of the tapes has been proven and there is strong evidence that suggests that are all faked.”
That is the conclusion of another document, far more meticulously researched and sourced. That document is “Osama bin Laden Dead or Alive?” (2009) by David Ray Griffin.
In that book a number of credible witnesses, including former CIA operative Robert Baer who beleive that Osama bin Laden died in December 2001.
If that is true then all the tapes and audio recordings, with the excecption of the first “Smoking Gun” were indisputably faked.
The book provides overwhelming evidence and arguments to doubt the authenticity of all the Osama bin Laden ‘confessions’.
Furthermore, it shows how those ‘confessions’ and their timing served the political ends of George Bush and the cabal behind him.
The most authentic looking (which neverthless featured an inexplicably more youthful Osama bin Laden) appeared shortly before the 2004 Presidential elections.
Of that video, Karl Rove, Bush’s media said, “This has the feel of something that’s not gonna hurt us at all.” (Griffin, p84)
Funny that Osama bin Laden would be so obliging to such a mortal enemy of Islam, don’t you think?
Robert Baer has said that it is technically feasible to produce fake audio tapes and videos that cannot be detected as such by forensic science.
Do you ever read the material that you rely on to construct your conspiracy theories? Do you ever conduct the slightest analysis to test its credibility and internal consistency before you adopt it as part of the proof for your conspiracy theories?
Yes I do, and, if you look back at this thread you will see evidence that I have read far more extensively and more carefully on this than you or any other Truth Denier appear to have.
As to that extensive quote, I chose not to read it in full, because it’s essential point was encapsulated in the heading “Justice Department Not Seeking 911 Charges Against Bin Laden!”.
Of course, it is possible that a lot of the content will contradict the rest of what is on that page. (Unlike the US Government and their 9/11 truth denying shills, including quite a few on this forum, 9/11 Truthers are not frightened of confronting the arguments of their detractors.)
The document states excuses for the FBI not formally seeking to charge Osama bin Laden with the crime of 9/11 and you would have us accept those excuses.
You seem to forget that the legal basis for the invasion of Afghanistan was the US Government’s claims to have proof that Osama bin Laden launched the 9/11 attacks from the sanctuary of Afghanistan.
So are you saying that it is acceptable for the US to invade another country without being required to provide any evidence of that country’s alleged transgressions against the US?
Presumably it would have also been acceptable to you if the US Armed Forces Joint Chiefs of Staff’s planned Operation Northwoods had proceeded (instead of being over-ruled by the subsequently murdered President Kennendy) and the resultant terrorist acts against US citizens perpetrated by the US military and falsely blamed on Cuba had been used as the legal justification for the invasion of Cuba.
Now how about telling us why you believe any of the bin Laden ‘confessions’ to be authentic and why you believe he lived beyond December 2001?
—
As for your attempts to downgrade the siginificance of Sibel Edmonds allegations, a good many other former Intelligence professionals also dispute the fiction of 9/11. Have you checked patriotsquestion911.com? If there is no substance to Sibel Edmonds’ allegations, then why are they so desperate to gag her? Why shouldn’t all such allegations be investigated by a proper inquiry into 9/11?
Nevertheless the central thrust of [Sibel Edmonds'] claims, that there was a genuine plan by Bin Laden and his cohorts to attack the US with planes, of which the FBI had evidence but which it ignored or failed to act upon, contradicts yours that the destruction of the WTC towers (and presumably the damage sustained by the Pentagon) was caused by demolition explosives.
I think you should try to properly understand the case of the 9/11 Truth Movement.
The 9/11 Truth Movement also doesn’t preclude the possibility that Al Qaeda, which, after all, was a creation of the CIA, may have played a role in 9/11, including the recritment and training of patsies.
The crtical component of the terrorist attacks were not the hijackings and the crashing of flights 11 and 175 into the twin towers, which would have left around 2-300 dead at most. It was the controlled demolitions of the Twin Towers and Building 7, which the impacts were only designed to make appear to have been the causes of.
There is no way that Al Qaeda could have done that.
Dagget — in the article you linked too at least the antisemitism isn’t denied or hidden away.
Where is the ‘hidden’ anti-Semetism in anything I have written above or anything I have referred to?
In regard to that that article concerning Francesco Cossiga, I concede there may be a problem and I have had second thoughts.
To some the statement:
All the [intelligence services] of America and Europe know well that the disastrous attack has been planned and realized from the Mossad, with the aid of the Zionist world in order to put under accusation the Arabic countries and in order to induce the western powers to take part in Iraq [and] Afghanistan.
… may seem anti-Semetic, so I would need to seek further clarification as to exactly what he means.
However, even if some supporters of the 9/11 Truth Movement can be accused of anti-Semetism, that charge, to me, seems tame in comparison with the charge of condoning the lie the Muslims perpetrated the 9/11 and effectively allowing that lie to be used to justify wars that have killed well over a million Muslims and have displaced millions more.
Even if that statement by Francesco Cossiga was not intended to be anti-Semetic, I still have a problem with the all-too-common viewpoint that places Israel and Zionism at the centre of nearly everything that is wrong with the world today as the statement seems to imply.
It seems to me that Mossad did play a role in 9/11 and had an interest in getting the US and European nations go to war against Afghanistan and Iraq, but I am not conviced that Israel and Mossad were the principle instigators of 9/11 as Cossiga seems to be saying.
I also note that Francesco Cossiga is not listed in the Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth web site at pl911truth.com.
If some people who support the 9/11 Truth Movement seem questionable (and I have yet to arrive at a firm view in regard to Francesco Cossiga), they should not be used to judge the whole 9/11 Truth Movement. Again I urge people to look at sites patriotsquestion911.com to get some idea of calibre of the people who have given their support to the movement.
—
To the person who changed the title of this forum to “Saturday Salon – The Truth is Out There! edition”:
I thank him/her for giving this thread a title which will differentiate it from other Saturday Salons and give people a rough idea of what the predominant controversy is, but I should point out that, just as I have never read a Dan Brown novel, I am not a fan of “The X files” and whilst I have watched it on a few occasions when I was a guest of friends, I have never once viewed that program at my own initiative.
The truth is not to be fooound “out there”. It is to be found in hundreds of documents and videos to befound readily on the Internet and in books. Few of the Truth Deniers on this forum have demonstrated any ability to comprehend those documents.
<blockquoteBefore you demand yet further evidence from me, GregM, how about you either.
1. Refute this and the other evidence I have provided; or
2. Accept that evidence and the conclusions I have drawn from them?
I met this demand by refuting part of your evidence (the fake tapes) on the bsais of the very link you provided and accepted other of it (the FBI reasons for not charging Bin Laden for 9/11) on the basis of the very same link you provided.
Now you state, in a garbled form over several sentences, that you were not sincere in what you said about “all” tapes and your comments about the FBI rebuttal are simply unintelligible.
I have tried to entertain and respond to your 9/11 Truther claims by looking at the “evidence” you present for them sincerely and you respond with that garbage.
I’m not going to waste any more time on your pathetic nutcase delusions. I just recommend you seek help and if you are on medication, which you should be, go back to your medical provider and discuss increasing the dose.
Murph the surf has cut to the chase about your motivations. I am not going to soil myself any further with your sickening filth.
“I met this demand by refuting part of your evidence (the fake tapes) on the bsais of the very link you provided and accepted other of it (the FBI reasons for not charging Bin Laden for 9/11) on the basis of the very same link you provided.”
No you didn’t.
Firstly you only ‘refuted’ a small fraction of that post and ignored the rest and have not even attempted to address the considerable amount before that.
On top of that your ‘refutation’ was an exercise in splitting hairs rather than dealing with the key issue, that is, what is the evidence of Osama bin Laden’s guilt. To claim that if I can’t prove that all four tapes are faked then he must be guilty is absurd.
Again, surely if any one contained a confession and could be authenticated then the FBI would be grossly negligent in not using that confession as a basis for charging Osama bin Laden.
Your claim was:
You provide a link that claims that one of them (Tape E)is fake but does so on the basis that another tape (Tape C, released by Al Jazeera in December 2001) is authentic. The problem is that on Tape C Bin Laden states that the WTC towers were brought down by the aeroplane attacks and claims responsibility for it for his group.
The basis upon which. Tape E the main “smoking gun” tape of 9 November is shown to be fake is much more than just a comparison with Tape C.
As one of many examples the “Osama bin Laden” tape in Tape is wearing a ring which is forbiddne by Islam.
You don’t attempt to defend the main “smoking gun” video but instead make the claim that Osama bin Laden confessed in Tape C. I haven’t seen the transcript of that video tape, so why not provide it?
In any case, why would Osama bin Laden issue numerous denials of his involvement in 9/11 only to confess on tape?
Here are his denials:
12 Sep: bin Laden “thanked Almighty Allah and bowed before him when he heard this news,” but said he had “had no information or knowledge about the attack.”
16 Sep: Osama bin Laden told Al Jazeera: “I stress that I have not carried out this act, which appears to have been carried out by individuals with their own motivation.”
17 Sep: Osama bin Laden sent the Afghan Islamic Press a statement saying: “I am residing in Afghanistan. I have taken an oath of allegiance to [Mullah Omar] which does not allow me to do such things from Afghanistan. We have been blamed in the past, but we were not involved.”
28 Sep: “I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children and other people. Such a practice is forbidden even in the course of a battle. … [W]e are against the American system, not against its people, whereas in these attacks, the common American people have been killed.”
3 Nov: In a videotape broadcast bin Laden’s only reference to 9/11 was this statement: “[N]o evidence links what happened in the United States to the people of Afghanistan. The people of Afghanistan have nothing to do with this matter.”
The closest to a ‘confession’ was on 7 Oct, in a video, just after the first US strikes on Afghanistan, bin Laden praised the “vanguards of Islam … [who] destroyed America,” but he did not himself claim responsibility for the attacks.
Dan Rather and Barry Petersen fail to draw the implications of their January 2002 report. They fail to beg the question: where was Osama on 9/11? If they are to stand by their report, the conclusion is obvious: The administration is lying regarding the whereabouts of Osama.
Inpatient dialysis treatment tends to be longer than 24 hours in most American hospitals, which suggests that Osama would have been discharged from the Hospital on or “after” September 11.
If the CBS report is accurate and Osama had indeed been admitted to the Pakistani military hospital on September 10, courtesy of America’s ally, he was in all likelihood still in hospital in Rawalpindi on the 11th of September, when the attacks occurred. In all probability, his whereabouts were known to US officials on the morning of September 12, when Secretary of State Colin Powell initiated negotiations with Pakistan, with a view to arresting and extraditing bin Laden
This hinges on Dan Rather’s reporting even if he did not draw the obvious conclusions. If he was wrong about Oasama bin Laden entering the military hospital on 10 September, then don’t you think someone would have attempted to refute that story?
Getting one story wrong three years later doesn’t mean that we have to completely ingnore evey report Dan Rather made.
I note you have ignored the other inconvenient fact contained in that story, that fact being that in July 2001, when Osama bin Laden was wanted by the FBI for numerous pre-9/11 terrorist charges, he was met by the Dubai CIA station chief when he underwent kidney dialysis in that hospital.
Gregm wrote:
I’m not going to waste any more time …
I don’t care that much whether you continue to ‘argue’ with me or not, but I think it will be obvious to anyone who carefully reads through all this that you have acknowledged very few of my arguments amd not refuted any, except, just possibly, in the narrowest, pedantic, nit-picking sense in one instance.
GregM, I enjoyed and learned some things from your post @ 283, and I’m glad you took the time to respond and write it, but @ 288:
“I’m not going to waste any more time on your pathetic nutcase delusions. I just recommend you seek help and if you are on medication, which you should be, go back to your medical provider and discuss increasing the dose.”
Was unfunny, laboured sarcarsm, and:
“Murph the surf has cut to the chase about your motivations. I am not going to soil myself any further with your sickening filth.”
Was, along with Murph the surf @ 285, uncalled for, and way out of line.
To imply someone’s suspicision of accounts of 9/11, whether evidenced to your standards or not, necessarily equates to *wanting Israel and the jews destroyed*, was nothing but gross logical (absurdly rhetorical) stupidity.
Or, at best, a simplistic alignment to a right-wing consensus-column.
Thanks, Nick (@ 290) for taking the stand that you did against personal abuse in this discussion.
That said, I think have still been overly generous in your evaluation of GregM’s post (@ 288) even if it is, by far, the most substantive of contributions from the Official Conspiracy 9/11 Theorists participating in this discussion. How has my subsequent post (@ 289) not answered his arguments?
—
My apologies for that large block of boldfaced text in my previous post. I had intended to use <blockquote></blockquote> tags.
The fact that so much building material was ejected such great distances would be due to the fact that those who set up the demolition would have erred on the side of using too much explosives to be more certain that no incriminating evidence would be subsequently found.
So, Liam would have us believe that the people who demolished the three buildings removed the evidence of their crime for the 9/11 Truth Movement’s convenience and not for theirs?
Liam, are you trying to imply that if, instead of obliterating all of the three towers and immediately shipping away all the material to be melted down in China before investigators could examine it, and, instead, leaving substantial sections of the three towers standing as could have happened if they had used substantially less quantities of explosives that their innocence of the crime could have been proven?
Apologies for the grammatical error and awkwrd expression in the last paragraph and the bad link in 291. (I don’t have a fully working ‘preview’ capability on my browser.) Here’s the last part of that post again:
I wrote (@ >a href=#comment-825698″>227):
The fact that so much building material was ejected such great distances would be due to the fact that those who set up the demolition would have erred on the side of using too much explosives to be more certain that no incriminating evidence would be subsequently found.
So, Liam would have us believe that the people who demolished the three buildings removed the evidence of their crime for the 9/11 Truth Movement’s convenience and not for theirs?
Liam, are you trying to imply that if, instead of obliterating all of the three towers and immediately shipping away all the material to be melted down in China, they had, instead, left substantial sections of the three towers standing for investigators to examine as could have happened if they had used substantially less quantities of explosives, that their innocence of the crime could have been proven?
“I don’t know much at all about Sibel Edmonds. As much as I have found out about her is that she was employed by the FBI as a translator in September 2001 and fired in March 2002, a career of all of six months. She is fluent in Turkish, Farsi and Azerbaijani, though not, it seems, Arabic or Pashtun, languages that are likely to be relevant to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. I would have to wonder how much truly highly classified information a translator would be given access to in her first six months of employment. Nevertheless the central thrust of her claims, that there was a genuine plan by Bin Laden and his cohorts to attack the US with planes, of which the FBI had evidence but which it ignored or failed to act upon, contradicts yours that the destruction of the WTC towers (and presumably the damage sustained by the Pentagon) was caused by demolition explosives.” – GregM
I don’t think the claims of demolition and prior knowledge of an attack are mtually exclusive claims. Not that it really matters…
Have a look at the other claims she makes that aren’t really related to 9/11 though, cept maybe through one degree of seperation. They are pretty full on claims, and they haven’t gone away in years.
She names names, documents evidence and launched actions in the US court system that were ended, not cause they were shown to be false, but cos they potentially threatened state security. She was sacked because she made valid complaints against people in her dept, and it was found she was sacked as much for the info she had as for the fact that she made complaints against her dept.
“However that is evidence of incompetence (which would not surprise me at all), not conspiracy.”
How do you know its one and not the other when the events have never been investigated properly, and ultimately does it matter? Incompetence is no excuse, especially when you cynically exploit your own incompetence to gain humungous amounts of advantage.
However that is evidence of incompetence (which would not surprise me at all), not conspiracy.
It’s strange how apologists for political leaders like Bush and Howard will claim them to be incompetent at the time they are under the public spotlight for their misdeeds, but later, will try to have us forget that incompetence.
Years later we read nonsense that tries to tell as that the greatness of such leaders was not sufficintly acknowledged by aficle and ungrateful public at the time.
Here’s a list of the warnings that we know that the Bush Government received prior to 9/11, but ignored — almost as many warnings as Alexander Downer recieved about the AWB scandal, it would seem.
I would be curious to know whether or not GregM also believes that John Howard were not aware at the time that AU$296million was being paid in bribe money to the regime of Saddam Hussein, the same regime that they were to tell us in 2003 were such a mortal threat to humankind that we were left with no choice but to invade.
If the newsmedia truly believed that they were that incompetent then why didn’t they immediately demand their resignation?
How could Howard then have stood any chance whatsoever of being re-lected in 2007?
And how could they have allowed Bus to be re-elected in 2004?
The reality is that the media, unlike what GregM would have us think he believes, understand perfectly well that they could not possibly be that incompetent.
leaving substantial sections of the three towers standing as could have happened if they had used substantially less quantities of explosives that their innocence of the crime could have been proven
Iraq was behind all the big attacks, from 1993 forwards, and the White House always knew it, but tried to deal with it secretly – and this is standard operating procedure for dealing with state-sponsored terrorism when it’s inconvenient to mention the culprit. “Deal with it secretly” means that you construct an alternative public narrative for both the attacks and for anything you do in response.
Of course it wasn’t supposed to drag on as it did. The mid-1993 bombing of Iraqi intelligence headquarters was supposed to deter all further such attacks. But it didn’t; Iraq’s WMD programs became the safe public rationale for everything; and what happened under Bush – 9/11, followed by the occupation of Iraq – was simply the amplification and logical conclusion of the process begun under Clinton.
Excellent. A truther stoush. Now for all you people out there who don’t know. You know you’re getting close to the truth when these dudes start installing cable TV for all your neighbours.
I never claimed the fact that the evidence was removed was, in and of itself, proof that the buildings were demolished. Nevertheless, removal of evidence from the scene of a crime is, itself, a crime under US law.
Those who removed the evidence should have been treated as suspects in the far more serious crime of the 9/11 attacks and thoroughly investigated both by the police and, subsequently, by the 9/11 Commission and by NIST.
Now I’m gonna ask a question thats been drowned out by the banging on about buildings that collapsed into a huge mess at significantly less than free fall speeds outside their own footprint. (Don’t believe me daggett, analyse the collapse for yourself. I have.) So far outside that footprint that a huge chunk of them slammed into building 7 as is clearly visible on any video of the event.
The fact that so much building material was ejected such great distances would be due to the fact that those who set up the demolition would have erred on the side of using too much explosives to be more certain that no incriminating evidence would be subsequently found.
So, Liam would have us believe that the people who demolished the three buildings removed the evidence of their crime for the 9/11 Truth Movement’s convenience and not for theirs?
Liam, are you trying to imply that if, instead of obliterating all of the three towers and immediately shipping away all the material to be melted down in China, they had, instead, left substantial sections of the three towers standing for investigators to examine as could have happened if they had used substantially less quantities of explosives, that their innocence of the crime could have been proven?
Years later we read nonsense that tries to tell as that the greatness of such leaders was not sufficintly acknowledged by a fickle and ungrateful public at the time.
‘a fickle’ had accidentally been typed as ‘aficle’.
At the risk of actually engaging with you daggett, something that I set out my refusal to do at #177;
Liam would have us believe that the people who demolished the three buildings removed the evidence of their crime for the 9/11 Truth Movement’s convenience and not for theirs?
I’m saying you’re basing your Search For Truth on something which conveniently will defy proof, no matter how strongly investigated. Building demolished? Must have been blown up by persons unknown. Building doesn’t appear to have been demolished by explosives? Must have used so much explosive as to defy investigation (awesome, BTW). No explosives found? Must have been a special thermite explosive. No thermite marks? Must have been secret military thermite. No such thing as military thermite? Must be a requirement for more investigation, and anyone who denies it is a PNAC stooge.
It’s head-stuck-in-sand solipsistic fantasy, based on confirmation bias and speculation, flat-earth anti-investigation at it’s worst, and it’s turtles all the way down.
“It’s head-stuck-in-sand solipsistic fantasy, based on confirmation bias and speculation, flat-earth anti-investigation at it’s worst, and it’s turtles all the way down.”
Nice.
301Dept of Pedantry and Not Giving Credit Where It's Due
You think?
It’s more like standard smart-arse LP putdown, complete with punctuation error to me, but who am I to judge?
Liam, like any good blog commentator, obviously knows his audience.
Adrian, I certainly do know my audience and my co-smartarses. Let’s have a quick review of some of your contributions to this thread:
#171 “GregM ‘smugly condescending’? You must have the wrong GregM”
#253 “well that about covers it jules”
#262 “maybe you should channel Missy more often”
At least daggett’s got some interesting stoush in him, even if he is fixated on the Deus Ex PNAC to provide the answer to all of life’s little engineering questions. When you make a contribution to any thread that’s more than the stock-standard nyah-nyah rah-rah please let me know, and I’ll give you a golf clap for the effort.
But seriously folks, it pisses me off when someone like daggett comes along, putting forward a controverial and non-mainstream view and gets personal abuse for his troubles, from the snide putdowns to the full on questioning of his sanity. Yet he doesn’t respond in kind, but continues with his patient explanation of his case, which most of his critics think it is beneath them to respond seriously to.
Nick said it best @290, and also jules elsewhere, but where is the tolerance for views that are outside the conventional?
adrian: tolerance goes as far as allowing him to publish here, is my guess.
But “tolerance” doesn’t entail his readers must AGREE with him, and aren’t permitted to point out flaws in his case, or say the whole shebang is silly.
daggett writes on a topic that is seared into our memories and has had enormous quantities of newsprint, forensic investigation, TV doco time, etc. Most of us formed a view, and applied our customary levels of scepticism and inquiry to the matter. Gosh, some of us even read books and/or web sources about it.
Along comes daggett. He cannot expect some sort of tabula rasa here on which to inscribe his screeds….
Ambigulous @ 305 – Fair enough, but it’s the level of hostility to views outside the mainstream that I was getting at.
Liam @ 302 – Try reading for meaning or whatever.
It’s your right not to debate views which you hold to be too preposterous to even discuss, but simply stating that those views are preposterous over and over and over again is surely a waste of your time and everyone else’s time.
What could possibly satisfy you that there was not a massive conspiracy to whip Americans into war-frenzy?
It seems that you are totally satisfied that 9/11, Bali, London 7/7, Madrid etc was the result of a vast global conspiracy, yet you have not provided any evidence for that belief.
This conspiracy is supposed to consist of a network of terrorist cells all over the world including in Australia. This terrorist network is supposedly controlled and sustained by people operating from sanctuaries in Afghanistan and Pakistan, The fact that not one person with a proven link to those attacks has been catured in spite of over 7 and a half years of military occupation of Afghanistan and numerous incursions into Pakistan appears not to have shaken your belief.
What just might satisfy me that “there was not a massive conspiracy to whip Americans into war-frenzy” would be a proper investigation into 9/11 as the 9/11 Truth Movement has been demanding for years. The 9/11 Truth Movement has amply demonstrated that the previous investigations were shams which appeared to be intended to be cover-ups.
It is conceivably possible that a proper investigation would come up with an explanation other than a conspiracy be senior figures within the Bush Administration, but, at the moment, I couldn’t even begin to imagine what that explanation would be. If you could either suggest another explanation or provide evidence for the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory that you support I would be most interested.
The reason that past investigations were shams were:
A. A large number of questions, including questions of those who lost loved ones on 11 September 2001, were not even asked, let alone answered. One question which was not asked was, as I asked before: Why was so much of the evidence so quickly and systematically removed from the scene of the crime? Other questions not asked, which are further elaborated on the 9/11 Truth Statment are:
1. Why were standard operating procedures for dealing with hijacked airliners not followed that day?
2. Why were the extensive missile batteries and air defenses reportedly deployed around the Pentagon not activated during the attack?
3. Why did the Secret Service allow Bush to complete his elementary school visit, apparently unconcerned about his safety or that of the schoolchildren?
4. Why hasn’t a single person been fired, penalized, or reprimanded for the gross incompetence we witnessed that day?
5. Why haven’t authorities in the U.S. and abroad published the results of multiple investigations into trading that strongly suggested foreknowledge of specific details of the 9/11 attacks, resulting in tens of millions of dollars of traceable gains?
6. How could Flight 77, which reportedly hit the Pentagon, have flown back towards Washington D.C. for 40 minutes without being detected by the FAA’s radar or the even superior radar possessed by the US military?
7. How were the FBI and CIA able to release the names and photos of the alleged hijackers within hours, as well as to visit houses, restaurants and flight schools they were known to frequent?
8. What happened to the over 20 documented warnings given our government by 14 foreign intelligence agencies or heads of state?
9. Why did the Bush administration cover up the fact that the head of the Pakistani intelligence agency was in Washington the week of 9/11 and reportedly had $100,000 wired to Mohamed Atta, considered the ringleader of the hijackers?
10. Why did the 911 Commission fail to address most of the questions posed by the families of the victims, in addition to almost all of the questions posed here?
11. Why was Philip Zelikow chosen to be the Executive Director of the ostensibly independent 911 Commission although he had co-authored a book with Condoleezza Rice?
B. A vast body of evidence which conflicted with the official explanation of 9/11 was ignored.
C. The hypothesis that the ‘collapses’ of the three towers were controlled demolitions was not even considered by NIST in spite of a vast body of eyewitness testimony including even from news reporters on the day, video footage and other physical evidence that they were.
Of course I greatly appreciate anyone going to the trouble and expense to provide a platform, such as Larvatus Prodeo on which people can post views which may differ from their own, but I would have, nevertheless thought that people taking the considerable time and effort to post views that are substantiated and carefully argued as I believe I have done, should be welcomed rather than just ‘tolerat[ed]‘.
As it happens, I also help to provide a platform on which others can post views which I may not agree with. It is candobetter.org. You will certainly find there views opposed to the goals of that site.
Anyone here is welcome to post comments relating to material contained on that site, although, in the interests of other site users, I have close to zero tolerance of personal attacks and will either remove posts containing personal attacks or remove the personal attacks from those posts. I would certainly not allow any site visitors to be subject to posts such as FDB’s to 240 and 250. I think the moderators of LP should also consider enforcing some minimal standards of decency and civility
Ambigulous wrote,
But “tolerance” doesn’t entail his readers must AGREE with him, and aren’t permitted to point out flaws in his case, or say the whole shebang is silly.
Firstly, where did I or anyone else say that my readers must agree with me?
Secondly, please show me even one post in this whole forum which points out the flaws in my case.
Ambigulous wrote,
daggett writes on a topic that … has had enormous quantities of … forensic investigation, …
If you had comprehended the arguments I have put here, you would know that there has been no proper ‘forensic investigation’ into 9/11, except by those who dispute the official account of 9/11. Please provide even one example of proper ‘forensic investigation’ by any US Government agency.
Let’s say, daggett, that I do hold the position that all of the terrorist attacks you mentioned were perpetrated by a central, organised, conspiratorial group.*
If I then pointed out the lack of evidence to back up the theory that all of the terrorist attacks were the product of an organised conspiracy, and then used that lack of evidence to argue in favour of the theory, what would you think of that? Or if, to whatever objection anyone put in front of my faith in my theory of a Terrorist Conspiracy, I simply retreated behind a further statement that a more powerful group had hidden the required evidence?
*For the record: I don’t. I’m perfectly happy with the conventional consensus that all of those terrorist attacks were perpetrated by loosely-aligned and opportunistically-organised extremist groups operating in a foaming seething clusterfuck of competing national, subnational, ethnic and religious grievances, encouraged by political parties, tribal groups, churches, sects and official Intelligence services, fed by easy anonymous money and drugs and arms deals, and massively empowered by globalisation. I read John Robb and I vote.
It is doubtless that al Qaeda, which was little more than a shelf company that outsourced its work to sub-contractors and other organisations, leaked like a sieve in the months, weeks and days leading up to 9/11.
US and other counterintelligence organisations were picking up loads of chatter. These snippets can be likened to pieces of a jigsaw whose pattern became clear after the event only.
Moreover, it would take little expertise to profit from shorting relevant stocks and financial instruments so long as the time frame for the attacks was known.
A few days before Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Habib called his wife from Pakistan, Australian officials said this week. (Her phone was being monitored.) In the conversation, they said, Mr. Habib said something big was going to happen in America in the next few days.
But this phone call, which has not previously been reported, does not support the allegation that Mr. Habib had advance knowledge that planes were going to be flown into the World Trade Center or the Pentagon, another Australian official cautioned. Just about everyone in Kandahar and the Qaeda camps knew that something big was coming, he said. “There was a buzz.”
This buzz swept through the entire intelligence community. Failure to act on it is entirely characteristic of the fatal weakness of large, bureaucratic organisations when confronted with a nimble enemy.
Jim Molen on ABC this morning asserted that 180,000 or so troops to the mission, but this can scarcely be reconciled with the US Army’s Counter-Insurgency Field Manual which, authored in part by Petraeus, insists on a ratio of 20 counter insurgency trained troops for every 1000 civilians. On a population of 33 million in Afghanistan, that works out not to 180,000 troops but … 660,000 troops. Remember also that these can’t be any old troops but specially trained counter-insurgency troops.
How much would these cost to keep in the field? Figures are hard to come by but we can hazard a ballpark guess. During the whole period of the US occupation of Afghanistan, during most of which time the US had far fewer troops than now, the average annual cost of the war was $US38 billion, yet as late as April this year the US only had 34,000 troops. Simple maths tells us that this is nearly 1.2 million per year per troop in the field, even at this rather larger number. Costs for the war this fiscal year are up to $US55 billion with 64,000 troops for most of the year, so that’s a little cheaper at $860,000 troops each. The Canadians 2300 troops present between November 2001 and March of 2006 cost a little over $CAN600,000 each (about $US552,000 on today’s conversion) for each year.
Again simple maths tells us that even if we accept this low figure — improbable since we are now not merely fighting and holding but doing capacity building — that amounts to $US3.643 trillion dollars annually. IOW, for each of the ten years optimists think it will take to win, the world would spend about 5% of GDP on Afghan counter-insurgency, in addition to what has already been spent. Even at Jim Molen’s super optimistic 180,000 estimate for a landlocked country with very porous borders its near enough to $US 1trillion per year. It is worth noting that no nation in history has ever gone from feudalist/tribalism to modern governance in ten years, or anything like it. No nation has ever done this at gunpoint.
It’s deceitful special pleading to say that if we don’t increase resources we won’t win when even increasing resources to unsustainable levels can’t confidently predict such an outcome, and indeed predicts nothing more than throwing good resources after bad.
Currently of course there are about 100,000 troops in the field. A whole bunch of the non-US troops are looking for an early exit — Berlusconi has been explicit. The Dutch aren’t renewing and its likely the Germans will also pull out shortly. So even on the most optimistic of estimates Obama is going to have to find and maintain most of 120,000 extra troops in addition to the 64,000 he already has there. Since many of these have to be redeployed from Iraq and redeploymnet is also more expensive than coming home, we have another expense. If you want to allow the troops 4 weeks annual R&R you can add an extra 1/12 of however many they have there. Allow for 2% casualty rate (dead and indefinitely incapacitated each year) and there’s another 3600 for 180,000 that you have to allow. And this is all very optimistic, because if Petraeus is right (and if he’s that far wrong, what is he doing in charge?) they are going to need most of 600,000 extra US troops — for ten years.
On the one hand you adamantly refuse to consider and discuss any of the evidence I have presented:
I will not watch your videos. I will not read your Questions. … I utterly reject the idea that your argument can be dealt with fairly or reasonably.
Then ont the other hand you imply that you or others have demolished the arguments I have put:
Or if, to whatever objection anyone put in front of my faith in my theory of a Terrorist Conspiracy, …
How can you have put any ‘objection’ in front of my ‘faith’ if you adamantly refuse to discuss the substantive content of my posts?
I see now that you are now attempting to distance yourself from the ludicrous Official Conspiracy Theory that is used by Rudd and our corporate newsmedia to justify the war in Afghanistanistan.
Perhaps that’s a start. Nevertheless, I would still be interested to see the evidence for your claim that:
… all of those terrorist attacks were perpetrated by loosely-aligned and opportunistically-organised extremist groups operating in a foaming seething clusterfuck of competing national, subnational, ethnic and religious grievances, …
I would like to know how you think it was possible for a “loosely-aligned and opportunistically-organised extremist group” to have carried out the terrorist attack of September 11 and what your evidence is.
As you now seem to concede that all of this is “encouraged by … official Intelligence services” (which, of course, I consider a gross understatement) I would be most interested to know want has led you to that conclusion.
… US and other counterintelligence organisations were picking up loads of chatter. These snippets can be likened to pieces of a jigsaw whose pattern became clear after the event only.
Clearly, Katz has not read the list of warnings that I linked to above. Here are the specific warnings tath attacks would be launched from the air grouped by the nations from which those warnings originated:
1. In 1999, British intelligence gave a secret report to the US embassy. The report stated that al-Qaeda had plans to use “commercial aircraft” in “unconventional ways,”“possibly as flying bombs.” [Sunday Times, 6/9/02] On July 16, 2001, British intelligence passed a message to the US that al-Qaeda was in “the final stages” of preparing a terrorist attack in Western countries. [London Times, 6/14/02] In early August, the British gave another warning, telling the US to expect multiple airline hijackings from al-Qaeda. This warning was included in Bush’s briefing on August 6, 2001. [Sunday Herald, 5/19/02]
2. In June 2001, German intelligence warned the US, Britain, and Israel that Middle Eastern terrorists were planning to hijack commercial aircraft and use them as weapons to attack “American and Israeli symbols which stand out.” Within the American intelligence community, “the warnings were taken seriously and surveillance intensified” but “there was disagreement on how such terrorist attacks could be prevented.” This warning came from Echelon, a spy satellite network that is partly based in Germany. [Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 9/11/01, Washington Post, 9/14/01]
3. In late July 2001, Egyptian intelligence received a report from an undercover agent in Afghanistan that “20 al-Qaeda members had slipped into the US and four of them had received flight training on Cessnas.” To the Egyptians, pilots of small planes didn’t sound terribly alarming, but they passed on the message to the CIA anyway, fully expecting Washington to request information. “The request never came.” [CBS, 10/9/02] Given that there were 19 hijackers and four pilots (who trained on Cessnas) in the 9/11 plot, one might think this would now be a big news item. But in fact, the information has only appeared as an aside in a CBS “60 Minutes” show about a different topic.
4. In late summer 2001, Jordan intelligence intercepted a message stating that a major attack was being planned inside the US and that aircraft would be used. The code name of the operation was Big Wedding, which did in fact turn out to be the codename of the 9/11 plot. The message was passed to US intelligence through several channels. [International Herald Tribune, 5/21/02, Christian Science Monitor, 5/23/02]
5. Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly stated that he ordered his intelligence agencies to alert the US in the summer of 2001 that suicide pilots were training for attacks on US targets. [Fox News, 5/17/02] The head of Russian intelligence also stated, “We had clearly warned them” on several occasions, but they “did not pay the necessary attention.” [Agence France-Presse, 9/16/01] The Russian newspaper Izvestia claimed that Russian intelligence agents knew the participants in the attacks, and: “More than that, Moscow warned Washington about preparation for these actions a couple of weeks before they happened.” [Izvestia, 9/12/02]
6. Five days before 9/11, the priest Jean-Marie Benjamin was told by a Muslim at an Italian wedding of a plot to attack the US and Britain using hijacked airplanes as weapons. He wasn’t told time or place specifics. He immediately passed what he knew on to a judge and several politicians in Italy. Presumably this Muslim confided in him because Benjamin has done considerable charity work in Muslim countries and is considered “one of the West’s most knowledgeable experts on the Muslim world.” [Zenit, 9/16/01] Benjamin has not revealed who told him this information, but it could have come from a member of the al-Qaeda cell in Milan, Italy. This cell supplied forged documents for other al-Qaeda operations, and wiretaps show members of the cell were aware of the 9/11 plot. [Los Angeles Times, 5/29/02, Guardian, 5/30/02, Boston Globe, 8/4/02] For instance, in August 2000, one terrorist in Milan was recorded saying to another: “I’m studying airplanes. I hope, God willing, that I can bring you a window or a piece of an airplane the next time we see each other.” The comment was followed by laughter [Washington Post, 5/31/02]. In another case in January 2001, a terrorist asked if certain forged documents were for “the brothers going to the United States,” and was angrily rebuked by another who told him not to talk about that “very, very secret” plan. [Los Angeles Times, 5/29/02] In March 2001, the Italian government gave the US a warning based on these wiretaps. [Fox News, 5/17/02]
Clearly, Katz has not read the list of warnings that I linked to above. Here are the specific warnings tath attacks would be launched from the air grouped by the nations from which those warnings originated:
Clearly Daggett doesn’t understand the difference between non-specific chatter and “specific warnings”.
None of Daggett’s list specifies time, place or personnel. This chatter is constant and much of it is either deliberate disinformation or pub talk. Intelligence services are notoriously incapable of detecting the difference and also are overwhelmed by the pressure of following up the myriad of false leads. Welcome to the wacky world of counterintelligence.
Incompetence, overwork, and being fooled are regrettable enough. But Daggett would have us believe that in addition to these failings there existed elements of US intelligence services that deliberately ignored firm and specific leads.
And worse, that these elements actively conspired with the terrorists for their own fell purposes.
And still more unbelievably that those elements of the US security state that were not involved in this alleged conspiracy have decided not to blow the whistle on their treasonous colleagues!
That last claim is, of course, the height of absurdity.
… Daggett would have us believe that in addition to these failings there existed elements of US intelligence services that deliberately ignored firm and specific leads.
That is precisely the conclusion that I believe the evidence supports.
As just one example, if Russian intelligence agencies were able to grasp that terrorist attacks would be launched from the air against the US, and warned the the US, then what possible excuse could they have had not to be prepared on that day?
How could the US intellignece agencies with all the enormous resources at their desposal not have been able to quickly fill in the gaps, that is, unless they did not want the warnings to be acted upon? Indeed there is a great deal of evidence that a number of people within US initelligence and law enforcement agencies, who were aware of the threat and tried to prevent it, had their investigations obstructed.
Even with no warnings whatsover had been the hijackings would have been thwarted if normal operational procedures had been followed. That is the view of Vietnam War fighter pilot Lieutenant Colonel Robert Bowman.
What possible excuse could they have had with all those warnings not to have had F16 fighters ready to immediately scramble the moment that one civil airliner behaved abnormally?
It is pretty clear that it is not the Bush administration that was fooled, rather it is people like yourself were fooled about 9/11 and remain fooled to this day because they choose to be.
I think you need to make yourself more familiar with the case of the 9/11 Truth Movement. Only fringe elements within the 9/11 Truth movement argue that there were no hijackings or that Islamist extremists did not participate in the attacks or that the planes that hit the towers were holograms and are repudiated by the mainstram of the Truth Movement. Many within the 9/11 Truth movement believe that they are deliberately peddling stories od holgrams, particle beams from outer space, mini-thermonuclear devices, etc on behalf of the US Government in order to discredit the 9/11 Truth Movement.
As I have already said repeatedly before, it seems likely that Al Qaeda, which, after all was set up by the CIA in the first place, did play a role in the recruitment and training of patsies which were then used by US Intelligence agencies to stage those attacks and make those attacks appear to be the cause of three buildings collapsing.
I think you need to make yourself more familiar with the case of the 9/11 Truth Movement. Only fringe elements within the 9/11 Truth movement argue that there were no hijackings or that Islamist extremists did not participate in the attacks or that the planes that hit the towers were holograms and are repudiated by the mainstram of the Truth Movement. Many within the 9/11 Truth movement believe that they are deliberately peddling stories od holgrams, particle beams from outer space, mini-thermonuclear devices, etc on behalf of the US Government in order to discredit the 9/11 Truth Movement.
There is in England a sect which maintains that the English are the lost ten tribes; there is a stricter sect, which maintains that they are only the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. Whenever I encounter a member of either of these sects, I profess myself an adherent of the other, and much pleasant argumentation results.
As just one example, if Russian intelligence agencies were able to grasp that terrorist attacks would be launched from the air against the US, and warned the the US, then what possible excuse could they have had not to be prepared on that day?
What possible excuse?
Try these:
1. Which day?
2. Which airport(s)?
3. Which target(s)?
4. How reliable have the Russians been in the past?
5. How sincere have the Russians been in the past?
6. How do we prioritise the alleged Russian heads-up in relation to the dozens of other warnings and rumours circulating at the same time.
7. On the basis of the alleged Russian heads-up what level of response is appropriate? For example do we ground all civilian flights? Do we take all Muslims into custody?
I certainly do not “need” to make myself more familiar…. your own postings have been quite sufficient. Given that the chatter involved Cessnas (going to bomb a hay barn?) and vague hints, only seemingly relevant in hindsight, how was it that the demolition crews just happened to choose for demolition two of the very buildings the airliners flew into?
There is a gaping hole in your scenario.
There are others. Katz and Liam have indicated several.
Just because some relatively amateur blokes pulled off an extremely destructive attack, doesn’t necessarily imply they had assistance from the militarily mighty USA or any other State.
Sometimes really horrible things happen without the CIA pulling the strings, daggy.
I see that Katz has already forgotten that intellignece agecies from five other nations other than Russia gave the US very detailed warnings.
And Katz has ignored my point that people in the US who were trying to prevent the 9/11 attacks were obstructed.
At least Ambigulous and Katz have demostrated to the rest of us that they have no aptitude whatsoever for intelligence analysis or crime investigation.
It appears that if they had been in command of the US air defences on that day they would have waited until the flights that the hijackers had intended to hijack had been given to them and their intended targets had been provided before acting to prevent them.
If Ambigulous claims that he understands the case of the 9/11 Truth movement then isn’t it about time she/he demonstrated some comprehension of that case on this forum?
I see that Katz has already forgotten that intellignece agecies from five other nations other than Russia gave the US very detailed warnings.
Hmmm. Let’s see.
Daggett suggests that the US should have taken notice of the British, the Egyptians, the Germans, the Russians and the Jordanians.
With the exception of the Germans (who played host to the plotters of 9/11) every other nation he mentioned has suffered at least one serious terrorist outrage since 9/11.
Following Daggett’s logic it is possible that the intelligence authorities of these nations were also in cahoots with the terrorists for their own fell purposes, just like US intelligence.
That being the case, why should US intelligence take any notice at all of those warnings that possibly emanated from corrupted sources that conspired with Islamic fanatics?
Yes, that is a reductio ad absurdum argument. But at least I didn’t start it.
“There is a gaping hole in your scenario.” @323.
We also need to consider the long term decoy plan pulled off in 1993 – the forerunner of the second attack on the WTC buildings. From Wiki -
“The attack was planned by a group of conspirators including Ramzi Yousef, Mahmud Abouhalima, Mohammad Salameh, Nidal Ayyad, Abdul Rahman Yasin and Ahmad Ajaj. They received financing from Khaled Shaikh Mohammed, Yousef’s uncle. In March 1994, four men were convicted of carrying out the bombing: Abouhalima, Ajaj, Ayyad and Salameh. The charges included conspiracy, explosive destruction of property and interstate transportation of explosives. In November 1997, two more were convicted: Yousef, the mastermind behind the bombings, and Eyad Ismoil, who drove the truck carrying the bomb.”
You have to congratulate the conspirators who did all this just to mask who really did the attack 18 years later- those wily neoliberals!
If that doesn’t make sense it must be aliens- yes , some people blame shape shifting reptile aliens who are in control of all the governments of the world.
.
Welcome to the thoughts of David Icke.
“Icke cites the Holocaust,[22] the Oklahoma City bombing,[22] and the 11 September 2001 attacks[23] as examples of events financed and organised by the Global Elite. British journalist Simon Jones writes that, according to Icke, “Ordinary people are being massively duped into believing that the ordinary course of world events are the consequence of known political forces and random, uncontrollable events. However, the course of humanity is being manipulated at every level. These individuals arrange for incidents to occur around the world, which then elicit a response from the public (’something must be done’), and in turn allows those in power to do whatever they had planned to do in the first place.”[22]”
.
Or this gem-”In 1999, Icke wrote and published The Biggest Secret: The Book that Will Change the World, in which he identified the extraterrestrial prison warders as reptilians from the constellation Draco.[25] They walk erect and appear to be human, living not only on the planets they come from, but also in caverns and tunnels under the earth. They have cross-bred with humans, which has created “hybrids” who are “possessed” by the full-blooded reptilians.[26] The reptiles’ hybrid reptilian-human DNA allows them to change from reptilian to human form if they consume human blood. Icke has drawn parallels with the 1980s science-fiction series V, in which the earth is taken over by reptiloid aliens disguised as humans”
. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Icke
Weirdly enough others would have us believe the same rubbish.
I believe you do not have expertise or skills in ‘intelligence analysis’ or ‘crime investigation’. Several posters here have picked you up on crucial errors of logic.
It’s interesting that their clear thinking was sufficient. As far as I can see they didn’t need specialist training for that.
Several posters here have picked you up on crucial errors of logic.
As far as I am aware, I have responded to all aguments put to me. What do you claim are my “errors of logic”?
Katz, one law enforcement officer who seriously tried to prevent 9/11 was John O’Neill, who was head of the FBI’s counterterrorism branch in Washington.
And on August 22, 2001, FBI agent John O’Neill, the government’s “most committed tracker of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network of terrorists” [New Yorker, 1/14/02], quit after a critical article about him was published in the New York Times. O’Neill believed interim FBI Director Tom Pickard orchestrated the article as part of an effort to remove him, because the incoming FBI Director Robert Mueller wanted O’Neill replaced with a Bush ally. [PBS Frontline, 10/3/02, New Yorker, 1/14/02] O’Neill was killed in the 9/11 attacks. (from “The Failure to Defend the Skies on 9/11″)
He died because he was given a new job as the security director for the World Trade Center on 10 September 2001. His office was on the 34th floor of the North Tower.
Well, there’s an error of logic right there. Right in front of your nose, daggett. Can you see it?
You claim that this O’Neill guy was harassed into resigning from the FBI, presumably because he was getting too close to the ‘truth’ about Bin Laden.
Now, this could easily be explained as normal bureaucratic politics. But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that there was a more sinister explanation — that the shadowy powers behind the upcoming Twin Towers operation feared he might expose them.
Well, in that case, the very last thing in the world they would have done is allow him to have that security director job. As a competent ex-investigator with, presumably, complete access to the WTC, what if he had noticed some aspect of the preparations? Hey, why is there nano-thermite attached to that there girder?
Imagine if ex-Special Forces operatives, with links to the White House, were arrested by the NYPD as they were rigging up the buildings. It’d make Watergate look small beer. I’d love to see Dick Cheney try to explain that away.
Naah, if there really were a conspiracy, O’Neill would have been posted off to Alaska or somewhere, and then had a little car accident.
Logic. Look it up in the dictionary. It’s under ‘L’.
Oh, and your dates are wrong. O’Neill started as WTC security director on 23 August 2001, according to Wikipedia — giving him almost 3 weeks to notice any preparations for the ‘demolition’.
“I’d love to see Dick Cheney try to explain that away.”
“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know. And there are the things that were known to us and that we didn’t tell you, that we knew, and that we have no plan now of letting you know, we knew. You know.
Having trouble keeping up Daggett?
David Icke has outed you – I think you are one of the alien hybrids who are confusing us mere mortals with your outlandish tales so we can’t focus on where the real problem is.
And there isn’t anything anyone says or writes that will convince me otherwise . Any such so called evidence is only a smoke screen , a put up job , a lie peddled to stop true comprehension. The more you deny this the more we will all know that you are guilty.
We are onto you Daggett.
There’s no error of logic, because I only stated the facts of John O’Neill’s death. I concede that did mistakenly assume that he started his job as the security director for the World Trade Center on the day that he moved into his office on the 34th floof of the North Tower. The facts are:
John O’Neill begins his new job as head of security at the WTC. O’Neill had been the special agent in charge of the FBI’s National Security Division in New York, and was the bureau’s top expert on al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. [NEW YORK MAGAZINE, 12/17/2001; NEW YORKER, 1/14/2002] He’d left his job with the FBI just the day before (see August 22, 2001). … Developer Larry Silverstein, who recently took over the lease of the WTC … insisted he start in the post no later than the first week of September, when his firm Silverstein Properties is set to assume control of the buildings. … After a few days as the WTC security director, O’Neill will move into his new office on the 34th floor of the South Tower. [WEISS, 2003, PP. 353-354 AND 366]
Of course, the fact that they took the risk that O’Neill might have discovered what was going on occurred to me, but do you really think that it would have been inordinately difficult to steer him away from where he would have learnt what was really going on for that period of time?
It should also be pointed out that the 34th floor was below where flight 11 struck between the 93rd and 99th floors of the North Tower, so he theoretically could have easily survived the day. On the other hand, I expect he could have easily been persuaded as security director to stay in the building in order to personally investigate the crash. As experienced firefighters such as Oreo Palmer who reached the crash scene in the South Tower (and subsequently died) had no reason to expect each of the towers to collapse to dust in less that 16 seconds, then why should he?
FBI counterterrorism expert John O’Neill privately discusses White House obstruction in his bin Laden investigation. O’Neill says, “The main obstacles to investigate Islamic terrorism were US oil corporate interests and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it.” He adds, “All the answers, everything needed to dismantle Osama bin Laden’s organization, can be found in Saudi Arabia.” O’Neill also believes the White House is obstructing his investigation of bin Laden because they are still keeping the idea of a pipeline deal with the Taliban open (see July 21, 2001). [IRISH TIMES, 11/19/2001; BRISARD AND DASQUIE, 2002, PP. XXIX; CNN, 1/8/2002; CNN, 1/9/2002]
In an interview with author James Bamford, an unnamed FBI agent says that Alec Station, the CIA’s bin Laden unit, deliberately hid 9/11 hijacker Khalid Almihdhar from the FBI, allowing 9/11 to happen. He says: “They refused to tell us because they didn’t want the FBI, they didn’t want John O’Neill in particular, muddying up their operation. They didn’t want the bureau meddling in their business—that’s why they didn’t tell the FBI. Alec Station worked for the CIA’s CTC [Counterterrorist Center]. They purposely hid from the FBI, purposely refused to tell the bureau that they were following a man in Malaysia who had a visa to come to America. The thing was, they didn’t want John O’Neill and the FBI running over their case. And that’s why September 11 happened. That is why it happened…. They have blood on their hands. They have three thousand deaths on their hands.” [BAMFORD, 2004, PP. 224]
Paulus wrote:
Imagine if ex-Special Forces operatives, with links to the White House, were arrested by the NYPD as they were rigging up the buildings.
The fact remains that mysterious people in overalls with tollboxes were observed going into the Twin Towers during poere downs in the weeks prior to 9/11.
It’d make Watergate look small beer. I’d love to see Dick Cheney try to explain that away.
If you had been following 9/11 you would understand there is already a vast amount that has been revealed that would “make Watergate look small beer” but which the newsmedia refuses to report. What about Sibel Edmonds’ explosive revelations of corruption in the FBI translation unit that concealed knowledge of the the 9/11 atacks and the sale of nuclear secrets to Turkey as just one of dozens of possible examples?
How do you know its one and not the other when the events have never been investigated properly, …
Good point, Jules.
Jules continued:
… and ultimately does it matter?
Yes it does.
If their failure to protect America on 11 September 2001 was truly incompetence then the sacking of all those found to be principly responsible may have been sufficient redress.
However, if it were to have been found to have been the result malicious intent, then those responsible should be put on trial and put behihd bars, possibly in a prison similar to Guantanamo Bay or Abu Ghraib for at least the rest of their natural lives.
Would anyone here find it acceptable if someone they beleive had murdered their husband or wife were not even investigated by the police, let alone charged, tried and imprisoned?
Yet, many who lost loved ones on the 11 September believe that they were deliberately murdered by senior members of the Bush administration.
Yet, in spite of a vast amount of evidence implicating them in that crime, no proper investigation has been conducted.
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In any case, when have any group of political leaders who were as grossly incompetent as members of the Bush Administration must have been to have unintentionally allowed the September 11 attacks to succeed, then been able to cover their arses so well that not a single one was sacked, demoted or even reprimanded? Indeed may of those responsible were subsequently promoted and nearly all profited immensely from the ensuing wars and the imposition of disaster capitalism on the United States.
911! From those wonderful folks who brought you the Bay of Pigs, Watergate, Operation Eagle Claw, Contragate, Carry On Up The Khyber (the 2002 Remix), the Mesopotamia Caper and much much more.
When it comes to a choice between the US shadow military-security-industrial complex and a cell of highly motivated young men who don’t care about living in this world any more, I’d know which stocks I’d short and which I would go long on.
However there’s probably a case to be made for Osama not quite being the omnipotent mastermind behind it all.
“They did what!!? That was just a feasibility study! No survivors you say? OK, let’s get in front of it. I’ll just jot down some bullet points here. Where’s the mike?”
They have blood on their hands. They have three thousand deaths on their hands
.
Well, assuming the truth of this assertion, they have a lot more than 3000 deaths on their hands don’t they?
When it comes to a choice between the US shadow military-security-industrial complex and a cell of highly motivated young men who don’t care about living in this world any more, I’d know which stocks I’d short and which I would go long on.
If Nabakov, believes that 19 “highly motivated young men who don’t care about living in this world any more” had vastly more capacity to pull off 9/11 than did the “US shadow military-security-industrial complex” with all its hundreds of billions of funds, equipment and potentially thousands of highly trained personnel it could call upon, then perhaps he/she should ponder why other many “highly motivated young men who don’t care about living in this world any more” were so demonstrably unsuccessful in defeating the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Perhaps, also, Nabakov would care to offer his/her own explanation to the unanswered question posed by the 9/11 Truth Movement:
7. How were the FBI and CIA able to release the names and photos of the alleged hijackers within hours, as well as to visit houses, restaurants and flight schools they were known to frequent?
For my own part, I reject the view that the US military and US spy agencies are bottomless wells of incompetence as Nabakov is attempting to imply. They have on many occasions proven themselves very capable of inflicting violence in order to further the goals of those they serve. Of course, they make mistakes and, of course, they sometimes fail to achieve their goals. The reasons they fail often have a lot to do with the courage and sacrifice of those resisting them as occurred at the Bay of Pigs and in the Vietnam War. (It should also be noted that another reason for the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion was that President Kennedy refused to back the invasion with US air power as requested. For that and many other principled and decent stances he took, he was murdered in 1963.)
I think should we should start to become wary of people who on the one hand profess to oppose the wars in which the US is now engaged, but on the other hand seize upon any feeble argument to perpetuate the principle excuse used to justify those wars.
Here’s yet another editorial from the Australian in support of the Afghan War:
NATO nations must pull their weight in Afghanistan
…
And what would be a catastrophe for Afghanistan would be a disaster for the rest of the world. The last time the Taliban controlled Afghanistan, it harboured Osama bin Laden. It seems certain a second Taliban state would be a safe haven from which to launch terror attacks across the globe, including at Europe. Mr Obama and Mr Rudd say they have always understood the dangers of Taliban rule. It is time they convinced the Europeans that they have no choice but to join the US, Australian and Britain in taking the terrorists seriously.
…
I would be most interested to know how all those ostensibly progressive anti-war types, who, nevertheless, have attacked me on this forum, would respond to that editorial or to the earlier editorial mentioned above.
Its hard to know whether or not that FBI agent’s expressed outrage at the needless loss of almost 3,000 American lives would have extended to the (soon to become) many more victims of the the US military outside the US, but, at least, he has grasped the fact that much of the culpability for those deaths lies with figures within the US administration, and was prepared to say so.
“7. How were the FBI and CIA able to release the names and photos of the alleged hijackers within hours, as well as to visit houses, restaurants and flight schools they were known to frequent?”
Once again, Dagster, I answered that back at #136.
7. How were the FBI and CIA able to release the names and photos of the alleged hijackers within hours, as well as to visit houses, restaurants and flight schools they were known to frequent?
Daggett, was my sister part of the conspiracy? She was downtown in Manhattan working for Time mag on 9/11, and was plugged, real-time, into the evidence-gathering and cross-referencing systems that largely established the “official version” that gradually emerged to explain the attack. Information that fits the official explanation was flooding in from tens of thousands of sources, collated and sifted for useful info by thousands of hardworking people trying to find answers, communicating with each other in good faith and stricken with grief.
How does that answer the question, FDB?
According to the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory, US intelligence agencies, law enforcement agencies, the whole US airport security system and the whole air defence system were caught copmpletely off guard. Yet within hours, the FBI and CIA were able to work out precisely who all the hijackers were and a good more, besides.
I would suggest that that was staggeringly brilliant detective work, that is, unless they already knew who the hijackers were.
In answer to your question, as someone put in another forum discussion:
It will probably be written in the annals of history that the false flag even known as 9/11 was first and foremost a failure of journalism; a cowardly display of personal journalistic cowardice in a time when America needed them most. When America needed journalisms’ best, it got its worst. Yours is a perfect case in point.
If your sister worked for Time magazine, then it seems highly likely to me that she was part of the media cover-up, if not the conspiracy itself.[1] There were obvious glaring holes in the Official Story from the outset, some of which I have described above. and any critical minded investigative journalist should have been able to spot them. Whether she would have witheld the truth willingly or did so only to avoid adverse repercussions is beside the point.
Footnotes
1. One journalist who was clearly part of the conspiracy, by the way was the BBC’s Jane Standley, who reported the ‘collapse’ of World Trade Center Building 7 23 minutes before it occrred with the World Trade Center still standing in the background. See video here. Clearly she had been given a script, but the actual demolition had been delayed. There’s a hilarious discussion about this on James Randi’s web site. As James Randi along with fellow ’sceptic’, Michael Shermer are Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists, I would have thought that Jane Standley would have qualified for James Randi’s $1million prize offered to anyone who can prove that they have psychic abilities.
Sorry. The video of Jane Standley reporting that WTC 7 had ‘collapsed’ 23 minutes before it actually did, is here.
Apologies for yet another useless internal page link to Nabakov’s post (@ 337) above. (I made it mistakenly <a href=”/#comment-826851″>337</a> instead of <a href=”#comment-826851″>337</a>. Clicking on the former will cause your browser to try to retrieve LP’s home page instead of just going to the reference on the current page.)
Firstly, I still haven’t learn what the point of your post at 325 is.
Katz, are you trying to tell me that you share FDB’s unlimited faith in Time magazine and the rest of the commercial media to tell us the truth and to fearlessly hold our political leaders to account, as they did over the Iraq WMD allegations and FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds‘ allegations of Senior US politicians selling nuclear secrets to Turkey, etc, etc?
I would be most interested to learn how your sister and the other Time journalists satisfied themselves of the veracity of the official explanation of 9/11. Would yo car to show me where they put to the US government those questions that I mentioned above that the 9/11 Truth Movement is trying to get answers for.
For more illuminatimg Time magazine reporting on 9/11, please see the article “9/11 Cover-Up” amongst a collection of articles “Conspiracy Theories” of July 2009.
It tells us all that anyone needs to know about the 9/11 controversy in all of 203 words.
And in a manner, with which those following this forum would not be altogether unfamiliar, by now, Time Magazine demonstrates conclusively how, because some people out there believe that the world is ruled by a Reptillianelite, that the Apollo moon landings were faked or take what is written in the da Vinci Code about Jesus and Mary Magdalene is literally true, that it necessarily follows that we can dismiss out of hand any notion that the US government has been less than forthright in its account of 9/11 or about the JFK asassination.
Katz, are you trying to tell me that you share FDB’s unlimited faith in Time magazine and the rest of the commercial media to tell us the truth and to fearlessly hold our political leaders to account[?]
I won’t speak for FDB.
“Unlimited faith”?
Oh dear Daggett. I’m beginning to suspect that nuance isn’t your long suit.
It may come as a surprise to you therefore that there exists a very large grey area between fearless truth-telling and acting as a complicit mouthpiece of government power.
I was living in the US when that non-entity John Hinckley tried to shoot Reagan. I was amazed by the speed with which, in those pre-internet days, the major networks were able to piece together the outlines of Hinkley’s biography.
The mass media are very good at doing that sort of thing even without the help of the government.
Firstly, as with the point you made at 325 above, I don’t understand what bearing your point about the rporting of the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan has on 9/11 or the discussion of the media’s role in 9/11.
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In spite of my occasional resort to the use of hyperbole and other debating devices, I have shown that I take this topic very seriously.
So, why won’t you?
Why won’t you either demonstrate to others that the arguments that I have put in support of the 9/11 Truth Movement are wrong, or, else, at least stop making contributions which appear to be designed to cloud the issue?
We have long ago established that the case in support of the Vietnam War was a lie.
Since then we have similarly established that the case put at the time overtly in support of the invasion of Iraq War, that is WMD’s, was a lie on more than one level (regardless of whether or not the implicit 9/11 argument that we now are arguing about has been shown up as such).
Furthermore, the commercial and government newsmedia peddled that lie, even though anyone, with critical capabilities and access to the facts that any journalist had at the time, should have been able to see it as such.
That is one of many examples that just about veryone here would agree about of the the commercial media, including Time magazine, and most current affairs journalists on its payroll, acting against the public interest.
For my part, if no-one here is prepared to deal with any of the substantive arguments I have put, I would dearly love to be able, as we have been able with the Iraq War WMD argument, to move beyond having to deal with the silly ‘black is white’ arguments, the non-sequiturs and straw-men demolition exercises, that are being employed here, and arrive at a consensus on 9/11.
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Apologies for the grammatic and spelling errors above.
“… yo car …” should have been “… you care …” and “take what is written in the da Vinci Code about Jesus and Mary Magdalene is literally true” should have been “take what is written in The da Vinci Code about Jesus and Mary Magdalene to be literally true.”
I think we had the best clue a long time ago when Eisenhower warned us all to beware of the military industrial complex. We would have done well to heed his warning, but then it was probably already too late to stop the rise of the machine — even back then.
I would be curious to learn whether any of the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists on this forum dispute the existence of the the military industry complex that US President Eisenhower warned against and that it poses a threat to democracy and to world peace. (Personally, I don’t think it is too late, but I don’t think we have that much time, either.)
—
Apologies for having misspelt ‘everyone’ as ‘veryone’
I see no-one bothered to take on my #296. If I call that Scenario One (“Iraq did it, Clinton/Bush hid it”), orthodoxy Scenario Two (al Qaeda acted alone), and trutherdom Scenario Three (9/11 an inside job), I lean towards One, consider Two possible, but place Three out there with faked moon landings and Holocaust denial.
I agree with the clear majority view here that a lot of what daggett says is apriori absurd (e.g. suicide hijackings and a BBC conspiracy tool uniting to hide the fact that the WTC buildings were mined with explosives). Common sense has to be overwhelmed by some other factor in order to even consider such contorted scenarios. It all resembles the fundamentalist paranoia according to which angels and demons are messing with us at every step of our lives. Liam’s #311 is more like it.
Nonetheless I perceive the similarity between my situation and that of the Truthers. Like daggett, I can go on at great length with my “evidence”. (Old sample here. Yes, it’s a wingnut site. But for a long time it had the best discussions of the anthrax letters.) Like daggett, I suppose some secret management of public perception, which raises the problem of why word of the long-running conspiracy hasn’t leaked out. Like daggett, I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I am rather attached to a particular heterodoxy. Only in my case it’s the idea that intelligence agencies sometimes cover up *enemy action*, and that the invasion of Iraq under manufactured pretexts was the disastrous culmination of one such policy.
I would be a lot happier if the “9/11 truth movement” had time for *that* sort of perspective; but it doesn’t fit their dominant narrative, which is that the enemy is within. So instead I’ll ask the other diehards still reading this thread: would you regard *this* idea – the paternalistic coverup of enemy action by the intelligence services, compounding with time into an epic fiasco – to be apriori absurd as well?
I was merely telling you that someone dear and close to me was on the ground in Manhattan at the very time of the attacks, and along with everyone else in the whole city (and nation) she tried her arse off to coordinate and disseminate the best available information.
It was intended as a little vignette to offset your own, nearly a decade later, obsessive and furtive scrabbling through the remains to prove that your own favoured bogey men must have been responsible.
Frankly I share your concerns about these bogey-people and bogey-organisations, broadly speaking. They are doing way bogus stuff.
Are you trying to tell us that Time is not principally a magazine to dispense pro-US-government propaganda?
You have not responded to my specific questions, and you haven’t given us any other reason to believe that your sister acted any different from all the other Time journalists in their reporting of 9/11 and other events.
The reason that I did not respond to your suggestion that Iraq may have been behind 9/11 is because:
1. It defies common sense to suggest that the US would not have seized on any evidence of Iraq sponsoring a terrorist attack on the US as a justification for invasion, and, instead, have covered it up. Have you forgotten the immense and ultimately unsuccessful effort that the US conducted to win support of the United Nations security Council and world public opinion for the invasion, based on the phony WMD allegations? Why wouldn’t they have, instead, presented to the UN factual evidence of Iraq having sponsored a terrorist attack on the US, if they had it?
2. You provided no evidence.
Mitchell Porter wrote:
I agree with the clear majority view here that a lot of what daggett says is apriori absurd …
Perhaps you think we should dispense with discussion and simply conduct polls on contentious issues?
Simply stating that my views are absurd does not make them thus. Don’t forget, we are discussing extraordinary events. Any explanation for these events requires that a large number people would have had to act out of the public view in manners that go way beyond what is commonplace.
I believe I have shown that the explanation I have offered for 9/11 accounts for the available evidence far better than does the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory that others are defending. No-one in this discussion has seriously attempted to demonstrate that the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory accounts for the known facts better than the conspiracy theory I am defending.
@351: “It defies common sense to suggest that the US would not have seized on any evidence of Iraq sponsoring a terrorist attack on the US as a justification for invasion, and, instead, have covered it up… Why wouldn’t they have, instead, presented to the UN factual evidence of Iraq having sponsored a terrorist attack on the US, if they had it?”
You don’t understand my scenario yet. The sequence of events is as follows (hypothesized part in bold):
1991, Bush Sr’s coalition drives Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. 1992, Clinton defeats Bush to become US president. February 1993, one month after the new president’s inauguration, and two years (almost to the day) after the Iraqi retreat from Kuwait, jihadis in New York assisted by Iraqi intelligence truck-bomb the basement of the WTC in an attempt to bring it down. The Clinton administration sets out to discover the ultimate perpetrators. Mid-1993, the Clinton administration bombs Iraqi intelligence HQ in Baghdad in an attempt to deter further such acts. They fail.
–followed by eight years of escalating semi-secret warfare, culminating in 9/11 and the invasion, which saw increasingly egregious deception of the public, e.g. spinning the destruction of Flight TWA800 as mechanical failure.
Having actively prevented the public from discovering the truth on previous occasions, they were no longer free to turn around and present the evidence, lest eight previous years of deception be exposed.
Bear in mind that George W. Bush’s head of CIA was George Tenet, retained from Clinton. Clinton’s original CIA head was James Woolsey, who quit just days after Operation Bojinka, the successor to the 1993 WTC bombing, was exposed in the Philippines, and who went on in subsequent years to publicly promote the idea that maybe Iraq was working through al Qaeda. Tenet started out on Clinton’s national security staff, and through a series of promotions made it to the top of the CIA by mid-1997, and he stayed there until Bush Jr’s second term. That spans the period from 1998’s Operation Desert Fox, a US-UK attack on Iraq which was supposed to be about degrading WMD capabilities (but at the time Stratfor.com speculated that a coup within Iraq was also attempted), through to the 2003 invasion; Tenet is alleged to have said it was a “slam dunk” that some form of WMD would show up. So it’s the same policies, the same approach, the same people: use WMDs as the safe justification for any attack on Iraq, but don’t link specific terrorist attacks to Iraq. (Woolsey, meanwhile, joined the other camp, the Wolfowitz group, who were willing to talk about an Iraq connection with terrorism.)
I could write a book about this stuff, and maybe I’ll have to, if I truly do want to see this class of hypothesis enter into the public discourse. There are many ambiguities, many possibilities, but not only can you make the case that Iraq sponsored al Qaeda terrorism, you can make the case that this connection has been deliberately obfuscated by US federal agencies. And they – or rather, their political masters, assuming that it’s the politicians and not the spy chiefs who were the motive force here – have had multiple reasons to do so.
I am glad to have learnt that j_p_z (@ 352) finds this discussion about the murder of 3,000 Americans and probably well over a million from the Middle East and Central Asia that died as a result so entertaining.
Perhaps he should also put that to those Americans who lost loved ones on 9/11 and who are fighting to force New York City to hold a proper inquiry.
So, why didn’t those who went to so much trouble to destroy Clinton’s Presidency with the Monica Lewinsky and Whitewater affairs, get a whiff of this?
Until you produce some credible evidence for this, I see no reason to dismiss the mountains of evidence which implicates figures in the Bush administration in the crime of 9/11.
Well, think about it for a minute. Just because it is indeed all very serious business, doesn’t entail that anybody has got to include you as part of the set of grave and serious factors.
If we were having a discussion about the state of the modern novel, we wouldn’t be required to include (nor would we be majorly amiss if we somehow failed to take note of) “The Case of the Barking Clock” and “The Skull of the Waltzing Clown” by Harry Stephen Keeler.
Nevertheless I will happily admit that a history of literature that includes such masterpieces is perforce a much more ‘entertaining’ one. Being as I am also a fan of Kit Smart, maybe you and I have got more in common than we realize!
I hope my earlier comment did not give the impression that I was hostile to the points you were making about 9/11. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, I have a particular theory about which I would appreciate your opinion.
Back at about a million comments earlier, ‘Nana Levu’ linked to an interesting set of questions, including this one:
33) Why did president Bill Clinton abort a hit on Bin Laden in October 1999?
Why indeed?
Daggett, you realise that the 9/11 demolition, and all the related operations involving aircraft and air defences, would have taken a great deal of time to prepare? Surely longer than the 9 months Bush had been in office.
You also realise that a new US administration doesn’t instantly dispense with all of the senior officials who belonged to the old administration. It takes years to completely change over. Many of the senior national security bureaucrats in office on 9/11 would have been appointed by President Clinton.
So it seems undeniable that Bill was involved in this up to his eyeballs. Hillary too, obviously. (In fact, I bet she was the real mastermind.)
And you may wonder why has Obama not launched a genuine investigation into 9/11? Truthers have a vast amount of evidence at their fingertips. If Obama has deliberately chosen not to blow the conspiracy right open, it can only mean one thing, can’t it? Mmm-hmm.
Some people point to Bush’s adventures as the point of 9/11. But really, consider how meager these were to justify such a grand black operation. A pissant gas pipeline in Afghanistan (which still hasn’t been built). Toppling a tinpot dictator in Iraq (who was always more than willing to sell oil to the US if only the sanctions were lifted).
NO! The real purpose of 9/11, I put it to you, was to give Bush the opportunity to conduct his wars — which were always intended to fail. These failed Republican wars would then guarantee the election of Barack Obama in 2008. And that was the true purpose of 9/11.
Because, you see, Obama had to become President at this juncture. Rather than me going on any further, check out this explanation:
Where have you even once attempted to seriously discuss 9/11?
Have you?
I mean, apart from responding to counter-suggestion with innuendo and accusation that people like FDB’s sister must have been in on it? That’s a classically paranoid reaction to having a delusion challenged, daggett, and you should recognise it as such.
…
Paulus, masterwork as always. Though I hesitate to suggest a further elaboration: President Eisenhower, who warned the American electorate about the military-industrial complex just as he was leaving office, was in the perfect position as a retired, well-connected General to put into place such a system of economic dominance and control. How would he have been so articulate about something so otherwise abstract if he hadn’t planned it all along?
Your mention of Eisenhower is making me nostalgic for the old days. The era when an Iowa farm boy working for The Company, armed with nothing more than quick wits, a can-do attitude, and a briefcase of gold sovereigns, could stage a brilliantly successful covert operation. Guatemala. Iran. Indonesia (well, they came close).
These days, it’s all so complicated and convoluted. Nano-thermite, remote-controlled airplanes, Men in Black. To make sense of a modern conspiracy, you have to be a combination civil engineer, quantum physicist, and forensic investigator. Daggett is all of that, but how can us simple folk hope to make head or tail of it?
Indeed Generalfeldmarschall. It’s time the CIA and other American security agencies left alone the idea of orchestrating gigantic engineers’ conspiracies and got back to their core competency: dropping suitcases full of money out of the doors of small planes, and hoping that a bad guy somewhere below gets squashed under the weight.
Daggett, collecting large numbers of “facts” and repeating them does not make an argument. That goes for your comment #360 too.
You know, the fate of Warren really cut me up. In his early 50s, still with so much potential and life ahead of him, the silly bugger gets cancer but refuses to see a doctor until there’s no hope.
I’m sure you’ve all seen this many times before, but it’s always worthy of another spin …
Daggett, collecting large numbers of “facts” and repeating them does not make an argument. …
I would have thought that that made a lot more of an argument than not presenting any facts at all.
Also, Liam if you mean to say that any claims I have made are not factual, then you should do so by referring to them directly, rather than attempting to imply that they are not by such sneaky and underhanded means as putting quote symbols around the word ‘facts’.
Liam continued:
That goes for your comment #360 too.
Do you need to be reminded of the reason I listed both my comments?
I should have written “Do you need to be reminded of the reason I listed my comments?” in my previous post. The word ‘both’ was left in the sentence by mistake.
The article is about the book “The Ground Truth: The Story Behind America’s Defense on 9/11.” It quotes the 9/11 Commission head, Thomas Kean, was the Republican governor of New Jersey:
We to this day don’t know why NORAD [the North American Aerospace Command] told us what they told us, it was just so far from the truth …
Gordon Duff asks:
When Bush’s own handpicked commission failed to go along with the cover up and requested a criminal investigation, why was nothing done?
A fellow called dagget is over at Prodeo and he’s come up against an impenetrable wall of dumb… Here are some of the culprits in this new dark ages of dumb.
Katz, FDB, Paul Norton, Nabakov, Liam coming up with a crap saying from Carl Sagan, and others…
These people mentioned above are not just fucking idiots and spineless insects on this subject. Doesn’t matter what the subject is. Its stupid-town wall to wall, and defense in depth should you ever make it past the Maginot Minefield. And a lot of these people that hang out at Prodeo are SUPPOSED TO BE TEACHING THE KIDS.
Good on you Daggett, how about everyone who disagrees that the three highrises that completely collapsed on 9/11 were controled demolitions take the time to have another, more critical, look at all three collapses.
There is plenty of archival footage on youtube.
The absolute proof that WTC 7 was a controlled demolition is the officially recognised 2.25s of freefall early in the collapse, freefall requires the instantanious removal of all the structural elements and this can only be achieved through precision use of explosives.
Have a look at asia’s tallest controlled demolition for those of you that don’t think that the Towers look like a CD, all tall buildings have to have an upper block created in order to eliminate the risk of toppling…
Thanks for that, andrew (@ 375). It’s nice to finally, once again, see a link to a You Tube broadcast that actually adds to our knowledge of the topic at hand.
I have encountered the argument, that the twin towers ‘collapses’ could not possibly have been a controlled demolition because it was sequenced from the top down instead of bottom up a number of times. Even here that argument appears to have thrown one person somewhat off the track.
The example that you have provided should prove to be the last nail in the coffin of that particular ‘argument’.
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The Hard Evidence tour featuring Richard Gage and Dr Steven Jones
I have neglected to mention, before now, the Hard Evidence Tour featuring Richard Gage of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth and Physicist Dr Steven Jones.
Dr Steven Jones produced the paper “Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe” which conclusively shows that all three World Trade Center building ‘collapses’ were controllled demolitions.
Recently, Richard Gage addressed a sell-out audience in the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco and was very well received.
You can see both of them at the following venues and dates:
Sydney
Date: Saturday, 14 November.
Venue:Tom Mann Theatre136 Chalmers St,
Surry Hills, Sydney NSW(Walking distance from Central Railway station)
Seating Capacity: 292
Melbourne
Date/Time: Tuesday, 17th of November, 7pm till 10pm (Please be a little early).
Venue:Victorian Trades Hall (New Council Chamber)
Brisbane
Date/Time: Thursday, 19th of November, 7pm till 10pm (Please be a little early).
The organisers would particularly welcome the attendance and participation in the discussion of people who are prepared to defend the Official US Government explanation of the World Trade Center ‘collapses’.
Obviously, in trying to understand what happened on 11 September 2001, we face enormous difficulties. The removal of almost all the evidence from the crime scene immediately afterwards, as discussed above, was the most obvious.
Just because no large passenger aircraft has before or since crashed into any large building doesn’t mean that we cant apply our knowledge of the laws of physics and structural engineering in order to work out what should have happened on that day after two aircraft each crashed into one of the two out of the three buildings that eventually ‘collapsed’.
That is what the 9/11 Commission and NIST should have done but failed to do.
And that is what groups like Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth have since made an impressive attempt at achieving even given their lack of resources, obstruction, the removal of evidence, etc.
andrew’s post and my posts before then were to rebut of the nonsense argument that the ‘collapses’ of the Twin Towers could not have been conrolled demolitions because all controlled demolitions occur from the ground up.
The example that andrew gave, as helpful as it was in disproving that claim, was, in fact, redudant, because we only need common sense to understand that if the structaral strength of a building is suddenly removed by explosives, the building will not remain suspeneded indefinitely in mid-air.
Whether the sequence of explosions that would have removed the strength was top-down, bottom up, middle-outwards or whatever, is irrelevant.
“Firstly, it seems most interesting that none of those named by Graeme Bird have since attempted to defend their conduct, thus far, on this forum.”
Daggett, sometimes people getting bored and wandering off is a sign of nothing more than that. Another possibility is that in any argument, being on the side that’s antagonistic to G Montgomery Bird is widely considered as an absolutely iron-clad guarantee that you are correct.
You still around, daggett? I’m waiting for you to respond to my assertion that the Clintons were into 9/11 up to their eyeballs.
OK, maybe my detour into Obama being the anti-Christ was a little over the top. But still, how can you blame 9/11 solely on the Bush administration, when you haven’t answered the important question:
33) Why did president Bill Clinton abort a hit on Bin Laden in October 1999?
Paulus, whether or not Clinton was in any way complicit in 9/11 is somewhat beside the point.
The available evidence points overwhelmingly to complicity of figures in the administration of President George W Bush.
I asked earlier whether or not you or other Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists accepted the existence of the military industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned against.
If you do, then surely it is not inconceivable, given the lack of accountability and transparency within the US military and intelligence agencies for preparations for 9/11 to have begun while Clinton was still President without his knowledge.
However, even, if, for arguments’s sake, Clinton did know, why shouldn’t there be a proper inquiry into 9/11, all the same, where these sorts of issues can be sorted out as the New York City Coalition for Accountability Now (NYC CAN) is demanding?
Someone has very kindly posted to 911blogger.com a succinct outline of the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory , which I am posting below. Please tell me, FDB, Katz, Liam, murph the surf, mitchell porter, j_p_Z et al if it makes as much sense to you as it does to me.
Directed by a beardy-guy from a cave in Afghanistan, nineteen hard-drinking, coke-snorting, devout Muslims enjoy lap dances before their mission to meet Allah…
Using nothing more than craft knifes, they overpower cabin crew, passengers and pilots on four planes…
And hangover or not, they manage to give the world’s most sophisticated air defense system the slip…
Unphased by leaving their “How to Fly a Passenger Jet” guide in the car at the airport, they master the controls in no-time and score direct hits on two towers, causing THREE to collapse completely…
Our masterminds even manage to overpower the odd law of physics or two… and the world watches in awe as steel-framed buildings fall symmetrically – through their own mass – at free-fall speed, for the first time in history.
Despite all their dastardly cunning, they stupidly give their identity away by using explosion-proof passports, which survive the fireball undamaged and fall to the ground… only to be discovered by the incredible crime-fighting sleuths at the FBI…
…Meanwhile down in Washington…
Hani Hanjour, having previously flunked 2-man Cessna flying school, gets carried away with all the success of the day and suddenly finds incredible abilities behind the controls of a Boeing…
Instead of flying straight down into the large roof area of the Pentagon, he decides to show off a little…
Executing an incredible 270 degree downward spiral, he levels off to hit the low facade of the world’s most heavily defended building…
…all without a single shot being fired…. or ruining the nicely mowed lawn… and all at a speed just too fast to capture on video…
…Later, in the skies above Pennsylvania…
So desperate to talk to loved ones before their death, some passengers use sheer willpower to connect mobile calls that otherwise would not be possible until several years later…
And following a heroic attempt by some to retake control of Flight 93, it crashes into a Shankesville field leaving no trace of engines, fuselage or occupants… except for the standard issue Muslim terrorists bandana…
…Further south in Florida…
President Bush, our brave Commander-in-Chief continues to read “My Pet Goat” to a class full of primary school children… shrugging off the obvious possibility that his life could be in imminent danger…
…In New York…
World Trade Center leaseholder Larry Silverstein blesses his own foresight in insuring the buildings against terrorist attack only six weeks previously…
While back in Washington, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz shake their heads in disbelief at their own luck in getting the ‘New Pearl Harbor’ catalyzing event they so desired to pursue their agenda of world domination…
And finally, not to be disturbed too much by reports of their own deaths, at least seven of our nineteen suicide hijackers turn up alive and kicking in mainstream media reports…
I know you can’t see it Daggett, but by Zappa’s Ghost I swear that your deliberate effort to present a ridiculous sounding “official” account sounds WAY more likely than your best effort to plausibly describe an alternative explanation.
Wow this thread is still going… every tiume my mithriltinfoil alloy hat wears out I have to go get another one made, and take some time off the internet.
“I read John Robb and I vote.”
Thats great Liam, I’m gonna steal that line. He loves his jargon and is good at self promotion, but he is well worth reading. Thats as far as I have got in catching up so far and I have to go out, but …
And a link to free republic here.
Holy motherfucking warrior jeezuz
BTW katz when Hinkley tried to shoot ronnie, wasn’t his old man or brother or something having dinner with the Bushes?
(I can’t remember the details, and don’t really care about conspiracies that don’t effect me when there are ones that do, like how the world rally championships ended up in my part of the world… )
Still can’t understand how a passport could survive that inferno intact.
Anyone who supports the official version of events care to explain that?
From what I’ve seen here though, most of them do not appear to think that they have any explaining to do, having well known purveyors of truth and justice such as George W Bush and Dick Cheney on their side.
“Still can’t understand how a passport could survive that inferno intact.
Anyone who supports the official version of events care to explain that?”
The major logical problem in the conspiracist mindset is that it tends to treat as-yet-unanswered questions as positive evidence for something otherwise unsupported. Build enough of them up in a higgledy piggledy pile and it becomes easy to convince oneself it’s a fort.
Daggert for what its worth, if you look carefully at the footage of the pentagon crash that was released you will see an outline of what appears to be a dark tailplane approximating the size of the plane that hit the pentagon.
(BTW There is no ultimate turtle, its turtles all the way down, for infinity. We are not living in XXXX.)
Jules, why can’t you see that 9/11 and similar ‘false flag’ attacks have been used as a pretext to subvert democracy in the US and here? Can’t you see how they resulted in all the supposedly ‘anti-terrorist’ legislation and strengthened the NSW police state and made possible the invasion of your region in September by riot police to suppress anti-Rally protestors?
Can’t you see how the deception over 9/11 was essentially the same in principle the acknowldedged lie that anti-Rally protestors through rocks at cars to discredit the protestors?
—
FDB, what I have posted is what happened on 11 September 2001, according to the 9/11 Commission, of course, not in so many words, but that is essentially what you will find in their report.
If you don’t agree that that is what happened (as I had thought I had made abundantly clear that I don’t), then, perhaps tell us what you think did happen.
I do not believe I have a ‘conspracist mindset’, I just believe that there are some unanswered questions. What is it with people who can’t appreciate nuance for FFS. Just because I can’t believe that a passport could survive an inferno that destroyed a skyscraper, I’ve got a ‘conspiracist mindset’. I could just as easily claim, with as much justification that you’ve got a gullible mindset.
So your statement could read as follows:
The major logical problem in the conspiracist gullible mindset is that it tends to treat as-yet-unanswered questions as positive evidence for something otherwise unsupported. Build enough of them up in a higgledy piggledy pile and it becomes easy to convince oneself it’s a fort, particularly when it’s approved by officialdom.
Firstly, also, thanks Adrian. It’s nice to see that someone here is actually reading my posts.
—
Apologies for the grammatical error and the spelling error. I should have written:
Can’t you see how the deception over 9/11 was essentially the same in principle as the acknowledged lie that anti-Rally protestors threw rocks at cars to discredit the protestors?
—
Also, FDB as you have failed to demonstrate any comprehension of the case of the 9/11 Truth Movement, I am hardly surprised to learn that the explanation provided by the 9/11 Commission makes more sense to you.
When you do gain some grasp of our case, could you tell us what laws of Physics it violates and why you see its theories as less probable than those of the 9/11 Commission?
Hani Hanjour, having previously flunked 2-man Cessna flying school, gets carried away with all the success of the day and suddenly finds incredible abilities behind the controls of a Boeing…
Instead of flying straight down into the large roof area of the Pentagon, he decides to show off a little…
Executing an incredible 270 degree downward spiral, he levels off to hit the low facade of the world’s most heavily defended building…
Gotta admit that was fancy flying. That Hanjour dude was a big game performer.
“The major logical problem in the conspiracist mindset is that it tends to treat as-yet-unanswered questions as positive evidence for something otherwise unsupported. Build enough of them up in a higgledy piggledy pile and it becomes easy to convince oneself it’s a fort.” – FDB
That may be true.
Anyone on either side care to explain the pasport story, and why it even exists…
I mean seriously. I heard that one Wednesday morning. It was one of the first things I heard about 9/11 and it is just ridiculous.
The only thing that particular question is really evidence of is a complete lack of critical thinking by anyone who reported it. (IE how the fuck did it get there and what person in their right mind could possibly think it got there via planes that hit a building then exploded.)
And wtf is a “conspiracist mindset” while we are on the subject?
Some form of mental illness maybe. Probably one thats a threat to national security, and the wholesomeness of society…
The problem with a huge pile of unanswered questions is that they are a huge pile of unanswered questions. The the huge pile of unanswered questions surrounding 9/11 should make people wonder. I don’t think the CD thesis of 911 answers many of those questions. In fact I think it distracts from them.
When the unanswered questions refer to an event that has been so powerful in directing the dominant narrative of our culture in the 21st century they really should be answered. Basing so much of our action in the world as western nations on an event with that many unanswered questions … I’d be a lot more comfortable with our actions (as Australians and as westerners) if those questions had been answered years ago.
As of now they still haven’t been.
“Jules, why can’t you see that 9/11 and similar ‘false flag’ attacks have been used as a pretext to subvert democracy in the US and here? Can’t you see how they resulted in all the supposedly ‘anti-terrorist’ legislation and strengthened the NSW police state and made possible the invasion of your region in September by riot police to suppress anti-Rally protestors?” – Daggett
They were not that surpressed. One of the riot cops even asked me to stop intimidating him. That was nice. The protests happened, most of the coppers were ok. The dickheads on the road were a pain tho. If the riot coppers had been replaced with traffic cops then NSW would not be broke right now. We always get the riot squad round here, its part of that other war on humans.
One day the people here will really get jack of the bullshit. Then the army won’t be enough to contain the unrest.
Yes I know all about false flag attacks and how the subvert democracy. My former bushfire brigade captian reckons he shared a cell with Tim Anderson actually. Anderson taught him how to meditate. While we are on the subject of “”false flags”.
I can see how the 9/11 report and the lies about rock throwing are similar. Obviously. (And yes they were lies. No one through rocks at rally cars as part of any protst. Tho some people did put some boulders on the rally course the night before.)
What I don’t see is how acknowledging “… that 9/11 and similar ‘false flag’ attacks have been used as a pretext to subvert democracy in the US and here?” is dependant on accepting controlled demolition.
If there is anyone on the planet who thinks the 9/11 attacks weren’t used to subvert democracy they are a complete moron.
But they would have used to subvert democracy whether it was LIHOP, MIHOP or noHOP. And democracy is subverted in other ways all the time anyway.
I do see what you are saying, but it isn’t dependant on MIHOP. (God I hate that term, oh for those of you that don’t know MIHOP = Made it happen on purpose, LIHOP = let it happen…., and noHOP, well I just made it up but obviously it means no Happened on Purpose.)
How many more posts till we cath the Missy Higgins thread?
Just to reiterate…
If there is anyone on the planet who thinks the 9/11 attacks weren’t used to subvert democracy they are a complete moron.
Apparently an ATM card from one of the passengers on the planes that hit the WTC was recovered intact from the crash. I mean, what are the odds that an the inferno, the ATM card from this particular passenger survived? Something sinister was afoot.
Above, we have Daggett (speaking to Paulus) equating Daggettself with those Daggett disagrees with, as if Daggett really doesn’t understand what a conspiracy theorist is.
“I asked earlier whether or not you or other Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists…blah blah”
A conspiracy theorist is someone who theorises (stay with me…) that there is a conspiracy of some kind in operation.
Now, there was clearly a conspiracy to bring down the towers, and plenty of available evidence points to it being the work of Islamic extremists. I have not, and nor has Paulus, and nor has anyone but Truthers as far as I can remember, advanced any theories beyond what the evidence thus indicates.
You have.
This makes you, and not me, a conspiracy theorist.
Do you get it now?
[Adrian, I don't think you are one, but the snippetty shred of frankly non-argument you presented above happened to fit my rhetorical bill nicely - do you disagree?]
“If there is anyone on the planet who thinks the 9/11 attacks weren’t used to subvert democracy they are a complete moron.”
You need firstly to define your terms, and I expect even then you’ll need to go on and explain what their combination means in this case. I’ll happily respond in good faith when I know what you’re talking about.
“How many more posts till we catch the Missy Higgins thread?”
If it ever happens (and a rearguard action could be expected to prevent it) then the only possible explanation is… well… y’know…
No argument, FDB, just a question.
I would have thought that those who totally accept the official version would be able to explain such apparently unbelievable events, as the only reasonable explanation seems to be that the passport(s) were placed at the scene for some reason.
It’s just that you all seem so happy to deride the ‘alternative’ version of events without feeling the need to justify the anomalies that exist in the official version.
I don’t think you really understand what ‘anomaly’ means.
Did the official version suggest some sequence of events to explain the survival of the passport, which was inconsistent with something else they said?
Or did they simply report finding a passport?
The “anomaly”, to labour the point way beyond what should be necessary, is no such thing. It’s merely a discrepancy between “a report of evidence gathered” on the one hand, and “what some people think must happen in the event of an aeroplane crashing into a building” on the other.
To once more labour a point already abundantly made, perhaps this event tells us more about what happens when a fully fuelled jet crashes into a building than we have ever been able to learn before. We have one (1) data point.
Why would anyone expect a coherent and comprehensively understood account from one data point?
Yeah we all know what a conspiracy theory is, we all know what a conspiracy theorist is and we all know how that label is used in discourse to frame discussion on a topic.
I want to know what a “conspiracist mindset” is, cos at the moment that phrase has a signal to noise ratio of one less than infinty:zero
“…and plenty of available evidence points to it being the work of Islamic extremists.” – FDB
Just out of interest tho, what evidence is there that the hijackers actually were on the planes?
Anyone care to provide links?
(No I don’t actually think there were no hijackers on the plane, I’m just wondering how the people on either side of this argument come to their conclusions about what happened.)
FDB, are you suggesting that anti terror laws don’t subvert democracy?
Seriously how can you not understand that statement above.
I’ll try again. (moran will be a deliberate typo btw, its an imeme like pwned.)
Regardless of the cause, regardless of the involement or non involvement of US officials and people connected to the Bush admin and intel services of the US and other countries, such as Pakistan, 9/11 happened.
In response the Australian, US and UK governments used the 9/11 attacks as a pretext to subvert democracy. (Other countries did as well, I’m familiar with the 3 nations I mentioned.)
They did this by passing legislation under the banner of “protecting people”. That legislation actively subverts what we in Australia consider to be democracy, ie a state that practises democratic principles. The legislation didn’t subvert the state itself (cept in that it subverts its legitimacy) it did subvert the democratic principles that a state needs to remain democratic.
If you disagree with this you are a moran.
Was that any clearer? (It certainly wasn’t to me.)
FDB, FYI, I understand what anomaly means, but apparently you don’t. For your information, from Wikipedia:
“An anomaly is any occurrence or object that is strange, unusual, or unique. It can also mean a discrepancy or deviation from an established rule or trend.”
If you don’t think that finding an undamaged passport in the ruins at 9/11 is ’strange or unusual’ I have a used bridge to sell you.
Hijacker probably in the cockpit as the plane hits the Tower. Footage shows windows (and other impact debris) shooting out of the floor(s) the plane hit. Plane flying close to horizontally as it hits the Tower. Enormous (forward, horizontal) momentum as it hits.
I would not be surprised if many kgs of material from inside the plane’s cockpit (and including the shattered cockpit window) went shooting out into the air on the far side of the Tower, during the fraction of a second the impact took.
The inferno may have begun less than a tenth of a second after impact. It matters not. Some debris could shoot out before the main fire began. [Analogy: driver's upper torso breaks through windscreen of motor vehicle that crashes at 100 km/hr, if the driver is not blocked completely by a seatbelt or the steering column.]
Yes it was an “inferno”. But if the passport wasn’t in the building any longer, as the inferno took hold, why should it burn?
The hypothesis above seems consistent with physics (momentum, energy, strength of materials) and chemistry (ignition, combustion).
**************
Skilful pilots? A friend who’s a pilot told me the footage of the second impact on a Tower shows the wings flexing tremendously, suggesting the plane was doing a late, sharp turn in order to hit the target. What if the pilot had missed? Would the plane have continued on, then turned around to return for a second attempt?
There is a host of things the “official” series of events doesn’t explain.
No surprise when you consider how flawed the investigation was.
“Why would anyone expect a coherent and comprehensively understood account from one data point?
Madness that way lies.” – FDB
Thats a fair point, tho madness is cool fun. Its a big part of my scepticism regarding controlled demolition (or any sort, barring “by plane”).
But really trying to account for the presence of that passport in the wreckage by basically saying “sometimes shit happens that we can’t explain” in the context of this discussion…
To me, this implies “within the official version”. Sorry for the misunderstanding. You have correctly identified that the only conflict (whether of the anomalous kind or not) is as I have said. That is, between collected material evidence and “what some folks reckon must happen in a situation like this as-yet-unique one”.
Well, that’s quite an anomaly. Got me scratching my head.
Where have you provided a shred of evidence on this forum that supports the Official 9/11 Conspiray Theory that you are peddling?
Do you recall how there was also “plenty of available evidence point[ing]” to Lindy Chamberlain’s guilt of having murdered her baby Azaria?
However, when knowledgeable and critical-minded people began to subject that ‘evidence’ to critical scrutiny, it very quickly unravelled.
Exactly the same has occurred with all the ‘evidence’ in support of the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory.
I have yet to see any evidence in support of the Official explanation of 9/11 that has not already been shot down in flames every bit as much as the whole prosecution case against Lindy Chamberlain.
When do you intend to prove me wrong by posting such evidence to this forum?
joe2 I guess we’ll never know now, seeing as he doesn’t have to go through the appeal. (Better start that rearguard action people.)
waftt Possibly…
Provided the stuff in the cockpit didn’t hit the steel core in the middle of the building after it left the cockpit, and something else managed to momentum its way through all the walls, partitions, desks, people, banks of of computer eqipment and whatever other stuff happened to be between the front of the plane and the far wall/window of the building, in front of the passport, enabling it to travel through the building and out the other side and all the way to the ground somewhere it wouldn’t be completely buried by dust and debris.
Lindy Chamberlain wasn’t actually freed cos people challenged the evidence.
Her conviction was unsafe, but an appeal against that conviction failed.
It was only new evidence that led to her aquittal.
In fact the Lindy Chamberlain case is quite instructive in light of this discussion we are having.
The original “official’ verdict in that case was based on a completely flawed interpretation of the available evidence, yet all sorts of biases were at play and these created huge resistance to an accurate reading of the events.
Tho I doubt anyone commenting on this thread would allow their bias to interfere in their assessment of what happened on 11/9/2001.
The dingo ate the Twin Towers?
“I have yet to see any evidence in support of the Official explanation of 9/11 that has not already been shot down in flames every bit as much as the whole prosecution case against Lindy Chamberlain”
So all the video footage of the twin towers and pentagon taken by many different people at various locations is all false and a fabrication?
Is this claim not a wee bit overextending concerns that odd discrepancies might prompt?
The original “official’ verdict in that case was based on a completely flawed interpretation of the available evidence, yet all sorts of biases were at play and these created huge resistance to an accurate reading of the events.</blockquote.
Not true.
Chamberlain's barrister failed to challenge expert evidence that the anti-corrosive compound sprayed into the wheel well wasn't foetal blood.
If the jury is convinced that the wheel well was doused in foetal blood, the dingo couldn't have done it.
Based on the evidence presented, the jury arrived at a reasonable conclusion.
Or perhaps he had it in a special fireproof container to ensure that the passport would be found after his death, in order to provide evidence about Saudi complicity with the CIA so that a war against an Iraqi dictator could be justified. Wait
Many folks carry their passport on their person and NEVER put it in an overhead locker or in their luggage. Likely they showed it at the check-in desk.
jules @ 2.08 pm, you seem to be assuming most of those physical objects you list were between the (damaged, disintegrating) cockpit and the nearest windows. I don’t assume that. I reckon a whole lot of things & people inside that floor (or floors) were swept aside as an extremely heavy high-speed mass (the plane, its passengers, its fuel and luggage) swept into the building. Less than a second to sweep in, sweep stuff aside, crumple, eject any ejecta, and cause debris to go shooring out the other side of the Tower.
You’ve seen the footage. Possibly hundreds of kilos sprayed out. That would include Tower window glass, wood, metal, wall materials, bits of smashed furniture?… ?? who knows? some of it looks like timber to me; even if 95% of that debris was in the Tower before the collision, not inside the plane, it’s still not beyond the realms of possibility that stuff from inside the cockpit fell out of the building too.
Many folks carry their passport on their person and NEVER put it in an overhead locker or in their luggage. Likely they showed it at the check-in desk.
NOT many folks intend to crash the plane on which they are travelling into a tall building.
The security of their travel documents would not be uppermost in their thoughts.
But I honestly can’t see the passport going through the steel core and out the other side, and both planes seemed to hit close enough to the centre of the building that I’d assumed they carried through and hit the core. Its just an assumption tho.
I’d also assume thats why the buildings seemed to topple as a block from the impact points when they finally fell too.
Given all that tho, the coincidence factor regarding finding that passport is just too high in my book. I heard about it on TV at about 10 am that morning after the attack, and my immediate gut response was “Bullshit!! No way. Dont believe you. I’ve seen all sorts of crazy flukey shit in my life and I still don’t believe you.”
But I do take your point, and to a fair degree agree with FDB about the unique nature of the event, and thats why I find it hard to find meaning in any statements about the collapse.
The story of the head of Pakistan’s ISI transferring $100,000 to Atta tho, thats interesting. It may all stem from Indian intel sources tho which may refute it, those sources having no cred on matters to do with terrorism. (For example Which high ranking Indian law enforcement official died during the Mumbai rampage in sus circumstances after exposing a connection between extreme right wing Hindus with govt connections and bombings that were originally attributed to Muslim terrorists?)
“But I do take your point, and to a fair degree agree with FDB about the unique nature of the event, and thats why I find it hard to find meaning in any statements about the collapse.”
But you can at least admit the meaning in the following statement:
“What appeared to occur on 11/09/2001 was that two airplanes with near-full fuel tanks flew into two large buildings in New York, USA. Shortly afterwards, both buildings collapsed.”
Now, apply Occam’s Razor and PRESTO!!! Who’d a thunkit? The answer is…
To elaborate, although the towers were built as Katz describes, they did have a steel and concrete core, and imo it was solid enough to stop a passport, even if it wasn’t designed to support the weight of the wtc.
I think you’ll also find it was strong enough to stop a plane.
The core provided stability to the structure (didn’t it?) even if it didn’t support the weight. That stability loss probably does have a lot to do with the collapse, but I don’t really know.
That’s why I don’t take conspiracy theories seriously any more.
But DI(nr), that can be a rather self-deluding attitude. For decades the British government swore up and down and mounted a series of deception campaigns to hide the existence of The Double Cross System.
Double Cross was an elaborate conspiracy to mislead the Germans.
Several individuals attempted to tell the truth about Double Cross and were dubbed cranks, or were threatened with prosecution under the Official Secrets Act.
Eventually, a version of the story based on actual documents was told. But that too failed to tell the whole truth. These government-sponsored lies were elaborate conspiracies to mislead the public.
Governments are into conspiracies. Sometimes conspiracy theorists stumble on the truth. (I exempt Daggett from this classification.)
““What appeared to occur on 11/09/2001 was that two airplanes with near-full fuel tanks flew into two large buildings in New York, USA. Shortly afterwards, both buildings collapsed.”
Now, apply Occam’s Razor and PRESTO!!! Who’d a thunkit? The answer is…
THE FUCKING PLANES DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!” – FDB
If you read through this thread you won’t find me claiming the towers were demolished by anything other than planes. I might admit its a possibility but I’m agnostic about it.
My opinion is that the planes had help getting to the point where they could slam into the towers. Who from, how much help and why … I have no real idea, but plenty of suspicions. Ultimately there are more important things in the world BUT seeing as we are talking about it …
The passport … it sure seems sus. How did it survive, and then how come it was found so quick, and on top of all that – how come people thought it was credible in the first place?
The response by western govternments has effectively subverted democracy, and by democracy I mean the systems of government we use in English speaking nations but also in many many other nations. They involve things like free and fair elections, respect for and adherence to the rule of law, the seperation of powers, judicial principles of fairness and justice etc etc
Certainly its not the only subversion of democracy in the last 8 years, but none the less the overall response to 9/11 is the most significant attack on what we understand to be democracy and freedom.
And whats a conspiracist mindset?
427Let me please introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste
“The response by western govternments has effectively subverted democracy.”
Indeed, Jules, and the question you must then ask is: cui bono?
And the answer is: he’s the lead singer of U2.
No, no, actually the answer is, the individual who has benefited the most by the shenanigans of the part 8 years is Mr Nobel Fucking Peace Laureate. Or, to call him by the title that his infernal minions use, His Satanic Majesty Barry I.
Ask yourself, have you ever heard President Obama, at a press conference or other public gathering, specifically deny that he is the Anti-Christ? You haven’t, have you? Think about it.
‘Obama-nation’, that’s what the US is these days. It sounds just like ‘abomination’, doesn’t it? Do you seriously think that’s just a coincidence?
Daggett seemed dismissive of my theory. If he wants to believe the official version, like a trusting sheep, that’s his choice. But I challenge him, or any of the other government dupes on this thread, to provide one piece of positive evidence that Obama is not the Great Beast of the Book of Revelation. I’ll bet they can’t.
Yes, yes. You’ve said that before. all powerful fallen angel blah blah blah. If no one believes in God on this site, you reckon you stand a chance?
But it is rather spectacular I must say, the way you do it. Like that time your we conjured you by mentioning your name three times in a no. of languages and you appeared. I’d say respect, but, you know, like, no.
Say, you didn’t have to happen to have anything to do with little satanic altar in Canberra did you? Naughty naughty…now look what you’ve done. One million Catch on Fire christians are descending. Holy Crap I wouldn’t want to be in Canberra right now.
Yes, yes. You’ve said that before. all powerful fallen angel blah blah blah. If no one believes in God on this site, you reckon you stand a chance?
But it is rather spectacular I must say, the way you do it. Like that time your we conjured you by mentioning your name three times in a no. of languages and you appeared. I’d say respect, but, you know, like, no.
Say, you didn’t have to happen to have anything to do with little satanic altar in Canberra did you? Naughty naughty…now look what you’ve done. One million Catch on Fire christians are descending. Holy Crap I wouldn’t want to be in Canberra right now.
How do you do that, Casey?
You’ve summoned yourSELF up twice. Do you carry a passport on that nifty
broomstick? Anyone noticed that ‘piracy’ is part of ‘consPIRACY’?
Thed Long John Silver, ‘e be behind thut nasty business.
Pieces of six, pieces of six squawked the damn parrot. Ghostly thread veers from the piratical to the parrotical as the sea mists sweep in.
“I want to know what a “conspiracist mindset” is, cos at the moment that phrase has a signal to noise ratio of one less than infinty:zero”
I thought FDB nailed that @ 388 (and 391, of course):
“The major logical problem in the conspiracist mindset is that it tends to treat as-yet-unanswered questions as positive evidence for something otherwise unsupported.[...]”
Which defines the conspiracist mindset by the most common problem it has in expressing itself and its theories.
Daggett went on to write @ 390:
“Jules, why can’t you see that 9/11 and similar ‘false flag’ attacks have been used as a pretext to subvert democracy in the US and here? Can’t you see how they resulted in all the supposedly ‘anti-terrorist’ legislation and strengthened the NSW police state and made possible the invasion of your region in September by riot police to suppress anti-Rally protestors?”
Daggett, I have no problem with any of the above. Except, “and similar ‘false flag’ attacks”.
You can suspect this (questions), but you can’t prove it (answers). Yet, you chose right there to state it as rhetorically conclusive. As something you’ve concluded. You’re simultaneously trying to convince people to ‘keep an open mind’ or what have you, but you’ve already shot yourself below the shin.
Just worth being aware of in your discussions, maybe.
Especially wrt language. In all probability ASIO planted the bomb outside the Hilton in Sydney 31 years ago. I think the conspiracy theory that they meant to find the bomb and justify their existance is probably right. Calling it a false flag, or similar to 9/11 is a poor use of language. Thats a problem with “9/11 Truth”, poor use of language, especially since 2004, but probably always.
Anyway ASIO was probably responsible for the Hilton Hotel bombing in Sydney, maybe not, either way it wasn’t technically a false flag attack. But do we have a term for that sort of event?
I didn’t know the term “conspiracist mindset” was actually defined by its major problems.
Are there other problems?
Do they also define the mindset?
I mean treating as yet unanswered questions as evidence for something unsupported is one thing.
There’s a dynamic at play tho. People often ask the questions, repeatedly, without a satisfactory answer. After a while those questions and other anomolies, rightly or wrongly, begin to look like proof cos no one answers them to their satisfaction.
Thats how confirmation bias begins. Sometimes. And everyone here has confirmation bias. (cept me, obviously.)
On their own unanswered questions are just that, in the context of 9/11 many are strongly suggestive of something. What that is, who can say, without them being answered properly.
As I have said before, the best that can be said about the Bush admin wrt 9/11 is that they were incompetent and negligent. Yet it happened and everyone promtly forgot that the day before Donald Rumsfeld had come out and said that over 3 TRILLION dollars had gone missing from the Pentagon budget in two years.
And proceded to give the Bush admin carte blanche to waste even more money. Who knows how much went to their cronies via billions wasted on private contractors in various pointless wars. Not to mention the torture, renditions etc etc, tho really thats nothing new.
Anyway thats not evidence either, cept of human stupidity. I’d love to know how they got away with it tho.
the Hilton Hotel bomb was placed in a rubbish bin on the footpath outside the hotel. Victims? Rubbish men emptying the bin, not politicians. A callous and murderous act, presumably with political motives.
“On their own unanswered questions are just that, in the context of 9/11 many are strongly suggestive of something. What that is, who can say, without them being answered properly.”
Well said, jules. That just about sums it up for me, but surely we can get to 500.
On 11 September 2001 the crime of the murder of almost 3,000 US citizens was committed.
As noted @ 308 within hours, the FBI had claimed to have completely solved that crime even though we were expected to believe that they, the US military, all the US intelligence agencies, the US aviatian authorities and the US government had claimed to have been taken completely by surprise by the terrorists.
As I have pointed out, to accept that the 19 hijackers directed by people from sanctuaries within Afghanistan were responsible for the crimes one has to accept the bizarre account of events provided by the 9/11 Commission, a summary of which that I have posted @ 308.
Clearly the US Government, the Australian Government and the newsmedia wholely accept that story (although they avoid presenting in its totality as I have done, evidently fearing that merely to do so, would make its absurdity too obvious to deny).
It seems as if most of those arguing against me would have us accept that version of events, although they have avoided saying so openly.
Others appear to have rejected that version, but seem happy to let the crime remain unsolved.
What has happened since 2001 is as if Andrew Pennington has been pronounced guilty of those crimes.
Some here would evidently be happy to let Andrew Pennington go to the gallows for a crime he did not commit, whilst allowing Simon Doyle and Jacqueline de Bellefort to profit from their crime.
Those, who are so hysterically attacking me for pointing to the overwhelming evidence implicating senior figures within the Bush administration in the crime of 9/11 seem not to be troubled by the fact that the prevalance of the views, they, our politicians and our newsmedia are pushing, has allowed the US Government to get away with murdering hundreds of thousands of Afghans and Pakistanis and Iraqis for a crime that figures, within the US Government, themselves almost certainly committed.
I note how this thread has been filled with even more irrelevant fluff, such as discussion of the “[unofficial] conspiracist mindset”[1].
What the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists (as well as those who would have us believe that they think that the crime of 9/11 should remain unsolved) have done by filling this thread with so much more irrelevant fluff[1] is avoided responding to my many simple and direct points.
One point is why shouldn’t there be a proper inquiry into 9/11?
Why, in a democracy, where Governments are supposed to serve and protect the people shouldn’t the victims of 9/11 be allowed to have those, whose gross negligence, if not complicity in the 9/11 attacks, casused the deaths of spouses, siblings, parents, sons and daughters, held to account?
Either FDB is completely stupid or he is deliberately wasting the time of those who are genuinely trying to understand this very important issue.
A theory should not only be simple, but it should also account for all the observations. If nothing else, FDB should have at least understand by now, that a third building, WTC 7,that wasn’t even hit by any plane ‘collapsed’ completely into dust exactly in the manner of a controlled demolition.
As I already wrote, the Twin Towers were built with such enormous redundant strength as to easily withstand a direct head on impact from a Boeing 707. One of the orignal engineers said they should have been able to with repeared impacts from 707’s.
If the buildings failed to perform as their designers intended, then Building Engineeers are entitled to know why. This is what the NIST inquiries failed to do for even one of the three buildings.
Even if they were to have somehow failed, they should not have collapsed so quickly. Therefore the theory has to also explain how all that enormous structural strength, many times what was necessary to support the weight of the towers failed in as little as 12 second, barely more than free-fall speed or 16 seconds at the very most.
The only theory offered so far that makes any sense to any engineer is the controlled demolition theory, yet that was not even considered by NIST.
Clearly NIST, the US Government, the Australian Government, the newsmedia, and, it would seem, quite a few who who are participating in this forum desperately want to prevent that fact from becoming more widely known.
Footnotes
1. Such as pontification about the “[unofficial] conspiracist mindset”. What is not explained is that if I have such a mindset why I also (most unfortunately) did not even begin to seriously question the US Government version of events until around 2 years ago, that is 6 years after 9/11.
I can’t see any hysteria in the arguments mounted against you Mr daggett. I can see patient attempts to point out SOME of the flaws in your extensive writings. Not every point has received a response. There are only 24 hours in each day, and sadsly there are only 7 days in each week.
jules, that characteristic of the ‘conspiracist mindset’ is not a definition. It is an observable characteristic that appears very often in the writings of those whose mindset is conspiracist.
Just as you would find citation of experimental results in the writings of a research chemist; or appeals to logical principles in the writings of a mathematician or logician or a research chemist; or citation of laws and court rulings in the writings of a barrister or judge.
The Enlightenment attempted to bring more reason into public discourse, and reduce superstition. The project continues…..
“What is not explained is that if I have such a mindset why I also (most unfortunately) did not even begin to seriously question the US Government version of events until around 2 years ago, that is 6 years after 9/11.”
A lot of troofers, sorry truthers say that sort of thing. What took you so long to wake up? And why do you expect other people to suddenly share your revelation? (Not trying to be offensive, but you know bolting horses and shutting gates… especially stargates.)
Years ago i wrote an essay for a uni course about conspiracy theory as a process of self initiation that is usually incomplete. that was in the 90s, but it might be worth a revisit in light of 9/11.
The basic idea was that something akin to religious conversion happens when someone suddenly “sees the truth” about a conspiracy. Usually the people involved have a previous belief system which is overturned by the revelation. Thus the incompleteness. Replacing one BS with another isn’t really much of a leap.
Usually a series of initiations replaces on false truth with another till the initiate gets jack of the bullshit and starts thinking for themselves. Since this probably takes several lifetimes, and most people seem to have only one…. anyway…
The Pentagon was obviously a huge version of one of Solomons Jars. The US military captured the Cuthulu spawned servant of the Ogdru Jahad that was working with Nazis in germany. (Mike Mignola was wrong when he wrote hellboy, the Anung Un Rama is not a dude with a cool haircut but it has a red right hand. (Cos of all the blood.) )
Jack Parsons and L Ron Hubbard performed the babalon working in march 46, and as a result the cleft in spacetime allowed something through. This critter was born to that well known hellspawn Barbara Bush on July 6 1946, and rose to power in the US through the 90s. Not being fully human it only needed a gestation period of about 4 months.
This creature had come to earth with a mission, to free the servant of Ogdru Jahad that was trapped in the pentagon. hence 9/11. The towers were just a distraction, and a conveinient source of blood and pain for the servant, which is either Negral or Irra Jahad most probably.
Ah, but what was NASA really doing when allegedly it set off explosions on the moon that we couldn’t actually see when it was supposed to happen? Something sinister no doubt as the planning began in the GWB years. But why did Obama go along with it? What are they not telling us?
Guess I better add this, just in case ASIO and the CIA take me seriously –
Either FDB is completely stupid or he is deliberately wasting the time of those who are genuinely trying to understand this very important issue.
A theory should not only be simple, but it should also account for all the observations. If nothing else, FDB should have at least understand by now, that a third building, WTC 7,that wasn’t even hit by any plane ‘collapsed’ completely into dust exactly in the manner of a controlled demolition.
As I already wrote, the Twin Towers were built with such enormous redundant strength as to easily withstand a direct head on impact from a Boeing 707. One of the orignal engineers said they should have been able to with repeared impacts from 707’s.
If the buildings failed to perform as their designers intended, then Building Engineeers are entitled to know why. This is what the NIST inquiries failed to do for even one of the three buildings.
Even if they were to have somehow failed, they should not have collapsed so quickly. Therefore the theory has to also explain how all that enormous structural strength, many times what was necessary to support the weight of the towers failed in as little as 12 second, barely more than free-fall speed or 16 seconds at the very most.
The only theory offered so far that makes any sense to any engineer is the controlled demolition theory, yet that was not even considered by NIST.
They didn’t consider the possibility of Gojira-attack, either. Probably because they thought it dashed unlikely.
Daggy, have you even read the NIST reports? They make it very clear that fires (started by the aircraft impacts) caused the structural failure resulting in all three (1, 2 and 7) collapses.
Personally, I think you’re both stupid AND wasting everyone’s time. However, if it’s in the cause of Thread-Doom, I say: shine on, you crazy nano-diamond.
“The Enlightenment attempted to bring more reason into public discourse, and reduce superstition.” – My socks and undies (where angels really do fear to tread.)
well it utterly failed.
Then again it was hardly Enlightenment.
Enlightenment occurs after a successful integration of the experience of identifying your consciousness with the totality of existence, (instead of the meat bag we usually associate it with), madness usually follows a failed attempt at integration.
A fundamental part of Enlightenment is the realisation of compassion for all life, all of reality in fact. Its based in empathy. Another fundamental part is that it doesn’t actually change anything except the way you view the world. Once you understand the nature of existance compassion is the only logical response.
Perhaps if “teh enlightenment” had understood the nature of compassion it might not have failed. perhaps it will, one day, suck seed. and eggs.
“The Red Triangle is the descending tongue of grace;
the Blue Triangle is the ascending tongue of prayer”
Or FDB’s other inspired contributions @ 240 and 250.
To point out the ‘flaws’ in my arguments, you have to at least acknowledge those arguments.
All I have seen so far are your own ludicrous attempts to explain away how that passport was so conveniently and miraculously found the very next day in the rubble of the Twin Towers.
Where else have my arguments been acknowledged, let alone rebutted?
Please just provide links to the the posts or the numbers.
All I have seen are personal attacks, endless attempts to riducule me, straw man demolitions, the dragging of red herrings across the trail and other debaters’ tricks.
I haven’t even got one of my detractors to explicitly defend the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory, a summary of which I posted above.
And if they reject that version of events, I am still waiting to know whether they think that the crime of 9/11 should be properly investigated or whether it should remain unsolved.
I have yet, after 444 posts, to find out from my detractors whether or not they believe that those who allowed almost 3,000 US citizens to be murdered on 11 September 2001 (whether by omission or commission) be held to account.
You advanced “Occam’s Razor” as a reason why we should unquestioningly accept that two planes were able to cause three buildings to collapse.
For the first time in this thread I have rebutted that spurious argument and, I believe, have demonstrated that you don’t understand basic scientific principles or that you are intentionally misleading this discussion.
What? You mean you haven’t? Personally, I thought Structural Fire Response and Probable Collapse Sequence of the World Trade Center Towers, NCSTAR 1-6 for short, was very racy bed-time reading, though the bisexual gypsy twins were a bit much at times.
I thought everyone commenting here had read the reports?
OK, people: everyone here who HASN’T read the NIST reports please raise your paw.
Sorry about the incorrect link to FDB’s memorable, helpful and informative post:
Rinse, repeat.
I need a haircut.
The third last paragraph in my previous post should have ended, “shouldbe held to account.”
—
Sideshow Bob asks if I have read the NIST reports. In fact US Physics Teacher David Chandler has and caught the authors out lying about the critical detail of over 2 seconds of collapse at free-fall speed that their original reports attempted to conceal. His confrontation with the authors of that report on YouTube is well worth watching.
1. Because I trusted the word of precisely the kind of people that are working overtime her on this thread to conceal the truth about 9/11, that is, people who would have us believe that they are left-wing, against the wealthy elites and on the side of the poor and oppressed. If I had not placed such undeserved trust in such people I would have have woken up long before I did.
2. I avoided studying the question properly because it seemed to me that it would be enormously difficult and time consuming for me to sort through the claims and counter-claims surrounding the 9/11 controversy. Giving that (wrong) impression to others who are attempting to learn the truth is clearly one of the intentions of those who are adding so much clutter to this this discussion. (I still have to find the time to work out what I think of controversies such as that surrounding the swine flu, and the Port Arthur massacre, BTW)
3. I had other concerns: the Howard Government, privatisation, the environment, overpopulation, work, life, etc.
Look I don’t want to judge you or tell you how to live your life Daggett, and I have a soft spot for Truthers, cos I’m a bit of one myself, or would be if it wasn’t for fucking controlled demolition, which I think is an energy sink. For people with activist zeal.
“Because I trusted the word of precisely the kind of people that are working overtime her on this thread to conceal the truth about 9/11″
I don’t they are working, let alone putting in overtime. Nor do I think their goal is to conceal the truth about 9/11. They may well be useful idiots, but can you (or me) honestly say with any confidence that we are not? (I’d like to think I could but thats the point of being a useful idiot isn’t it, you don’t know you are one.)
See since 9/11 happened (and I was sus on it from day one) the 9/11 truth movement has attracted quite a few nuts who scream loudly about all sorts of garbage, from “evil Zionazis Jews for Obama done it”to “holograms and HAARP not planes”. Yet the consistant questions about connectons and corruption have never gone away, just disappeared under the weight of increasing amounts of noise. The signal to noise ratio of the 9/11 truth movement increased significantly especially since garbage like loose change and in plane sight came out.
And in that entire time nothing the truth movement has done has actually undone the damage Bush, Cheney and the other bloodthirsty warmongers in the last US admin unleashed on the world. No truther has helped overturn the Patriot act, they were far less concerned about FISA than about nano thermate or thermite or whatever the fuck Steve Jones calls it, and none of them (to my knowledge) are actively pressuring Obama to reinstate habeas Corpus (which he should have done on day one, just another of the long list of failures Obama will end up being remembered for.)
Yet whenever I mention this to them they say “When we prove they did 9/11 all that stuff will have to go, by definition.” Or words to that effect. There is no stated mechanism for this, just some blind faith. And in case you missed it, proving 9/11 as defined by Dylan Avery style truthers will result in what exactly? Nothing unless its accompanied by an overthrow of the current US admin, cos there are plenty of officials in that who would have to be compromised if the truthers are right. Not to mention Congress, etc etc
So we are looking at the overthrow of the last, and some of the current US government. And their public trial and execution. It has to be that way cos much of what caused 9/11 according to truthers is structural, and the individuals are effectively interchangeable.
Personally I think my theory with Hubbard and parsons invoking something dodgy that settled in barbara Bushes womb and caused the attacks to release a force that was held in the pentagon makes more sense (on a mythological level) than any other theory that tries to explain the event in physical terms, and I was actually half joking about it, maybe completely joking, I’m not sure. But I would say that wouldn’t I.
On reflection I think it needs modification. Parsons and Hubbard were trying to invoke something beautiful into the world and its just a perverse twist of fate that it ended up in Barbs womb. That experience warped it so much that it came out looking for revenge. It also extended the life of the universe by several trillion years cos thats how much therapy the poor critter will need to recover from the experience.
Sorry for wandering off into the absurd, but I kind of have to.
Otherwise I end up shouting and banging my head against a brick wall.
“I had other concerns: the Howard Government, privatisation, the environment, overpopulation, work, life, etc.”
“I still have to find the time to work out what I think of controversies …”
How much time have you used on 911 truth that could have served you and your community in a more effective way, especially in regard to those other concerns you listed, after the Howard Government. Do you still find the time to be as effective in those other areas and have a good (ie meaningful and worthwhile) life?
You don’t have to answer me on this thread. Those questions are for you to think about over time.
Yeah it’s always about you FDB. Here’s 50c – tell someone who cares, or maybe build a bridge and get over it. (sorry it’s been a while since I’ve actually talked to a 13 year old so the lingo might be just a little bit out of date.)
you say my explanation of a possible way for the passport to descend from the Tower to the ground is “ludicrous”.
I disagree.
I believe my hypothesis is consistent with physics and chemistry. I prefer hypotheses and explanations that are consistent with the physical sciences (and with arithmetic, causality, etc.) There was a poster who picked you up on a simple error (feet vs metres) in your “free fall” calculations.
I don’t have the time to follow you down large numbers of rabbit holes.
You seem to assume that those who don’t reply to you have not “thought about” the events in question and their antecednts. I suggest to you they have thought long anbd hard about those events, and disagree with your “world view”; they have “acknowledged” your writings (I hesitate to call them “arguments”) by responding to some, but are not duty bound to accept the vailidity of your assertions or your reasoning.
Neither are they obliged to answer every point you raise.
Sideshow Bob asks if I have read the NIST reports.
Well, I asked…and you didn’t answer.
In fact US Physics Teacher David Chandler has and caught the authors out lying about the critical detail of over 2 seconds of collapse at free-fall speed that their original reports attempted to conceal. His confrontation with the authors of that report on YouTube is well worth watching.
Oh yeah! YouTube! The source of all knowledge! Yairs, let’s play Duelling YouTube.
It’s almost inconceivable that the passport not attached to a part of the hijacker’s body or clothing would have flown out of either of the Twin Towers at the time of the crash.
And if it had, it would have most likely been found on the day by somebody in the streets below. If it had not, I can’t imagine it being found the very next day under so much rubble.
And if the passport had remained inside the tower, the chances of it being found at all, let alone found the next day, would be practically nil.
Common sense would surely tell us that it is almost infinitely more likely that the passport found so coveniently for the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory the next day would have been planted.
I’ve e-mailed Torchwood but they really aren’t much use because they can NEVER find The Doctor. Maybe The Doctor put the Paspor… Oh … Would have have to have been a Dalek or a Cyberman …
I did think of one more observable characteristic, courtesy WAFTT @ 444, though I’ll venture that observable characteristics might be the only way by which you could arrive at a definition of a particular mindset?
Conspiracists actively seek to proselytise.
Base structural errors in language, and proselytising = predicatoriness?
Of course criticising something you haven’t read is always fun so i’ll have a go.
Typical of western imperialist academics to try and frame truth in their own way, everyone else does, but claiming that primative societies rely on emotional truth, which is non sensory and non rational is utter garbage. So called primative societies are wholly dependant on sensory truth for survival, on deductive truth for survival and he would know that if he ever actually tried to get himself a meal from scratch.
And he possibly doesn’t understand BC Chinese philosophy, but then who does.
I looked him up on lazipedia too, apparantly he got beat up by coppers for jaywalking.
I think it is silly to add contrived posts just for the purpose of making this forum reach 500 posts (although I guess it is no worse than adding contrived posts to make it harder for others to understand the 9/11 controversy).
To answer your question: No, I have not. David Chandler has and has shown those reports not to be worth the paper they are printed on. Have you read them?
Sideshow Bob wrote, “let’s play Duelling YouTube.”
If we must, Sideshow Bob, at least provide links to videos which are in response to the videos I have linked to.
The Youtube video you linked to does not even address the content of the one I linked to, “‘WTC7: NIST Admits Freefall’ …The Movie”, (which I also linked to earlier @ 172 BTW). If you had bothered to look at that video, you would know that.
In fact, it is a response to an earlier video “WTC7 in Freefall” by David Chandler.
The video “‘WTC7: NIST Admits Freefall’ …The Movie” shows Dr. Shyam Sunder and Dr. John Gross (the same guy who insisted that there was no molten steel under the ground on which the WTC towers previously stood and that no eyewitnesses had seen any, BTW) waffling on incoherently in response to questions put to them by David Chandler and Dr. Steven Jones.
It would appear that as a result of their embarassment, NIST published a new report which conceded what they had previously attempted to deny, that is, that WTC 7 fell at free fall acceleration for approximately 2.5 seconds after the ‘collapse’ initiated, thereby also making utter nonsense of the video you linked me to.
Not much you can do about spurious, vapid or entirely lighthearted posts, daggett.
David Chandler has not proven what you claim, he has asserted several things. Big difference.
Given the sensationalising character of the press and TV, do you really think someone like Mr Chandler would not get a worldwide splash, if reasonable journalists thought there was ANYTHING substantial to his claims? They’d be all over him like a rash. Before you could say “flight school!!”
Speaking of truth, since when has the media been concerned with substance when it comes anything of a ’sensationalising’ nature?
And you may have noticed that they keep their ’sensationalising’ within very narrow boundaries these days. Anything that threatens the status quo is clearly off limits.
Not that I’m suggesting that this is part of a conspiracy or anything…
To answer your question: No, I have not. David Chandler has and has shown those reports not to be worth the paper they are printed on.
Are you fucking kidding me? You haven’t read the official accounts and yet you believe some twonk on YouTube has disproved them? That’s utterly ridiculous.
Have you read them?
Yes, and I’m utterly shocked and awed that you don’t even pretend to have read them, yet presume to lecture others on this alleged conspiracy of yours. I salute your chutzpah, sir.
Sideshow Bob wrote, “let’s play Duelling YouTube.”
If we must, Sideshow Bob, at least provide links to videos which are in response to the videos I have linked to.
The Youtube video you linked to does not even address the content of the one I linked to, “‘WTC7: NIST Admits Freefall’ …The Movie”, (which I also linked to earlier @ 172 BTW). If you had bothered to look at that video, you would know that.
Rubbish. At #453 you linked to “WTC7 in Freefall –No Longer Controversial”. Don’t attempt to deny it – the link is right there for anyone to check. Not that it makes any difference, as the link I provided at #462 shows exactly where Chandler went wrong with his pathetic “gotcha”. It’s a classic case of cherrypicked data by a delusional nitwit.
In fact, it is a response to an earlier video “WTC7 in Freefall” by David Chandler.
The video “‘WTC7: NIST Admits Freefall’ …The Movie” shows Dr. Shyam Sunder and Dr. John Gross (the same guy who insisted that there was no molten steel under the ground on which the WTC towers previously stood and that no eyewitnesses had seen any, BTW) waffling on incoherently in response to questions put to them by David Chandler and Dr. Steven Jones.
It would appear that as a result of their embarassment, NIST published a new report which conceded what they had previously attempted to deny, that is, that WTC 7 fell at free fall acceleration for approximately 2.5 seconds after the ‘collapse’ initiated, thereby also making utter nonsense of the video you linked me to.
Again, rubbish. I’m curious, though: HOW do you know NIST “conceded” anything given you admit you haven’t even read the report?
If an admission by NIST itself that WTC 7 fell at free fall speed on top of the clear physical evidence that has been on YouTube for the whole world to see for years, is not sufficient proof for “where angels tread lightly”, then it is impossible for me to imagine what would be.
Unlike “where angels tread lightly”, millions of people around the world who have carefully studied the evidence know that there is a great deal that is both ’substantial’ and ’sensational’ about the ‘collapse’ of WTC 7 and the cover-up by NIST.
The fact that the major newsmedia has chosen not to report this and, as well as a good many other equally substantial and equally sensational aspects of the 9/11 story should serve as a clear warning that it would be most unwise to place any trust in it.
Let’s also pray that “where angels tread lightly” is never selected as a juror on a major criminal trial.
If an admission by NIST itself that WTC 7 fell at free fall speed on top of the clear physical evidence that has been on YouTube for the whole world to see for years, is not sufficient proof for “where angels tread lightly”, then it is impossible for me to imagine what would be.
Given the “admission” you link to is actually your comment, Daggy, I imagine “sufficient proof” would be a statement from NIST stating what you think they stated.
I hate that. I just stoopidly wiped 3 paragraphs on jesus’ alleged visit to Australia, pre European invasion. (No shit – at least according to one fella I know.)
Okay, daggett.
The following is a serious comment. by their very nature conspiracy theories cannot be proved to be either true or false. The whole point of a successful conspiracy is that it leaves no evidence behind, so it cannot be proven either way. Consequently all unproven conspiracies should be considered fabrications. 9/11 is one such conspiracy. And I do hope we reach 500.
“by their very nature conspiracy theories cannot be proved to be either true or false.” – Paul Burns
Was watergate a conspiracy theory before some knob published an article about it? If you said in early 1986 that the US had supplied missiles to Iran in exchange for the release of hostages you would have been accused of being a conspiracy theorist. Should those claims have been considered fabrications?
Are Terry Griffiths questions regarding the Hilton bombing in ‘78 fabrications? What about Wahid’s claims on sbs years ago about Indonesian police or military involvement with the Bali bombings and the islamic terror in that part of the world? He’s not just any schmuck, he was Indonesian president.
… the link I provided at #462 shows exactly where Chandler went wrong with his pathetic “gotcha”.
It does nothing of the sort as you should well know.
All it did was restate what Chandler had already rebutted. What it restated was NIST’s basis for claiming that the initial acceleration of WTC 7 was less than free-fall. It did so by repeating NIST’s fraudulent claim that the collapse was initiated when some of the inside of WTC 7 was observed collapsing as the outside structure remained stationary.
After the outside structure as a whole commenced to collapse as a whole, it did collapse at free-fall speed as David Chandler demonstrated. The video doesn’t even attempt to address this key point.
In stage 2, the North Face descended at gravitational acceleration. … This free fall (my emphasis) drop continued for approximately 8 stories or 32.0m (105 feet), the distance travelled between t=1.5s and t=4.0s (i.e. 2.5 seconds, exactly as David Chandler had claimed all along).
Sideshow Bob wrote:
I’m utterly shocked and awed …
Why don’t you pull the other one, Sideshow Bob?
Sideshow Bob continued:
… that you don’t even pretend to have read them.
There are are only 24 hours in the day, Sideshow Bob. I trust the judgement of people like David Chandler and Steven Jones, as even NIST has now been forced to.
I think it is fair to say that I have just demonstrated that, even though you claim to have read through all of NIST’s fraudulent tomes and I have not, I am able to convey more accurate information about their content than you.
The only theory offered so far that makes any sense to any engineer is the controlled demolition theory, yet that was not even considered by NIST.
They didn’t consider the possibility of Gojira-attack, either. Probably because they thought it dashed unlikely.
Actually, daggett and Rodeo Sideshow, the NIST did investigate the possibility of controlled demolition and rejected it. See section 3.3, page 26, and the appendices referenced. Anyone who claims that NIST did not investigate the idea that the collapse of WTC7 was deliberately caused by explosives is simply lying.
Considerable effort was expended to compile evidence and to determine whether intentionally set explosives might have caused the collapse of WTC7 (NIST NCSTAR 1-9, Appendix D). As a minimum, the explosive material would have had to cause sufficient damage to a critical column or truss that it became unable to carry its service load or that a lateral deflection would cause it to buckle. Six combinations of explosive location and column/truss sections and two implementation scenarios were considered…
Italics mine. Further retreat behind questions and innuendo… over to the comments field.
I’m afraid, having looked at the link, I still don’t know what ‘Ptech’ is. Could you enlighten me?
As for Steven Jones’ views that Christ may have visited Meso-America, I can’t comment. Plenty of people can be right on one issue and wrong on others. I am not personally a Mormon, nor even a Christian, nor even ’spiritual’.
On 9/11 no-one has proven Jones to be wrong and, certainly, Sideshow Bob has not proven him wrong on this forum.
Na. Once the evidence surfaces conspiracy theories become reality, rather than fabrications. There is a difference between a conspiracy theory and a conspiracy for which there is irrefutable evidence.
“I’m afraid, having looked at the link, I still don’t know what ‘Ptech’ is. Could you enlighten me?”
see thats the trouble with all the noise a controlled demolition makes…
I’ll try and chase up an good accounting of Ptech for you but it may take a while. The quick summary is that Ptech was a company involved in software development and had supplied software to among other groups the US air Force. Indira Singh was asked to investigate Ptech while working for Chase or JP Morgan I think, basically it was a business investigation. She made a connection between their software and the software Cheney was using the morning of the attacks to run C&C during the attacks. Ptech is known to have been financed by and started by people suspected of funding Al Quada.
Whislteblowers apparantly contacted the FBI re an investigation, but the investigation was blocked by Michael Chertoff (I think, don’t quote me yet) who went on to head Homeland security and IIRC help fuck up the response to hurricane Katrina.
Thats a quick summary, and it may not be entirely accurate but I think the gist of it is enough for now. I honestly don’t know about the veracity of all this either. Its just another in a long series of unanswered questions.
It does nothing of the sort as you should well know.
All it did was restate what Chandler had already rebutted. What it restated was NIST’s basis for claiming that the initial acceleration of WTC 7 was less than free-fall.
No, it directly rebuts Chandler’s assertions. Also, Chandler’s own, flawed, work shows that initial acceleration was less than free-fall. Take another look at his dodgy graph if you don’t believe me.
It did so by repeating NIST’s fraudulent claim that the collapse was initiated when some of the inside of WTC 7 was observed collapsing as the outside structure remained stationary.
It does not. The starting point for tracking collapse was observation of the outside structure. Chandler deliberately chose to focus on the top of the building that moved last. Why? Cherrypicking.
After the outside structure as a whole commenced to collapse as a whole, it did collapse at free-fall speed as David Chandler demonstrated. The video doesn’t even attempt to address this key point.
WTC 7 did NOT collapse at free-fall speed. The video demonstrates that the tracked floors of WTC 7 took 5.4 seconds to collapse, much longer than free-fall would require, at 3.9 seconds, AS NIST STATED.
HOW do you know NIST “conceded” anything given you admit you haven’t even read the report?
Why don’t you look at the report that you claim to have read?
I have, Daggy, I have. You haven’t, remember?
The following is stated on the displayed page of the report 9 minutes 36 seconds into “‘WTC7: NIST Admits Freefall’ …The Movie”:
In stage 2, the North Face descended at gravitational acceleration. … This free fall (my emphasis) drop continued for approximately 8 stories or 32.0m (105 feet), the distance travelled between t=1.5s and t=4.0s (i.e. 2.5 seconds, exactly as David Chandler had claimed all along).
FFS, that’s your source? The same discredited YouTube video? Why not take your own advice and read the actual report? Oh, that’s right, you’re too busy to get your facts straight. Let me quote the whole of the relevant text from page 45:
For discussion purposes, three stages were defined, as denoted in Figure 3-15:
- In Stage 1, the descent was slow and the acceleration was less than that of gravity. This stage corresponds to the initial buckling of the exterior columns in the lower stories of the north face. By 1.75s, the north face had descended approximately 2.2m (7ft).
- In Stage 2, the north face descended at gravitational acceleration, as the buckled columns provided negligible support to the upper portion of the north face. This free fall drop continued for approximately 8 stories or 32.0m (105ft), the distance travelled between times 1.75s and t = 4.0s.
- In Stage 3, the acceleration decreased somewhat as the upper portion of the north face encountered increased resistance from the collapsed structure and the debris pile below. Between 4.0s and 5.4s, the north face corner fell an additional 39.6m (130ft).
As noted above, the collapse time was approximately 40 percent longer than that of free fall for the first 18 stories of descent. The detailed analysis shows that this increase in time is due primarily to Stage 1. The three stages of collapse progression described above are consistent with the results of the global collapse analyses discussed in Chapter 12 of NIST NCSTAR 1-9. [my emphasis]
Cherrypicking, yet again. The building did NOT collapse at free fall speed. Your bloke and his credulists fail yet again.
There are are only 24 hours in the day, Sideshow Bob. I trust the judgement of people like David Chandler and Steven Jones, as even NIST has now been forced to.
I think it is fair to say that I have just demonstrated that, even though you claim to have read through all of NIST’s fraudulent tomes and I have not, I am able to convey more accurate information about their content than you.
What you’ve demonstrated, Daggy, is naive credulity and an inability – whether due to laziness or stupidity – to get your facts straight. Yet again, you’ve shown a willingness to waste your time and others’ propagating lies, but no willingness to actually get to grips with the actual facts yourself.
You keep saying you trust the judgement of Chandler and Jones, and yet you won’t back Jones’ judgement on Jesus and the Mayans. Why not?
I’m having trouble following your logic Paul. (No doubt that comes as no surprise to many here.)
A conspiracy theory is by definition unprovable?
That means that while events like … I dunno the Roswell bullshit are a conspiracy theory, but say JFKs assassination isn’t a conspiracy theory is a reality? (I honestly don’t know or care about JFKs assassination, really Camelot was a crock of shit.)
How does something go from being a fabrication to being a reality just on the arrival of actual evidence?
What Sideshow Bob is attempting to do, with his spurious allegations of ‘cherry picking’, personal attacks and other red herrings, is explain away 2.5 seconds of free-fall acceleration practically uniformly across the whole of the observed north face that the NIST has been forced to concede occured. The only known way that a building can fall uniformly through 8 stories at free fall speed is for all the strength of the supporting structure to have suddenly been removed uniformly, floor by floor, by explosives all within those 2.5 seconds.
Nothing like that has ever occurred before or since by fire alone as NIST itelf admits.
What we have observed is wholely consistent with any clasic bottom-up demolition, many examples of which are to be found on YouTube, yet NIST insists that it is a bizarre one-off occurrence, whilst refusing to seriously investigate the most obvious explanation, and that would appear to be all perfectly fine by Sideshow Bob.
—
Liam, if you had read through Appendix D, you would see that it has not even considered the evidence or any of the many arguments in support of the Controlled Demolition hypothesis that has long been made known by the 9/11 Truth Movement, some of which I posted to this page. It would have at least acknowledged that the ‘collapse’ of WTC 7, including the observed initial 2.5 seconds of free-fall was wholely consistent with almost countless other demolitions that have occured before and since.
If it was serious about considering about investigating this hypothesis, it would have for a start asked Larry Sliverstein, what he meant when he said in an interview:
I remember getting a call from the, er, fire department commander, telling me that they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, “We’ve had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it.” And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse.
Also, it would have interviewed the late Barry Jennings, who gaive detailed accounts of explosions occurring insided WTC 7 beginning hours before the collapse, it would have interviewed BBC reporter Jane Standley to ask why she reported the WTC 7 ‘collapse’ 23 minutes before it actually did ‘collapse’, and it would have set out to find out from other former employess who workde in WTC 7 wheterh or not they had noticed anything suspicious in the weeks prior to Spetember 11, 2001.
Instead, it attempts to dismiss the cast body of evidence, in support of controlled demolition, by asserting that preparations could not have been made without anyone noticing. (The ‘pdf’ document is, in fact, a stupid JPEG image, so I can’t easily copy and paste from it.) Yet no attempt was maded my NIST to interview former employees who worked in WTC 7 to see whether or not suspicious acitivity was noticed. No consideration was given to the fact that much of the preparations could easily have been made after hours and out of sight of most vistors and employees.
Ok daggett, I’ve got to admire your persistence, along with jules of course.
But please answer me the following questions(I have neither the time nor inclination to go through the ‘evidence’).
1. What was the point of a ‘controlled demolition’ since the planes were going to destroy the buildings anyway?
2. How could the explosives etc. be placed in the building without anyone noticing? The fact that the NIST didn’t interview anyone about this is hardly proof that it could have happened.
Apart from admiring your persistence, I also admire the touching faith that others have in the official version of events, eminating as it did from an administration choc full of liars, cheats and scoundrels.
Yeah I do get that, but where does that leave talking (or typing) about alleged conspiracies that havn’t been brought to justice.
If conspiracy theory = fabrication by definition then every time someone uses the term conspiracy theory in the media to refer to an allegation they are accusing the person making the allegation of fabrication.
Then when someone like me says “Yeah but what about this…” does that mean what i say should be ignored cos obviously a conspiracy theory or any allegation resembling one is a fabrication. Not that I really care in the context of this thread … but …
What about this then, I claim that someone I worked for was involved in importing heroin into Australia. I know this cos while I was working for them I walked in on them discussing their operations with a bunch of judges, lawyers, cops and pollies or businessmen over a game of cards. Thats a conspiracy theory, but its not a fabrication. And no I’m not gonna name names on that one, and especially not here where you guys could cop the legal shit for it. I’m not even going into any more detail than that cos I don’t want any chance of IDing them.
I am a member of a conspiracy website, (bet that was a surprise) well its more than that but “conspiracies” always come up.
One of the members of the same site just managed to get someone charged with the murder of her father, after 30 years.
Her story is tied to the Inslaw affair and the death of Danny Casolaro, which is a well known “conspiracy theory”. At what point did her journey morph from fabrication to reality? The other day when the guy she was hunting got busted?
Is the damn cat(pavlov’s) dead or alive? to quote some recently dead smartarse/genius.
Do you see what i’m saying?
BTW wrt to Rachel Begley, she has one very sus character (at least) helping her out on this case so i wouldn’t be surprised to see it all end in tears. If Hughes doesn’t end up convicted of the triple murder does that mean her entire story returns to fabrication?
There’s a fair level of uncertainty with all this sort of thing, and that is never addressed with statements like “conspiracy theories are fabrications.”
Mind you given the zeal, and fundamentalist fervour of some advocates of many conspiracy theories I can understand your caution. And I accept there are downright lies designed to provoke a response in people with no critical thinking skills. (Did you know Obama was born in kenya and is an evil muslim terrorist who works for the elders of Zion, and George Soros, and Satan? And he wants to take away your guns.)
I would agree the Bolshevik Revolution was a successful conspiracy and the Zinoviev letter was a successful conspiratorial fraud. But they were real conspiracies not conspiracy theories that left no hard evidence.
What Sideshow Bob is attempting to do, with his spurious allegations of ‘cherry picking’, personal attacks and other red herrings, is explain away 2.5 seconds of free-fall acceleration practically uniformly across the whole of the observed north face that the NIST has been forced to concede occured.
My allegations of cherrypicking aren’t spurious, they’re evidently substantiated. The personal attacks I’ll cop to, but they’re likewise substantiated by your conduct on this thread. As for red herrings, where?
I don’t have to “explain away” any observed acceleration in the fall of WTC 7, as NIST has already done so in its explanation. And they weren’t “forced” to “concede” anything, as you’ve failed to produce any evidence of said “concession”.
The only known way that a building can fall uniformly through 8 stories at free fall speed is for all the strength of the supporting structure to have suddenly been removed uniformly, floor by floor, by explosives all within those 2.5 seconds.
For starters, it didn’t fall uniformly. For another, the building was ALREADY FALLING before those 2.5s that concern you so much. And, finally: says who? Cranks on YouTube. LOL.
Nothing like that has ever occurred before or since by fire alone as NIST itelf admits.
What we have observed is wholely consistent with any clasic bottom-up demolition, many examples of which are to be found on YouTube, yet NIST insists that it is a bizarre one-off occurrence, whilst refusing to seriously investigate the most obvious explanation, and that would appear to be all perfectly fine by Sideshow Bob.
No, Daggy, the obvious and most logical conclusion is the one that emerged: planes > fires > collapse. Your alternative theory is unsubstantiated fiction.
Daggy, why won’t you comment on Jesus and the Mayans? Why is Jones credible on structural engineering and not “Archaeometry”? He only claims one of the two as an area of personal expertise – can you guess which one?
But they were real conspiracies not conspiracy theories that left no hard evidence.
Conspiracy theorists claimed that the Zinoviev Letter was a conspiracy for decades until the definitive evidence turned up.
These theorists were dismissed as cranks or deliberate liars until the evidence proved their suspicions to be correct.
Every piece of historical research begins with questions that can be said to refer to a theory until that theory is either confirmed or disconfirmed.
Your archetypal conspiracy theorist is the person who doggedly clings to relatively unconvincing evidence or who claims that the lack of evidence is itself proof of a conspiracy.
(I’m not thinking about any person with a rodentine gravatar here, despite appearances.)
Demolition was necessary precisely because the impact of a plane alone and consequent fires could not have brought down either of the Twin Towers. As I wrote they were built to withstand a head-on impact from a 707.
Without a controlled demolition, the psychological impact would not have been anywhere near as great. Around a few dozen from the towers themselves would have died in addition to those on the flights, totalling around 200 in all, instead of almost 3,000, and there would have been ugly scars in each of the twin towers. Investigators would have been able to search through the wreckage and establish whether or not, handfuls of hijackers had indeed been able to subdue the whole crew and passengers of each of the two aircraft with only box cutter knives.
If, for example, firearms had been found, then this could have led to embarassing questions being asked of those in control of airport security.
In fact suspicious activity was observed in the weeks prior to 9/11 as I mentioned above. As I wrote above:
The Testimony of Scott Forbes a computer technician employed in the South Tower and who witnessed power downs and many other mysterious events, including visits by large numbers of technicians with toolboxes up to the weekend prior to 9/11 during these power downs, can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brSXmZVVCMI
Don’t forget that George Bush’s youger brother, Marvin, from 1993 until 2000 was on the board of directors of Securacom which was resposible for the securirty in the World Trade Center as well as Washington Dulles International Airport from which flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagonm left.
This fact was initially concealed by the White House and Marvin Bush has repeatedly refused to answer reporters’ questions about this.
“Without a controlled demolition, the psychological impact would not have been anywhere near as great.”
Maybe, maybe not.
The primary focus of the event was the collapse of the towers, which is a momentus spectacle with a imprinting power on a par with DMT or Salvinorum.
Once the buildings collapsed the event became a one off. No one is ever gonna hijack a plane and crash it into the twin towers again…
However if they were still standing the focus of the event is the hijacking and crashing of the planes into buildings.
Thats essentially a repeatable event.
So everyone that gets onto a plane and has seen those images of the other planes crashing into the twin towers will wonder if that could be them on this flight. Maybe.
Katz @ 512,
Yeah, but thats a hypothesis that has to be proved or disproved, not a conspiracy theory. Nevertheless I accept your point. Though i don’t think an historical hypothesis or an historical assumption are the same as a full blown conspiracy theory, which is what, I think has been implicit in my comments.
Sideshow Bob, you are clearly and dishonestly attempting to conflate two clearly separate aspects of the WTC 7 collapse and imply they are one:
1. the demoloution of some of the supporting structures holding up the inside of WTC; and
2. the demolition of the visible outside of WTC 7;
As we can observe from the collapse of the penthouse, the first began a few seconds before the collpase of the outer wall. At no point during all that did any of the outer wall move.
During those additional seconds, until the point at which the collapse of the outer structure was observed the whole weight of the outer wall was fully supported. (BTW, I take back what I said about some of the outer wall at the eastern end moving slighlty before the western end. I had mistaken my memory of movement in the Penthouse for that. I couldn’t detect any movement at the east face until the west face upon which Chandler made his measurements began to collapse.)
So, of course it is appropriate to ‘cherry pick’, as Sideshow Bob puts it.
Clearly what was happening on the inside had no effect on the outside wall. To pretend that it did is to attempt to confuse the issue and conceal the fact that for the initial 2.5 seconds of the collapse of the outer wall it fell at free fall speed (possibly barring a tiny fraction of a second at the very outset).
Sideshow Bob, stated
“For starters, it didn’t fall uniformly. …”
The fact remains the ‘collapse’ was, to all practical intents and purposes, uniform. If not, then show me any other controlled demolition that satisfies your own requirement of ‘uniformity’, presumably, to a precision of at least 6 decimal places.
And while you are at it, show me any other ‘collapse’ that is even remotely similar to the WTC 7 collapse, caused by fire alone.
The collapse of the WTC 7, as we have observed, simply could not have occurred unless:
1. all the structural strength in at least 8 of the floors had been destroyed by explosives within those initial 2.5 seconds after the first movement of the outer wall was observed;
2. the timing of the detonations had been such that the structural strength of holding up each floor would have to have been totally removed before it could have in any way slowed the fall of any part of the building falling from above.
If the first condition had not been met, then it would have taken longer than 2.5 seconds to fall through those eight floors. If the second had not been met then a good deal less uniformity would have been observed and a good deal more of the debris would have ended up outside the footprint of WTC 7.
—
Sideshow Bob said, “… the obvious and most logical conclusion is the one that emerged: planes > fires > collapse. …”
Sideshow Bob, you are clearly and dishonestly attempting to conflate two clearly separate aspects of the WTC 7 collapse and imply they are one:
1. the demoloution of some of the supporting structures holding up the inside of WTC; and
2. the demolition of the visible outside of WTC 7;
As we can observe from the collapse of the penthouse, the first began a few seconds before the collpase of the outer wall. At no point during all that did any of the outer wall move.
During those additional seconds, until the point at which the collapse of the outer structure was observed the whole weight of the outer wall was fully supported. (BTW, I take back what I said about some of the outer wall at the eastern end moving slighlty before the western end. I had mistaken my memory of movement in the Penthouse for that. I couldn’t detect any movement at the east face until the west face upon which Chandler made his measurements began to collapse.)
There is no conflation. Refer back to my original link at #462. The VISIBLE OUTSIDE of the building falls from the North East top FIRST. Chandler selectively – and misleadingly – times the collapse from the LATER collapse of the North-West corner. Why he does this is obvious: he’s cherrypicking to bolster his non-existent case.
So, of course it is appropriate to ‘cherry pick’, as Sideshow Bob puts it.
No, it isn’t.
Clearly what was happening on the inside had no effect on the outside wall.
WTF? A building collapses and you argue “the inside had no effect on the outside wall”?
To pretend that it did is to attempt to confuse the issue and conceal the fact that for the initial 2.5 seconds of the collapse of the outer wall it fell at free fall speed (possibly barring a tiny fraction of a second at the very outset).
Oh, FFS. It did not fall at free fall speed at the outset. Go back to YOUR video link at #453. Do you remember that one? It’s the one you subsequently lied about at #481. Look at Chandler’s graph at 1:52. Notice that for the first second acceleration is well beneath gravity. Even your own, debunked, source disagrees with your assertion.
“For starters, it didn’t fall uniformly. …”
The fact remains the ‘collapse’ was, to all practical intents and purposes, uniform. If not, then show me any other controlled demolition that satisfies your own requirement of ‘uniformity’, presumably, to a precision of at least 6 decimal places.
As I’ve noted above, the North East top of the building VISIBLY started to collapse before the North-West corner. Moreover, the building did not fall at a uniform speed or acceleration, as shown in the NIST report I quoted at #499 above. The collapse was NOT uniform.
And while you are at it, show me any other ‘collapse’ that is even remotely similar to the WTC 7 collapse, caused by fire alone.
Why? Oh, yeah, that’s right: buildings don’t collapse due to fire. But, of course, I have to concede that we’ve only had one 9/11, so that does make your over-specified sample a little tricky to replicate.
The collapse of the WTC 7, as we have observed, simply could not have occurred unless:
1. all the structural strength in at least 8 of the floors had been destroyed by explosives within those initial 2.5 seconds after the first movement of the outer wall was observed;
2. the timing of the detonations had been such that the structural strength of holding up each floor would have to have been totally removed before it could have in any way slowed the fall of any part of the building falling from above.
If the first condition had not been met, then it would have taken longer than 2.5 seconds to fall through those eight floors. If the second had not been met then a good deal less uniformity would have been observed and a good deal more of the debris would have ended up outside the footprint of WTC 7.
These are unsubstantiated assertions from non-authoritative sources, based on premises that have been discredited. Garbage.
“… the obvious and most logical conclusion is the one that emerged: planes > fires > collapse. …”
Sure, Bob. Two planes knock down three buildings.
Very logical and very obvious.
Did two planes fly into two of the buildings? Yes.
Did they cause extensive fires, in both of those buildings and WTC 7? Yes.
Did the fires cause the collapse of the buildings? Yes.
Yes, Daggy: logical and obvious.
Your theory? Illogical, unsubstantiated and delusional tosh.
The point is that Chandler used *one single* video, shot from *one single* perspective (square to the North Face of WTC 7) to construct his theory.
The video he used was *not* the video NIST used.
(I’ll repeat that for emphasis.)
The video he used was *not* the video NIST used.
His theory is that NIST chose an arbitrary point in time to begin their 5.4 second countdown, to fit with their computer modelling. Chandler says:
“Since their model predicted 5.4 seconds for the 18 story collapse, they dutifully conjured up a 5.4 second measurement to match. They had to stretch themselves to do it, but they did it. They found the disappearance time, then they went out of their way to pick an artificially early start time, exactly 5.4 seconds earlier. This they compared with freefall time.”
Wrong! Chandler clearly knows nothing about computer modelling. The way to construct the most accurate computer model you can, naturally enough, is by feeding *known data* into it. They had *already* calculated the 5.4 seconds from the video evidence. This was *subsequently* used in their computer modelling, not the other way around. He is way wrong here. (Or, I’m wrong – go prove that.)
His reasoning (explained here from 1:45 onwards), is that when he steps frame by frame through *his* video, he/you cannot see any visual change to the outward shape of WTC 7 at the point NIST ‘chose’ to begin their 5.4 second countdown.
This is not surprising as the North face of the building in *his* video is completely underexposed/obscured by shadow. You don’t see the North East corner drop (as he puts it, “there’s no measurable difference in the height of the roofline”), because there was, quite simply, more building completely underexposed/obscured by shadow, behind it.
Did Chandler even consider attempting to correct the contrast before proceeding with this?
However, I’ll add that I can see movement in Chandler’s video at the point NIST determined was the start of the collapse (in fact, I see it begin a few frames earlier, and that’s because it was Chandler who chose an “arbitrary” start point, not NIST), even if he couldn’t. As the original video Fyodor linked to @ 462 correctly points out (far from it being complete nonsense, as you claim), to step through frame by frame is incredibly deceptive – because it renders minute visual changes unnoticeable.
Scrub back and forth, and it’s a different story.
View the video NIST used, and it’s a whole different book that we’re reading from.
Nevertheless, Chandler decided his “conclusions” worthy enough to *rhetorically accuse*, and announce to the world, that a criminal coverup *must have* taken place at NIST.
I’m open to being convinced differently, as always, but Chandler’s flimsiness simply didn’t cut it.
And, BTW, I’m interested to learn how your ‘bottom up’ theory accounts for the windows below the East penthouse breaking progressively downwards after it collapsed?
… show me any other ‘collapse’ that is even remotely similar to the WTC 7 collapse, caused by fire alone.
Sideshow Bob wrote:
Chandler selectively — and misleadingly — times the collapse from the LATER collapse of the North-West corner. Why he does this is obvious: he’s cherrypicking to bolster his non-existent case.
No, why he does this is because it is the best place to make the measurements. Any measurements taken from the North-East corner with all that smoke could not have been as accurate.
If the person who made the ‘debunking’ video had attached such importance to the differences between the North-East Corners and North West corners then he should have made his own measurements.
In any case, Chandler used around 20 data points, whilst the ‘debunking’ video only used two, one being an artificially designated starting point at a time he claimed to have first observed ‘compression’ of the outer wall at the North Eastern Corner. This allowed him to arrive at the same single average acceleration figure that NIST has already calculated and that David Chandler had already shown to be meaningless.
Sideshow Bob further wrote:
As I’ve noted above, the North East top of the building VISIBLY started to collapse before the North-West corner. Moreover, the building did not fall at a uniform speed or acceleration, as shown in the NIST report I quoted at #499 above. The collapse was NOT uniform.
This is splitting hairs.
If it had been possible to take measurements, accurate enough to be useful, at the North Eastern corner I expect that, as a result of the initial ‘compression’, differences would have been:
1. A slightly shorter period of free-fall;
2. Acceleration only slightly less than the free fall acceleration at the North Western end; or
3. A combination of (1) and (2).
The practical implications of such a difference would be insigificant. Even to achieve such a supposedly non-uniform collapse — and again, I ask Sideshow Bob to show me any other controlled demolition which meets his requirement of ‘uniformity’ — all the structural strength would have to be removed in a period very close to 2.5 seconds right along the whole length of the North face and, within that 2.5 seconds, the strength wouuld have had to have been removed floor by floor and timed so as to prevent any resistance to the fall of the building above.
I wrote:
The collapse of the WTC 7, as we have observed, simply could not have occurred unless:
1. all the structural strength in at least 8 of the floors had been destroyed by explosives within those initial 2.5 seconds after the first movement of the outer wall was observed;
2. the timing of the detonations had been such that the structural strength of holding up each floor would have to have been totally removed before it could have in any way slowed the fall of any part of the building falling from above.
If the first condition had not been met, then it would have taken longer than 2.5 seconds to fall through those eight floors. If the second had not been met then a good deal less uniformity would have been observed and a good deal more of the debris would have ended up outside the footprint of WTC 7.
Then Sideshow Bob responded:
These are unsubstantiated assertions from non-authoritative sources, based on premises that have been discredited. Garbage.
Well, I would have thought that that was a reasonable explanation of how acontrolled demolition works as well as the only way I can conceive of how the outer wall ‘collapsed’ in the way it did.
I see a few partial collapse but no total collapses in that (pdf) survey.
Yet again you have proved to be too lazy even to read the report, short as it was. Let me quote from it for you, from page 7, Table 1:
- Apartment block in St Petersburg, Russia, 2002: TOTAL COLLAPSE
- Nightclub in Lanarkshire, UK, 2001: TOTAL COLLAPSE
- Textile Factory in Alexandria, Egypt, 2000: TOTAL COLLAPSE
Sideshow Bob wrote:
Chandler selectively – and misleadingly – times the collapse from the LATER collapse of the North-West corner. Why he does this is obvious: he’s cherrypicking to bolster his non-existent case.
No, why he does this is because it is the best place to make the measurements. Any measurements taken from the North-East corner with all that smoke could not have been as accurate.
Ha! Absolute rubbish. There’s no problem with smoke in identifying the beginning of the collapse – it’s clearly visible. That’s a pathetic argument. You should also take note of Nick’s arguments above.
In any case, Chandler used around 20 data points, whilst the ‘debunking’ video only used two, one being an artificially designated starting point at a time he claimed to have first observed ‘compression’ of the outer wall at the North Eastern corner. This allowed him to arrive at the same single acceleration figure that NIST has already calculated and that David Chandler had already shown to be meaningless.
Wow, you really are getting desperate. The number of additional “data points” is irrelevant. The starting point was not “artificially designated” – it’s the moment that collapse begins, and it’s not just the debunker’s observation; it’s also the observation of the experts who reviewed all the footage, and not just the footage used by Chandler, in his cack-handed bunk.
This is splitting hairs.
Ha! You’d know, with your eagle-eye for detail.
If it had been possible to take measurements, accurate enough to be useful, at the North Eastern corner I expect that, as a result of the initial ‘compression’, differences would have been:
1. A slightly shorter period of free-fall;
2. Acceleration only slightly less than the free-fall acceleration at the North Western end; or
3. A combination of (1) and (2).
If, Daggy? It was possible, Daggy. It was done Daggy.
You expect, Daggy? Why don’t you know? Oh, that’s right: you haven’t a fucking clue on the subject.
Your hypothetical musings are pointless and irrelevant.
The practical implications of such a difference would be insignificant. Even to achieve such a supposedly non-uniform collapse – and again, I ask Sideshow Bob to show me any other controlled demolition which meets his requirement of ‘uniformity’ – all the structural strength would have to be removed in a period very close to 2.5 seconds right along the whole length of the North face and, within that 2.5 seconds, the strength would have had to have been removed floor by floor and timed so as to prevent any resistance to the fall of the building above.
Says who, Daggy? YOU are the one who first raised “uniformity”, at #506. Do me the courtesy, at least, of getting your own story straight. As the building was ALREADY COLLAPSING before this 2.5 second period you’re obsessed about, i.e. the “structural strength” had already been compromised, that last sentence is irrelevant and illogical speculation from a self-confessed ignoramus.
But you say you want to see an “other controlled demolition”? Okeydokes, knock yourself out. Make sure you stay for 1:26.
The Sideshow Bob responded:
These are unsubstantiated assertions from non-authoritative sources, based on premises that have been discredited. Garbage.
Well, I would have thought that that was a reasonable explanation of how controlled demolition works as well as the only way I can conceive of how the outer wall ‘collapsed’ in the way it did.
You would have thought, Daggy? It’s the only way you can conceive of how WTC 7 collapsed? And who the fuck are you, Daggy? Are you a structural engineer? Are you a demolitions expert? Did you have access to the evidence or the technical details of the collapse? Have you even read the official accounts?
Why should we care what you would have thought? Spare us your uninformed and illogical opinions and stick to facts and logic.
I would hesitate to blame fire alone for the collapse of wtc 7 simply because there is video showing it being hammered by debris from one of the collapses.
We don’t know the extent of that damage, but daggett can you state with certainty that it didn’t cause the sort of damage you attribute to explosives, and can you state with certainty that it couldn’t account for what seems like an anomolous collapse to you?
Oh don’t be such a spoilsport Shaun!!! Mr/Ms daggett knows what happened, he/she knows the how and the why.
He/she has no reason to concern himself/herself with such inconsequential data as
* eyewitness accounts from firefighters well-experienced in assessing whether it’s safe to enter a damaged (or partly burning) building
* eyewitness accounts from persons who had a much closer-up view of WTC7 at the relevant time, than provided by the videos, including those who were close enough to hear “creaking” noises before it fell
* clear photos of a damaged facade, taken at various times and taken from so close that a wealth of detail (of damage, of smoke, etc) is clearly depicted.
None of this interests daggett because daggett has a theory and in the hands of such a champion debater, a theory is the only thing he/she requires.
Interesting photo of the North Tower ‘collapsing’ on the second of the two links you provided. Does anyone else here, that is, other than Sideshow Bob, have trouble envisioning that vast cloud of debris having been caused just by the gravitational energy within the North Tower?
How all that gravitational energy got transformed into what we can see in that photo, without massive amounts of explosives having been planted, would surely be most interesting to know. Unfortunately, as I have rrpeatedly pointed out, NIST has not even attempted to explain that.
If what we see in that photo was not the result of massive quantities of explosives, then we had have to conclude that the Twin Towers were, in effect, themselves, massive bombs planted in the heart of New York City.
Clearly some damage was suffered at one corner, but if that damage were to have in any way contributed to the subsequent ‘collapse’, intuition would surely tell us to expect WTC 7 to have collapsed outwards at that point, instead of straight down. Where is that explained in the report, Sideshow Bob?
Also, other buildings closer to the Twin Towers — WTC 3, WTC 4, WTC 5 and WTC 6 — all suffered far greater damage as a result of the collapses, and extensive fires, but none underwent total collapse as did WTC 7.
Care to explain, Sideshow Bob?
—p>
Sideshow Bob (@ 525) wrote:
Already have [explained the WTC 7 'collapse']. Read it (the NIST report) and get a clue.
I have got a fair idea what is contained in the NIST report, Sideshow Bob. As you say you have read the report, why don’t you explain to others here how WTC 7 collapsed exactly in the manner we would expect from a controlled demolotion through fire alone (or, according to Shaun, one damaged corner as well) and see how much sense it makes to anybody else but you?
Let’s see how much more sense it makes than the explanation I have offered.
Sideshow Bob wrote:
Yet again you have proved to be too lazy even to read the report, …
No, it’s you who has been lazy, as well as evasive for not putting that information on this page and expecting others to wade through that report looking for the examples I asked for that clearly aren’t there.
Obviously, I meant to ask for examples steel framed buildings that had undergone total collapse as result of fire alone — and you should have well understood that that is what I meant to say — and the only such examples in that list, as I have said all along are the Twin Towers and WTC 7.
The examples you gave are not steel framed. In any case, I did glance at the photo of the burnt and collapsed six story high reinforced concrete textile factory that lacked a sprinkler system, BTW, and noticed some siginficant differences to the ‘collapsed’ WTC 7:
1. A part of the building is, in fact still standing; and
2. the debris is far less neat and tidy than the debris from WTC 7.
This confirms my point, even conceded by NIST that what occurred on 11 September 2001 was unique, that is, if we are to accept their ‘explanation’.
More relevant to this discussion are six other “Examples of Skyscraper Fires” where steel framed buildings have endured longer and more extensive fires. In spite of this, most suffered no structural failure and only two suffered even partial collapse.
The Windsor Building, which suffered partial collapse was, in fact, a Steel-Reinforced Concrete building and not a steel framed building like the three ‘collapsed’ WTC towers.
Sideshow Bob wrote:
YOU are the one who first raised “uniformity”, at #506.
No, you did, by clutching at the earlier slight ‘compression’ of the outer wall at North Eastern end as somehow refuting David Chandler’s observation that the visible Northern wall as a whole ‘collapsed’ uniformly at free fall speed for 2.5 seconds.
That example you gave was also not of a perfectly uniform collapse. The tower did tip over towards the end of the demolition. Perhaps, at the start it may have appeared more uniform, but, given that the building was square, smaller, and, hence, more rigid than the more elongated WTC 7, that should be no surprise.
Surely, after all this time, you cannot be unfamiliar with the Video “WTC7 controlled demolition, side-by-side video”. That shows second demolition side by side with WTC 7. Although the second demolished building is smaller and less elongated, and, hence likely to be more rigid, the corner on the right appears to drop before the rest at the outset.
Hence, to conclude from the earlier slight movement of the North Eastern end, that we are not witnessing 2.5 seconds of effectively uniform free fall, which can only be explained by the controlled demolition hypothesis, would be wrong.
And, of course, it provides yet more striking visual confirmation that WTC 7, to all intents and purposes, collapsed exactly as a classic bottom-up controlled demolition.
Sideshow Bob wrote:
And who the fuck are you, Daggy? Are you a structural engineer? Are you a demolitions expert?
I am simply someone who is applying his knowledge to understand the 9/11 controversy, including the ‘collapses’ and explain my knowledge as best I can to others. I will leave it to others to decide who, out of you and me, is contributing more honestly and helpfully to this discussion.
(I am afraid I may not be able to find the time to deconstruct every other piece of nonsense that Sideshow Bob has posted to this forum. Others may have to do it for themselves.)
“How all that gravitational energy got transformed into what we can see in that photo, without massive amounts of explosives having been planted, would surely be most interesting to know.” – Daggett
So how much potential energy did the top 10 and 20 stories of the two towers have before the plane hit?
How much momentum did that generate, how much needed to be transferred for the results you see in that photo?
An answer to this requires actual, accurate numbers btw.
daggett, I infer your non-response to be a complete concession to all arguments I put forward @ 522.
Summarily:
- Chandler did not use the video NIST used.
- Chandler does not understand computer modelling.
- Chandler relied on his own eyesight, and his own compressed video footage shot from hundred of metres further away, to “prove” NIST had bent over backwards to “choose” an arbitrary starting point of the collapse, that would result in a 5.4 second timeframe for WTC 7 to drop to the initial height of the 29th floor.
- The *actual* starting point of the collapse, which then resulted in the recorded 5.4 second timeframe, is easily determined from the actual footage NIST used.
- Chandler nevertheless deemed this sufficient “proof” to categorically accuse NIST of fraudulent behaviour to the world.
- Chandler has misled you and many others into believing as he does.
Interesting photo of the North Tower ‘collapsing’ on the second of the two links you provided. Does anyone else here, that is, other than Sideshow Bob, have trouble envisioning that vast cloud of debris having been caused just by the gravitational energy within the North Tower?
Do you? Why?
How all that gravitational energy got transformed into what we can see in that photo, without massive amounts of explosives having been planted, would surely be most interesting to know.
Why would that be interesting to know, Daggy, given we know explosives weren’t used?
If what we see in that photo was not the result of massive quantities of explosives, then we had have to conclude that the Twin Towers were, in effect, themselves, massive bombs planted in the heart of New York City.
Why do we have to conclude that, Daggy?
Clearly some damage was suffered at one corner, but if that damage were to have in any way contributed to the subsequent ‘collapse’, intuition would surely tell us to expect WTC 7 to have collapsed outwards at that point, instead of straight down. Where is that explained in the report, Sideshow Bob?
Why would “intuition…surely tell us to expect WTC 7 to have collapsed outwards”?
Also, other buildings closer to the Twin Towers — WTC 3, WTC 4, WTC 5 and WTC 6 — all suffered far greater damage as a result of the collapses, and extensive fires, but none underwent total collapse as did WTC 7. Care to explain, Sideshow Bob?
Different buildings, different circumstances. Not all buildings that catch fire collapse, you know. Or don’t you?
Sideshow Bob (@ 525) wrote:
Already have [explained the WTC 7 'collapse']. Read it (the NIST report) and get a clue.
I have got a fair idea what is contained in the NIST report, Sideshow Bob.
How? You’ve admitted that you haven’t read it.
As you say you have read the report, why don’t you explain to others here how WTC 7 collapsed exactly in the manner we would expect from a controlled demolotion through fire alone (or, according to Shaun, one damaged corner as well) and see how much sense it makes to anybody else but you?
As it didn’t collapse in the manner of a controlled demolition, your request is nonsensical. We know why it collapsed: the answers are in the report you refuse to read.
Sideshow Bob wrote:
Yet again you have proved to be too lazy even to read the report, …
No, it’s you who has been lazy, as well as evasive for not putting that information on this page and expecting others to wade through that report looking for the examples I asked for that clearly aren’t there.
Huh? It’s a 10 page report in a link – what’s to wade through? Do you have trouble reading, Daggy? Or is it clicking a mouse button that exhausts your thirst for the truth?
Obviously, I meant to ask for examples steel framed buildings that had undergone total collapse as result of fire alone — and you should have well understood that that is what I meant to say — and the only such examples in that list, as I have said all along are the Twin Towers and WTC 7.
Yairs, Daggy, it’s a conspiracy that other people can’t read your mind. Save your faux indignation – you can’t fault me for following your lead, misguided as you admit to have been.
The examples you gave are not steel framed. In any case, I did glance at the photo of the burnt and collapsed six story high reinforced concrete textile factory that lacked a sprinkler system, BTW, and noticed some siginficant differences to the ‘collapsed’ WTC 7:
1. A part of the building is, in fact still standing; and
2. the debris is far less neat and tidy than the debris from WTC 7.
This confirms my point, even conceded by NIST that what occurred on 11 September 2001 was unique, that is, if we are to accept their ‘explanation’.
Hang on. Back up a second here. Are you saying that 9/11 was “unique”? Wow, Daggy, that’s quite a revelation. You mean there haven’t been other airliner crashes into skyscrapers? Why not? Is it *sideways glances* [whispers] a conspiracy?
Sideshow Bob wrote:
YOU are the one who first raised “uniformity”, at #506.
No, you did, by clutching at the earlier slight ‘compression’ of the outer wall at North Eastern end as somehow refuting David Chandler’s observation that the visible Northern wall as a whole ‘collapsed’ uniformly at free fall speed for 2.5 seconds.
I’m sorry, I’m not following you here: in which comment did I bring up the issue of “uniformity”, before you at #506? Name the comment.
That example you gave was also not of a perfectly uniform collapse. The tower did tip over towards the end of the demolition. Perhaps, at the start it may have appeared more uniform, but, given that the building was square, smaller, and, hence, more rigid than the more elongated WTC 7, that should be no surprise.
Surely, after all this time, you cannot be unfamiliar with the Video “WTC7 controlled demolition, side-by-side video”. That shows second demolition side by side with WTC 7. Although the second demolished building is smaller and less elongated, and, hence likely to be more rigid, the corner on the right appears to drop before the rest at the outset.
Hence, to conclude from the earlier slight movement of the North Eastern end, that we are not witnessing 2.5 seconds of effectively uniform free fall, which can only be explained by the controlled demolition hypothesis, would be wrong.
Non-sequitur.
And, of course, it provides yet more striking visual confirmation that WTC 7, to all intents and purposes, collapsed exactly as a classic bottom-up controlled demolition.
No, it doesn’t.
Sideshow Bob wrote:
And who the fuck are you, Daggy? Are you a structural engineer? Are you a demolitions expert?
I am simply someone who is applying his knowledge to understand the 9/11 controversy, including the ‘collapses’ and explain my knowledge as best I can to others. I will leave it to others to decide who, out of you and me, is contributing more honestly and helpfully to this discussion.
Very generous of you, Daggy. There’s plenty of evidence here on the extent of your knowledge, your honesty and helpfulness. Well done.
(I am afraid I may not be able to find the time to deconstruct every other piece of nonsense that Sideshow Bob has posted to this forum. Others may have to do it for themselves.)
C’mon, dude! Don’t sell yourself short! You’ve been posting on this thread for, what, more than a month now on this issue. Of course you can find the time. There’s no rush, BTW. I’m very patient and I take thread-count very seriously – just ask my tailor.
P.S. why so formal? You can just call me “Bob” if you like. I hate to think of you wasting your precious time typing out “Sideshow” every time you want to quote me. Please understand that you don’t need to do it for my sake. I won’t be offended. Promise.
If there was nefarious action on the part of members of the US admin or anyone else outside the set of socially acceptable culprits, then obviously it would be in their best interests to badjacket the idea that anyone outside the set of socially acceptable culprits had anything to do with 9/11.
One really effective way to do this would be to saturate the discourse with poorly reasoned and obviously incorrect arguments about how the non set actors accomplished their nefarious actions.
As you say you have read the report, why don’t you explain to others here how WTC 7 collapsed exactly in the manner we would expect from a controlled demolotion through fire alone (or, according to Shaun, one damaged corner as well) and see how much sense it makes to anybody else but you?
I asked as much for others’ benefit as my own.
I know that it that was the view I held I would have made the effort to explain it to others.
Evidently Bob wants this knowledge to remain a secret to everyone who has not find the time and energy to read the NIST report.
Could anyone imagine why?
Could it be that Bob realises that if he spelt it out in black and white, people would see it to be every bit as silly as the overall Official 9/11 Conspiracy that I posted above which neither Bob nor any other Official Conspiracy Theorist on this forum has attempted to defend?
Anyway, here is my understanding:
The fire somehow caused a single supporting beam to fail simultaneously across the whole length of the Northern face. It didn’t just fail in one or two spots initially and progressively fail across the whole length. It failed everywhere simultaneously.
Let me know if I am wrong, Bob.
Even if that could possibly happen, I still fail to see how that could have, within the next 2.5 seconds caused the strength in at least 7 other floors to have been completely removed in time to prevent it in any part of any one of those floors impeding the uniform collapse of the (observed) northern face above.
Bob would have us believe that that is all explained in the NIST report.
I will believe it when I see it.
If you can tell me on what pages it is to be found, then I will check it out, Bob.
—
As for the rest of Bob’s most recent effort at obfuscation, as I said above, I am afraid others trying to understand the truth will, for the time being, have to deconstruct it for themselves.
“As for the rest of Bob’s most recent effort at obfuscation, as I said above, I am afraid others trying to understand the truth will, for the time being, have to deconstruct it for themselves.”
Actually, it reads as a pretty well constructed rebuttal of everything you’ve said Daggett. A “controlled demolition”, if you will.
He goes through and discusses a bunch of things you’ve said point by point in a manner that leaves numerous convenient jumping-off points helpfully provided for you (in the form of “questions”) to assist you in making a counter-rebuttal.
This thread could reach 1000 at this rate. A new LP record! (haha)
I particularly liked jules’ reverse conspiracy with 3 and a quarter turn, degree of difficult 8.5.
I note that Sideshow Bob has failed to respond to to my question:
As you say you have read the report, why don’t you explain to others here how WTC 7 collapsed exactly in the manner we would expect from a controlled demolotion through fire alone (or, according to Shaun, one damaged corner as well) and see how much sense it makes to anybody else but you?
I asked as much for others’ benefit as my own.
I know that it that was the view I held I would have made the effort to explain it to others.
Evidently Bob wants this knowledge to remain a secret to everyone who has not find the time and energy to read the NIST report.
I’ve already provided the link, Daggy. I have to agree with Efdeebee here: what’s the big deal about reading a report?
Could anyone imagine why?
C-O-N-S-P-I-R-A-C-Y! Well, I like the “piracy” bit, but “con”? Not so much.
Could it be that Bob realises that if he spelt it out in black and white, people would see it to be every bit as silly as the overall Official 9/11 Conspiracy that I posted above which neither Bob nor any other Official Conspiracy Theorist on this forum has attempted to defend?
Erm…no, that’s not it.
Anyway, here is my understanding:
The fire somehow caused a single supporting beam to fail simultaneously across the whole length of the Northern face. It didn’t just fail in one or two spots initially and progressively fail across the whole length. It failed everywhere simultaneously.
Let me know if I am wrong, Bob.
You’re wrong, Daggy.
Even if that could possibly happen, I still fail to see how that could have, within the next 2.5 seconds caused the strength in at least 7 other floors to have been completely removed in time to prevent it in any part of any one of those floors impeding the uniform collapse of the (observed) northern face above.
Bob would have us believe that that is all explained in the NIST report.
If you don’t believe me, read it. Oh, hang on…
I will believe it when I see it.
Okayeee…what’s stopping you?
If you can tell me on what pages it is to be found, then I will check it out, Bob.
Well, Dean, I’m glad you asked: pages xxxvi and xxxvii have the summary. Why don’t you start there with some baby steps towards enlightenment?
As for the rest of Bob’s most recent effort at obfuscation, as I said above, I am afraid others trying to understand the truth will, for the time being, have to deconstruct it for themselves.
Can one deconstruct obfuscation? Seriously, I want to know.
I find it a little hard to believe, daggett, but (via some speedy regex-ing) you’ve personally contributed (written/pasted) 18,369 words to this thread so far.
Won’t work on the final report for some reason, but, if my PDF software’s word count function is correct, the NIST WTC 7 draft report comes in at 36,860.
The WTC7 building seems to have most of one of its bottom corners missing before it falls. Surely that must be a relevant factor? Why does a tall building “creak”? Thanks again Shaun: those photos are much more helpful than grainy videos.
Nick I never thought they’d get to you too. Oh noez….
(I was just gonna hang shit on a Korean cult leader who’ll hopefully be dead soon.)
Seriously tho I’d love to have a discussion about 9/11 that specifically didn’t involve conspiracies, but had a slight tolerence for them if they contained a high signal density, didn’t talk about the specific politics but about the whole thing as a cultural phenomonen how we responded. Are we a culture in ptsd from a television event? Were we?
Does anyone remember the Micheal Franti song “Oh my God”, it was out in the first first half of 2001 (ie before 9/11)?
The potency of the image, the effect of the spectacle all that crap, and a fair degree of tolerence for weirdness. Or “pseudoscience”. Cos there are a few weird things about it.
I just cut a huge chunk of weirdness about 9/11 I want to talk about.
I’ll might mention it depending on the reaction to this.
Cos I want criticism of some odd ideas that comes from people not wedded to my way of seeing people. Seeing as this thread has got to this point…
This is struggling to get through so I’ll try again, its what I cut from above after a wee edit:
I know three or four who had distinctly odd dreams to do with planes depending on whether I count myself. The three others had dreams that had something to do with planes and were significantly out of their normal experience or them to notice and then wonder about it. I have spoken to ten people who I trust enough in real life to treat the idea fairly but critically and examine their own memories.
There’s no in between ground yet. people are either positively yes that happened or no. Online theres a few people, more than ten, dunno them well enough to make honest assessments tho. My own experience … well it was different. I hit puberty in the very early 80s and grew up seriously wondering if I was gonna see 50 or 20 or the world was gonna be a pile of smoking nuclear waste next week.
I used to have nigtmares about nuclear war. These don’t seem uncommon in my anecdotal experience. 75% of people, may two thirds of people i’ve talked to about it have had them. Over the years thats probably about … well at least 50 people. They (the nightmares) stopped once I started getting laid regularly.
One that stood out was on reflection, well it was exactly as if I was there when the building collapsed, and took shelter when the dustcloud/shockwave spewed down the street. I was on the street or in a kerbside cafe when a plane hit the building but I didn’t see it. At the time I thought it was the usual end of the world fare. If I had that dream last night my reaction would be “I had an uncannily realistic dream about 9/11 last night.” I wouldn’t have thought WW3 had broken out in my dream and attributed it to fear of what seemed a likely fate.
There is one other experience I’d like to relate that is on the same level. I had a friend who asked me if they come to my place to get clean of heroin. I said OK. I obviously wouldn’t do this for just anyone.
This was over ten years ago. That episode could make a movie, and possibly a hooror thriller if she wan’t completely nuts.
She went crazy. Full blown psychotic episode. We did what we could as she went downhill, but it got to a point where we couldn’t cope. Lots of stuff happened .. very complex situation, compounded by her growing insanity.
In hard to tell this story without going into unecessary detail and I don’t want to do that. Its a wild tale tho.
She has an identical twin. Her Twin was in New York, in the full bohemian dream art world of uber cool, seriously 30 years earlier she’d be hanging with Warhol. I’m not into art so I don’t give a fuck and don’t remember the nmames of the people she was having brunch with while she wrote the postcards she sent us.
First time these two had been that far apart for that long. It was a close but volatile relationship with identity issues. But really clever and on to it sisters, two of the smartest people i’ve ever met.
In the midst one of her attacks she started going on about contacting her sister, to make sure she was ok, after the attacks. After assuring her no attacks were happening in NY she s then became obsessed with warning her about them, – the attacks – about planes flying into buildings, building fallings and ww3 starting.
I know this is slightly out there for a forum like this but you know … this thread is not bounded by sanity and I’d appreciate some feedback on what I have just gone on about. You can be snarky if you want.
It still spins me out cos its uncanny. Thk day had many levels of shock value.
I’m not making this up, an it isn’t part of some ARG or juvenille channite mindfuck.
I don’t mind critical feedback on my far out ideas. Especially from people who wouldn’t normally touch them with a bargepole.
I want to talk about some outlandish ideas in relation to all this, and I also want to talk about.
I also missed a minor error.
There is one eception to the unequivocal nature of peoples reaction. My wife’s (typically) she has trouble seperating the event from some of its cultural precursors, like the final scene in Fight Club or (particularly for her) songs like Ma Laeo by a Sydney band Scary Mother (from Tao Laeo 1994).
One of these days I’ll try and track down whoever wrote that song and ask them …
It very evocaticve.
And that whole record is actually. We drove through Kinglake to visit a friend in april and that record was the only one that seemed appropriate. It seemed to have been made to fit that moment. Music can be good like that. It was more fitting even than silence.
My wife and I have always wondered about that particular song and the way it seems to suggest 9/11, after the event of course. I know art is one of those things … I can see the potential for confirmation bias there.
I still think the idea is worth fleshing out, if only to seperate the total crap from the useless crap. (The idea being the potential for that event to resonate through our culture … I know “magical thinking” and all that crap, thats just a cop out.)
This was (lets hope) a one off event. Its become a pretty full on marker tho, cultural landmark or something. Its a kind of singularity with a gravity that has changed the way we as a culture view the world or to kind of stick with the metaphor, that changed the direction we travelled as a culture.
Interesting photo of the North Tower ‘collapsing’ on the second of the two links you provided. Does anyone else here, that is, other than Sideshow Bob, have trouble envisioning that vast cloud of debris having been caused just by the gravitational energy within the North Tower?
Then Jules asked:
So how much potential energy did the top 10 and 20 stories of the two towers have before the plane hit?
How much momentum did that generate, how much needed to be transferred for the results you see in that photo?
An answer to this requires actual, accurate numbers btw.
No, it doesn’t, Jules, I was asking for people’s gut feeling about that extraordinary image. Are you trying to tell me that nothing about that image strikes you as odd? Since when does gravity allow such emormous volumes of material to travel so far upwards and so far outwards?
If your own eyes don’t tell you that that image is improbable, Sideshow Bob, I don’t see how I can hope to persuade you otherwise with words.
Sideshow Bob, then asks how I conclude that if explosives, weren’t use, the Twin Towers were, in effect, themselves, massive bombs planted in the heart of New York City.
I guess, what Sideshow Bob is telling us is that, to him, that image looks nothing like an explosion.
Well, to me, it does.
Then sideshow Bob asks:
Why would “intuition … surely tell us to expect WTC 7 to have collapsed outwards”?
Once again, Sideshow Bob is pretending to be stupid so that he can demand that I spoon feed him. As it turns out, Sideshow Bob, page xxxvii of the report states (take note >Shaun(@ 527, 544) and “angels almost invisible” (@ 542)):
Other than initiating the fires in WTC 7, the damage from the debris from WTC 1 had little effect on initiating the collapse of WTC 7.
It’s intuitive to me, Sideshow Bob, because we expect collapses to take the path of least resistance. If the end of the building had fallen straight down, but remained laterally attached to the uncollapsed rest of the building the fall would have been arrested by what was underneath. The only way it could have fallen furhter woudl be if its sideways connections to the rest of the building had broken causing it to fall outwards.
I note Sideshow Bob and a number of hypocrites, who have, themselves, neither read the NIST report, nor properly read my posts, are demanding that I read the NIST report before they give serious consideration to any of my arguments.
Sideshow Bob asks:
… what’s the big deal about reading a report?
There’s no big deal, Sideshow Bob, except that I think it would be a waste of my time. Reading pages xxxvi and xxxvii has only further confirmed that impression. If you can demonstrate here, by showing where it addresses my questions, I might reconsider.
It’s an unfortunate feature of discussions such as these, that they often become filled with posts of people, with no capacity to argue the issue at hand, sniping, from behind the skirts of others, that they see as having that capacity, at those they want to attack.
I was asking for people’s gut feeling about that extraordinary image.
Rumbling. Gaseous. But that might just be last night’s dinner.
Are you trying to tell me that nothing about that image strikes you as odd? Since when does gravity allow such emormous volumes of material to travel so far upwards and so far outwards?
Since, I don’t know, the effect of heat from fires? Explaining convection currents sounds like a job for… a high school physics teacher.
One of these days I’ll try and track down whoever wrote that song and ask them
Ask Dorian. He most likely wrote the music. Though Andrew who may have wrote the lyrics, was the most ethereal one.
I welcome your stream of consciousness meanderings on the issue of premonition. Cause god knows Dagget has been given way too much space and so, this has become the most boring thread of doom I have ever encountered. It promised to get interesting when it turned the corner towards Jesus and the Mayans and chocolate, but that failed. The peanut gallery is over the minutae of shooting flames that don’t shoot out right and walls which don’t collapse good. Though I liked Paul Burns’ comment that 9/11, itself, is a conspiracy. Well done Paul.
Your premonitory experiences both in dreamscape and in psychotic utterance are a welcome diversion to the engineering discussions. Yes of course. People predict stuff all the time. Not Mystic Medusa people, but people, anonymous ones who don’t make a living out of it – all the time. Not just Australia, but everywhere! And people take substances and utter premonitions in hallucinatory states all the time too. In the Amazon jungle for instance. Indigenous Americans have a long history of it. Your experiences would not at all be surprising to most of the most of the people in the world. It is part of many cosmologies. Excluding, of course, that portion of the planet’s inhabitants – mostly in first world places – that has rejected such epistemologies and now chooses to proselytise, yet again, on what to believe to the rest of the world – because it’s all primitive. Christopher Hitchens, the Paris Hilton of Athiesm, is case in point. Apparently he smokes in the shower did you know? This proselytization conducts itself in an unconscious manner, as if it exists in a rarified space beyond politics. But what to believe and what not to believe is a political issue in case you all haven’t noticed and its platform is most often a racial one. It’s something you all need to think about when you speak of the oppressiveness of western religious discourse. You cannot negate Christianity without negating every other religious belief system. And because of colonisation, those other religious belief systems have also incorporated the aspects of Christianity you discredit. Nobel prize winning author Toni Morrison believes this:
What might be called superstition and magic is for Morrison “just another way o”f knowing things” – an alternative epistemology discredited only because those who subscribe to it have themselves been similarly negated historically. As Toni Morrison argues the “discredited knowledge that Black people had” was “discredited only because Black people were discredited.
daggett, I do concede to NIST that the debris impact on the building did not cause the collapse. But of course, the debris started the fires that lead to the collapse so a minor point.
I am sorry that Casey is disappointed in me for not going off on a tangent to discuss Dr Steven Lewis’s theory about Christ visiting Meso-America (which I concede, I think, seems unlikley) and, instead, focussed, instead on something as mundane as the principle justification for our ongoing war in Afghanistan and the removal of many of our guarantees of human rights an democratic freedoms.
If Casey wants to understand some of the reason for the length of this discusion, I suggest she read on. (BTW, I don’t mind at all if the discussion were to continue elsewhere. Personally I have no emotional need to see this thread reach the 1,000 mark, and I am happy to see this discussion end as soon as what I consider are attempts to misinform have been conclusively dealt with.)
Back up a second here. Are you saying that 9/11 was “unique”?
I would have thought the meaning of my words were perfectly clear, but evidently Sideshow Bob’s concentration span did not even last long enough to comprehend the meaning of the qualifying clause> at the end of the sentence.
Of course, I am not saying that the collapse of WTC 7 was “unique”. I have been arguing all along that it was a controlled demolition and, therefore, obviously, not unique.
The reason for Sideshow Bob’s and Nick’s long-winded meanderings is to justify NIST’s original, but long since abandoned, attempt to crudely arrive at an overall meaningless acceleration figure for the initiation of the ‘collapse’ that is substantially less than the acceleration of gravity.
If anything, the slight complexity in the nature of the collapse, because of the observed initial compression at the North Eastern end would have justified taking further set of measurements at that end.
To say that the Northern face collapsed as a whole at the point from which David Chandler took measurements is a simplification, but far less a simplification than what Nick and Sideshow Bob are attempting to depict it as.
Yes, Nick, looking closely at that second, more detailed film of the ‘collapse’, taken from that difficult angle, it appears that the demolition charges destroying the inside of the building somehow also caused a slight early fall at the North Eastern end.
It should also be pointed out that that video only begins just before the point that that Nick and Sideshow Bob would have us believe is the start of the ‘collapse’ of the Northern wall. The film footage showing the earlier initial collapse of the penthouse, at the far eastern end, has been omitted. I suspect that if it had been included, then even earlier movement in the outer wall would also have been detected. If so, that would have destroyed the rationale for picking the point in time that Nick maintains is the start of the collapse.
Whatever, the facts remain:
1. The North Western end remained perfectly stationary right up to the point that David Chandler (correctly, in my view) maintains the total collapse commenced; and
2. The whole of the Northern face remained intact up to that point, even if parts of it were coming under strain as the broken windows demonstrate.
So, even, in spite of the early initial movement,the observed Northern face could only have ‘collapsed’ in the way it did, if the conditions I described above had been met:
1. all the structural strength in at least 8 of the floors had been destroyed by explosives within those initial 2.5 seconds after the first movement of the outer wall was observed;
2. the timing of the detonations had been such that the structural strength of holding up each floor would have to have been totally removed before it could have in any way slowed the fall of any part of the building falling from above.
I have no problem with that Shaun. But my point was about the hegemonic mode some proponents of atheism adopt to impose their beliefs upon others as quite simply – the rational as opposed to the irrational. And to present that as somehow apolitical. In doing so, they ironically fall straight back into that discourse of primitivism that colonising nations used to impose Christianity upon the colonised. And how weird it is, that this this return to high modernism appears in place of what what was deconstructed. Not that this grand narrative appeals to everyone – hence a turn, in the Australian context, to other cosmologies and the revisioning of Indigenous cosmology. This being the Australian landscape itself as the new post colonial sacred in Australia (see Gelder and Jacobs for that and Bill Ashcroft I think). As the Morrison quote suggests, it’s just another epistemology and it is political, and racialised.
And, in as much as you are prepared to discount all other epistemologies apart from your own, not many on this site would be prepared to publicly deride Indigenous cosmology in the way they do, say, Christian cosmology, for instance. It’s just not the Leftist way.
Nor are they prepared to look at how the postcolonial world has incorporated aspects of Christianity into their own cosmologies and how christianity, that tool of oppression used by colonisers, became for some oppressed peoples a site of resistance, a place of consolidation and consolation. When African American slaves gathered beneath their masters noses to sing “Swing Low Sweet Chariot”, they were not talking about heavenly reward for suffering, they were talking about the coming retribution to be meted out to white people who oppressed them. From those beliefs sprung the civil rights platform of Martin Luther King. There are other examples. Liberation theology in Latin America.
But I guess all that would take some kind of nuance, like Anna said on the other thread recently. To see religion as something that has been at times both good and bad, both oppressive and liberating, or to see religion (whichever one) and atheism as just different epistemologies in a deconstructed world.
Dagget I have read it, I promise. And I can’t deconstruct obfuscation. I tried. But I can’t.
I think it would help this discussion to move along more quickly if this were to occur more often.
No, I don’t think it is a minor point.
What we had immediately after the collapse was a steel framed building fully supported by its structural support.
NIST would have us believe that that changed in the 14 seconds at the very most by fire alone. Whether the fire was initiated by the initial structural damage, arsonists, lightning or whatever, is beside the point.
The fact that this has never occurred befor and never since makes NIST’s explanation extremely unlikely.
The fact that NIST refused to consider the far more likely controlled demolition hypothesis, in order to either prove it or disprove it, confirms, as David Chandler and hundreds of quaified architects and engineering provessionals have alleged, that NIST did not conduct a scientific investigation, rather a politically motivated pretence at investigating in order to conceal a crime.
No, not unless you are trying to say that scientists are not permitted to ever make any simplifying assumptions in order to study a scientific phenomenum.
As I have shown, Chandler’s simplifying assumptions made to demonstrate 2.5 seconds of free-fall are vastly less than those made by NIST (initially), you and Sideshow Bob in order to conceal that period of free-fall.
I, and possibly others, aren’t always able to view YouTube. I can’t from the computer I am now using. So, assuming that anything in the video ”
WTC7: NIST Finally Admits Freefall (Part II)” is essentially different from anything else David Chandler has said in the other videos, then how about telling us what it is, some time?
So how much potential energy did the top 10 and 20 stories of the two towers have before the plane hit?
How much momentum did that generate, how much needed to be transferred for the results you see in that photo?
An answer to this requires actual, accurate numbers btw.
No, it doesn’t, Jules, I was asking for people’s gut feeling about that extraordinary image. Are you trying to tell me that nothing about that image strikes you as odd? Since when does gravity allow such enormous volumes of material to travel so far upwards and so far outwards?
That’s right, Jules: in conspiracy-land, “gut feeling” counts as evidence – all that quantifiable measurement stuff is for dissemblers and other brain-washed slaves of The Man. I’ll tell you what, though, Daggy, that image sure looks odd, all right. You know what makes it odd? It looks like a ruddy great building collapsing in the middle of Manhattan! How odd is that?!
Not only, but also: in your last sentence there you seem to be suggesting – please correct me if I’m wrong – that gravity prevents material from travelling “upwards” and “outwards”. Is that right? Have you told NASA about this? I mean, it’s pretty important stuff for them to know, and someone should tell them before they attempt to put satellites and stuff in orbit.
Then Sideshow Bob* asked:
Do you? Why?
If your own eyes don’t tell you that image is improbable, Sideshow Bob, I don’t see how I can hope to persuade you otherwise with words.
Maybe you could beam the image into my brain telepathically, so I can see what you see, because I don’t see why the image is improbable and you haven’t explained WHY, either. “Because I said so”, isn’t an acceptable argument, BTW.
Sideshow Bob, then asks how I conclude that if explosives, weren’t use, the Twin Towers were, in effect, themselves, massive bombs planted in the heart of New York City.
I guess, what Sideshow Bob is telling us is that, to him, that image looks nothing like an explosion.
Well, to me, it does.
Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you? Doesn’t make you right, though, does it?
Then Sideshow Bob asks:
Why would “intuition…surely tell us to expect WTC 7 to have collapsed outwards”?
Once again, Sideshow Bob is pretending to be stupid so that he can demand that I spoon feed him. As it turns out, Sideshow Bob, page xxxvii of the report states (take note > Shaun @ 725, 544) and “angels almost invisible” (@ 542)):
Other than initiating the fires in WTC 7, the damage from the debris from WTC 1 had little effect on initiating the collapse of WTC 7.**
It’s intuitive to me, Sideshow Bob, because we expect collapses to take the path of least resistance. If the end of the building had fallen straight down, but remained laterally attached to the uncollapsed rest of the building the fall would have been arrested by what was underneath. The only way it could have fallen furhter woudl be if its sideways connections to the rest of the building had broken causing it to fall outwards.
Come now, Daggy. It’s not “spoon feeding” if I ask you to explain your statement. And, no, “we” don’t “expect” any such thing. “If the end of the building had fallen straight down…”? What are we talking about here? It’s not WTC 7. Yet again you’ve floated another hypothetical and attached your ignorant and illogical opinions to it. Yet again I have to remind you to deal with the FACTS and argue LOGICALLY. Your hypothetical pontifications on the subject of structural engineering are worthless garbage.
I note Sideshow Bob and a number of hypocrites, who have, themselves, neither read the NIST report, no properly read my posts, are demanding that I read the NIST report before they give serious consideration to any of my arguments.
I’m sorry, Daggy. I think there’s been a miscommunication here. I’m not giving serious consideration to any of your arguments because they’re ignorant, misinformed, illogical bunk. Whether you read the NIST report or not won’t change those comments. What WILL change is that you may start to know what you’re talking about.
You see, Daggy, it’s not hypocritical to expect an interlocutor to take the trouble to inform themselves on the subject being discussed. What IS hypocritical, Daggy, is proclaiming oneself to be interested in The Truth and slandering others for lacking zeal in the same pursuit WITHOUT DOING SOME BASIC FUCKING HOMEWORK. As I suggested earlier: get a clue.
Sideshow Bob asks:
…what’s the big deal about reading a report?
There’s no big deal, Sideshow Bob, except that I think it would be a waste of time.
You really don’t see the irony here, do you? But we’ll come back to this.
FDB wrote:
Actually, [Sideshow Bob’s post] reads as a pretty well constructed rebuttal of everything you’ve said Daggett. A “controlled demolition”, if you will.
FDB, I don’t see where you have responded to my demolition of your nonsense “Occam’s Razor” argument.
It’s an unfortunate feature of such discussions such as these, that they often become filled with posts of people, with no capacity to argue the issue at hand, sniping from behind the skirts of others, that they see as having that capacity, at those they want to attack.
Awww, YSTLIABT. It’s called an audience, Daggy. Do you remember, back at #529 when you said you’d let others decide who was “contributing more honestly and helpfully to this discussion”? And now you’re telling off the audience? Tssk, tssk.
*It’s back to formality, is it? OK, if you insist, but you should address me as Mr. Terwilliger if you’re going to stand on ceremony.
**See? Now, was that so hard?
“the Twin Towers were, in effect, themselves, massive bombs planted in the heart of New York City.”
There’s a lot to like here, but what I like best is that this matches the joke from j_p_z who claimed that the buildings were entirely constructed of thermite.
This confirms my point, even conceded by NIST that what occurred on 11 September 2001 was unique, that is, if we are to accept their ‘explanation’.
Then Sideshow Bob wrote:
Back up a second here. Are you saying that 9/11 was “unique”?
I would have thought the meaning of my words were perfectly clear, but evidently Sideshow Bob’s concentration span did not even last long enough to comprehend the meaning of the qualifying clause> at the end of the sentence. Of course, I am not saying that the collapse of WTC 7 was “unique”. I have been arguing all along that it was a controlled demolition and, therefore, obviously, not unique.
As we’ve seen several times already, Daggy, you’re not clear at the best of times – you don’t express yourself well and have a tendency to change your meaning retrospectively. All that aside, of course 9/11 was unique: terrorists flew aeroplanes into NY skyscrapers, causing their destruction. When has that happened before or since, Daggy? Please provide a couple of examples for us to ponder.
The reason for Sideshow Bob’s and Nick’s long-winded meanderings is to justify NIST’s original, but long since abandoned, attempt to crudely arrive at an overall meaningless acceleration figure for the initiation of the ‘collapse’ that is substantially less than the acceleration of gravity.
Blimey, that’s rich. You’re accusing others of “long-winded meanderings”?! I’m beginning to think you really have no idea of the meaning of “hypocrisy”.
As for the substantive point you are trying to make, you’re dead wrong again.
If anything, the slight complexity in the nature of the collapse, because of the observed initial compression at the North Eastern end would have justified taking further set of measurements at that end.
Would they? Why?
To say that the Northern face collapsed as a whole at the point from which David Chandler took measurements is a simplification, but far less a simplification than what Nick and Sideshow Bob are attempting to depict it as.
Yes, Nick, looking closely at that second, more detailed film of the ‘collapse’, taken from that difficult angle, it appears that the demolition charges destroying the inside of the building somehow also caused a slight early fall at the North Eastern end.
What demolition charges, Daggy? There’s no evidence of any demolition charges.
Interesting to note that you concede the North Eastern end had a “slight early fall”. Did that COLLAPSE occur before or after Chandler started his clock, Daggy?
It should also be pointed out that that video only begins just before the point that that Nick and Sideshow Bob would have us believe is the start of the ‘collapse’ of the Northern wall. The film footage showing the earlier initial collapse of the penthouse, at the far eastern end, has been omitted. I suspect that if it had been included, then even earlier movement in the outer wall would also have been detected. If so, that would have destroyed the rationale for picking the point in time that Nick maintains is the start of the collapse.
Jaysus. No, Daggy. The conclusion from that video is that Chandler used the wrong video AND started his clock way too LATE. His work is consequently garbage.
Whatever, the facts remain:
1. The North Western end remained perfectly stationary right up to the point that David Chandler (correctly, in my view) maintains the total collapse commenced; and
2. The whole of the Northern face remained intact up to that point, even if parts of it were coming under strain as the broken windows demonstrate.
No, not “whatever”. The facts are that:
1. the building began to collapse before Chandler started his clock;
2. he consequently measured the falling speed of the building incorrectly;
3. his argument is consequently bunk.
So, even, in spite of the early initial movement,the observed Northern face could only have ‘collapsed’ in the way it did, if the conditions I described above had been met:
1. all the structural strength in at least 8 of the floors had been destroyed by explosives within those initial 2.5 seconds after the first movement of the outer wall was observed;
2. the timing of the detonations had been such that the structural strength of holding up each floor would have to have been totally removed before it could have in any way slowed the fall of any part of the building falling from above.
Your first assertion is both factually and logically wrong – the building was already collapsing BEFORE those “initial 2.5 seconds” that obviously weren’t “initial” – and represents the opinion of an unqualified speculator on a subject in which he has no expertise. Likewise, the second assertion is more clueless speculation from the ignorant.
[I hope you’ll forgive me for combining comments here – I want to avoid imitating your “long-winded meandering”]
Thank you, Nick for conceding that point.
I think it would help this discussion to move along more quickly if this were to occur more often.
Heh. There’s that irony again.
No, I don’t think it is a minor point.
What we had immediately after the collapse was a steel framed building fully supported by its structural support.
No, I think what we had after the collapse was a pile of rubble.
NIST would have us believe that that changed in the 14 seconds at the very most by fire alone. Whether the fire was initiated by the initial structural damage, arsonists, lightning or whatever, is beside the point.
The fact that this has never occurred befor and never since makes NIST’s explanation extremely unlikely.
Really? Who says? Given the very small sample of similar events, i.e. “one”, you’re not in a position – and this is leaving your lack of expertise and poor
Is saying “First” now passé?
Fielding – a dickhead in a wheelchair is still a dickhead.
Raelene Boyle on Caster Semenya on ABC news last night. “She not a woman” … “This woma… this person…” Nice.
MH@3
Indeed. Raelene Boyle is a disgrace. Caster Semenya, in her view, allegedly committed the crime of having androgen insensitivity syndrome and innocent athletes have to be protected.
I have a longstanding objection to elite sport, and this matter simply underscores what is wrong with the concept. This is where it logically leads.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/loneliness-of-the-university-liberal-20090911-fkqc.html
Some of the hard left quoted in the article are quite… vicious. Unfortunate, really.
Yes, Raelene Boyle was ugly last night. A LOL moment on the ABC report on their website though.
“That opinion is not shared by Australian track legend Raelene Boyle.
The Olympian insists the international sporting fraternity has an obligation to provide competitors with a level playing field.
“The IOC has to protect the rest of us; protecting those of us that are doing the right thing,” he said.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/09/11/2683807.htm
And Rationalist@5 isn’t Paul Sheehan so even handed and non-partisan?
Methinks Fairfax moves further to the right with every day.
Will someone please explain Dan Brown? Innocuous name, unoriginal plots, crap prose and they are printing 6.5 million copies of his next book. I used to think that popular fiction had some redeeming features but with the arrival of Brown I’m not so sure.
MH@3
OK, if the IOC is to provide a level playing field the obvious thing to do is to strip Semenya of her-his medal and institute a third category for people with androgen insensitivity syndrome. Caster Semenya would then stand a good chance of replacing the medal she had lost and scooping the pool for gold medals from then on.
I am unable to Google LP. When I do I get a message that tells me the website has shut down. I got onto this post by going through Face-book. Help!
Another nail in the coffin of the Wingnut Myth about the fall of the Soviet Empire.
Fran, I think I recall reading about your distaste for elite sport before. I have a question I would like to ask though. Without elite sport, how would you go about increasing a nation’s morale?
David H, the answer is easy. The media laps it up. They lap it up for the same reason they lap up the hysteria over Harry Potter. In both cases, there are a lot better books out there on the same subject or subject-oriented matter but they get no publicity.
One of the young libs quoted in the article linked to by Rationalist in comment 5:
”I think one of the dangers facing upcoming generations, including my own, is that we are developing an attitude of ‘what will the government do about it?’ I think the Rudd Government is sending the wrong message to Australians that we can’t function without the Government’s help in each area of our lives and I feel that this is fundamentally wrong.”
Just remind me again, which was the government that championed middle class welfare and nearly sent the country broke doing it? Couldn’t have been Howard, by any chance, could it? Not the great believer in “individual responsibility”?
Absolutely Katz. Thatcher didnt want to see the end of Communism, as it would mess with Britain’s far longer-term interest in a disunited Europe.
The other news for today: Sarkozy institute a Carbon tax from next year. Vive la France! http://www.theage.com.au/environment/sarkozy-to-the-rescue-20090911-fkt8.html
I see The Oz has started a saturation advertising campaign on SBS in preparation, for the paywall
I had the same problem yesterday, Paul @ 10, for quite some time using Alta Vista, Google and Bing. Even through linked articles in Crikey. I was told every time “there is nothing at this website address” It began when I was actually writing a comment at this site and when I clicked “submit” I was told the website address did not exist!
Patricia WA,
I had the problem yesterday too, but I was busy writing most of the day, so I thought I’d wait until this morning to see if it had cleared up. But it hadn’t. Still connecting via Facebook.
Does anybody know why its happening or is it just that my computer’s stuffed?
Senex@12
Here are some questions for you to consider before I offer a substantive answer:
1. Is a nation’s morale something that can be measured with the degree of precision to allow utility-based evaluation of resource allocation? If it’s more than a The Castle-style ‘it’s the vibe’ thing, what measures do you have in mind for longterm effectiveness-of-program auditing?
2. Is it possible that negative utilities,
a) for the nation as a whole
b) for parts of the nation
c) for other nations or parts of them
might be authored by resort to elite sport as a national morale-incrementing program. Regardless of the effect on the morale of Germans, would it have been better on the whole, if, for example, in 1936 at Berlin, the German track and field athletes had bested Jesse Owens? How would this have affected German or Eastern European Jews or Slavs?
Again, how would one go about accounting these negative utilities?
3. Opportunity Cost: What effects on other programs or public goods objectives does elite sport have?
a) How does elite sport affect housing costs, or skew/constrain transport and infrastructure policy?
4. Carbon (and other pollution) footprint: What do you see as the environmental footprint of elite sport? Consider the environmental cost of moving millions of people about and the cost of all the merchandise, not to speak of the costs of moving all the necessary equipment, the support staff, the cost of huge stadia, race tracks and swimming pools, the clearing of land for golf courses, the access roads and so forth.
5. Human rights: What are the civil and human rights implications of the security measures that needs must protect any elite sporting event associated with affirming the morale of nations?
Perhaps if you try answering these questions, you will approach a grasp of my attitude to elite sport.
In order to unravel the mystery of why Google won’t link to LP, mild-mannered historian Paul Burns undertakes research that leads him to the heart of a hidden deadly conspiracy which threatens the very foundations of Western civilization. Now, with Google nerds, Catholic bishops and mysterious Swiss assassins tracking his every move, his only hope is to team up with a beautiful young archaeologist and search for the key to the mystery in the Maldives, Istanbul, Zurich, Mayfair and Minorca, an exotic island where a mysterious Swiss Catholic Google assassin holds a secret to perhaps the greatest mystery of all…
Somebody wanted an explanation for Dan Brown? One word: airports.
A double dose of Paul Sheehan and Miranda every week. Way to go SMH!
Dear Fran,Er maybe people like elite sport,they watch it on TV and at sports grounds.
You may not like it but lots do.
I thought the Young Libs sounded just like the people Sheehan was criticizing,blinkered and suffering from convenient memory about Howard, Middle Class welfare,Lies,and trying to rewrite history.
Well,thew mysterious Swiss catholic assassin has just wiped my newsfeed from Facebook, and now I had to link here through Mark’s Facebook page.
(There was a pest sending me computer games that I deleted a couple of hours ago. Seems to have altered the whole look of my home-page, way back there. I guess I give up. But, when you haven’t ever read a Dan Brown book, I guess it gets hard to understand. (He has I believe gone from trying to upset Catholics to trying to upset Freemasons. Does that make him eclectic?
My morale increases when my team wins in a sports competition.
But not when it loses.
And whilst I enjoy my sports watching [my active days are sadly over and have left their legacy on various bits of my body] its a very very small part of how I get my morale boosting.
Hmm.
Let me count list just a very few of those things that, if going well, can boost my morale, or the converse.
Music. Arts in general. Movies/TV/theatre/ dance and similar stuff. Books.
Family is a biggy, particularly the grandkids.
Related to that are all the things that hopefully will go to enabling them to have a full and happy life. Good schools and health would be pretty high on the list of things important in that regard.
Hopefully they can have a choice of having a satisfying and rewarding career in the field[s] that they want. So laws and practices regarding work would seem to be relevant. I know I met a lot of people with very low morale and high anxiety about 2 years ago in the period before 24 November. That seems to have diminished slightly since.
The environment is important to everybody to a greater or leser degree, my grandkids were really disappointed when they saw the dead patch of our land that was once a vibrant wetland. The asked me what happened.
How do I answer that?
They worry, dinkum they really do and only a bit of it is down to me and family.
They cried when their mum cried on Sorry Day, again they asked why and she explained later when coherent, that boosted everyone’s morale although its gone down a bit in that regard since.
Blimey I could go on and on about how a society can boost its morale in dozens, hundreds of ways.
And very few of them have anything to do with sport.
Maybe that’s way some want to concentrate on the sports aspect?
So Dan Brown has nothing to do with elite sport? If I read more Dan Brown will my nationalistic sentiment decline in proportion to an increase in my general cynicism? Can we have a National Institute of Bookery next to the National Institute of Sport? So many questions, maybe Google has the answer…I’ll pray.
It’s been a better year for aussie films than it has for aussie sports.
My morale was boosted on the occasion of the apology to indigenous people, I thought it was a great first step in addressing what I think really ails this country and plays no small part in why we distract ourselves with sporting pursuits. I think sports provide an opportunity for us to can kid ourselves that there is an even playing field in this country. but a morale boost? not so much.
By reading through the comments so far I have gathered Dan Brown is an elite sport snob who was an unfortunately violent left wing uni student and has androgen insensitivity syndrome. I may have missed a few key points.
Paul, definitely not our computers! Mine is brand new and the problem seems to have entirely disappeared today, even at 5pm yesterday.
However, glad to find that you have the same sort of anxiety that sometimes strikes me about the internet, mobile phones and technology at large – i.e. any time it fails it must be me, or my equipment! I have overcome this by accepting with gratitude that 99.9% of the time it doesn’t fail and continues to offer an astonishing range of spectacle, wisdom and information for my delectation.
The internet delights and surprises me every day. Without needing to understand the technical intricacies which I guess could be explained to me if I took the time I still find it a miracle that people the world over are somehow cooperating to reveal themselves and the myriad details of their vibrant lives and stunning environments to each other. With so much order and seeming ease! If we do this together why can’t we live together without war?
The internet itself answers me. Because in revealing humanity to itself in all its magnificent complexity it also shows the darkness; the greed, the violence and the vice. Yet surely that underbelly is only a small component of the vast range of experiences we now share so easily of histories, ecologies, wisdom, creativity, and much much more…..but, most important of all, our common aspirations for a better world.
Time for a walk.
Of course, yesterday (still today over in the US) was the eighth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist atrocity.
All the alternative internet Internet forum sites appear to have avoided any mention of 9/11.
Only the corporate and government newsmedia seem willing to raise 9/11 in order to once again drum into us the message that we must continue with our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the removal of our guarantees of democratic freedoms, human rights and free speech in order to ensure that the 9/11 attacks are never repeated.
How is it that 9/11 seems so off-limits on alternative Internet sites?
Could it be that they fear the views of people who disagree agree with the Official account of 9/11 being expressed?
Patricia WA,
Mine has only just started working. (To whoever the boffins were at LP that presumbly fixed it, much thanks. Waves of technological paranoia have just gently subsided.
Patricia, the Internet is indeed a wondrous beast. I stay away from the nasty stuff if I can, though I do occasionally get e-mailed by some RWDB or porno-freak who has picked up my address. Mostly I find it absolutely bloody marvellous – access to books on line and buyable, primary sources of all varieties, (eg American Memory at the Library of Congress – history-heads check it out some time -) blogs, like LP, which comprises much of my social political life now that I’ve dropped out of SA, Armchair General, which is brilliant place to chew over history with people from all round the world, etc, etc.
And now to enter the sports as a force of national cohesion etc., debate. I hate sport. I never watch it. I make a cup of coffee when it comes on TV. I hardly ever comment on sport posts. But I do recognise other people enjoy it immewnsely, and why not? But me? Give me a good book, a good movie or DVD, that rare bird decent television, or a good classical concert or a poetry reading, or piece of well-directed, well-acted live theatre any day.
re: “Loneliness of the University Liberal”.
I think that will all change in the not too distant future. Faster please.
And so it begins. What a nut job. People are trully going to regret voting for this guy.
Five reasons the Da Vinci Code is a bucket of arse.
Feeble and insincere apologies for linking to my own blog, there. But considering how many are called to the holy tabernacle of Dan Brown hatred, suurprisingly few are chosen.
oh, and as far as sport is concerned, not a great deal can be expected from a pastime or whatever it is that was basically invented by the Nazis, in its modern spectacular incarnation. Raelene Boyle is only enunciating the fascist principles that underly the whole concept. Senex, a thoroughly demoralised nation is a healthy nation, in my book.
Peter @ 31: Nothing new there.
“Governments around the world have suggested the United States talks tough against protectionism only when its own industries are not threatened.”
Look at how our own so-called Free Trade Agreement tiptoes around sensitive aspects of US agriculture.
Politics is nothing if not the art of compromise.
Re the Da Vinci Code:
At the time it was a huge deal, I had a bit of a look at it to see what the fuss was about. As far as I could tell, there seemed to be an inverse relationship between those who REALLY LIKED IT and everyone else who reads books. The neophyte readers thus don’t realise what a crap book it is. While reading it, these people are riveted by the different ideas and paradigms it explores. The Celestine Prophecy was a similar case.
Give me Kitty the Werewolf or Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum books any day!
I’ve just had a look at the article Rationalist posted @5. I found myself floundering about, as usual, because none of the positions were defined. Hard left? Centre Left? Liberal? Right? Far Right? Labor has never struck me as being left wing at all, and suddenly it’s acquired a “leftist” identity.
Left and Right is clearly no longer about on what side of the King one sits. Both Marxist Socialist States and Neo Rationalist economic structures haven’t worked out terribly well. In the article there seemed to be an underlying assumption that “left” = “more State intervention”. “Right” = “less State intervention”.
All I’m sure about is that the continuum isn’t about how deeply one loathes John Howard. Howard Hating seems to cross all political boundaries, I always thought.
Always brilliant. Dorothy Parker at “Loon Pond”
http://loonpond.blogspot.com/
In praise of Raelene Boyle!Are you sure what she has said actually implies a criticism of the athlete,or a criticism of those behind the athlete!? When I was young Raelene was not only a pleasing personality,but a dasher of a runner,and if health meets beauty she wasn’t that far removed.As it turned out she suffered badly from certain countries cheating and putting in heaps of effort against impossible odds.The sickoes here are ready to shit on a good Australian, Raelene probably is mostly in line with their thinking.Sometimes the Elite of a country trying to set a standard that others can follow suffer more from the reckless of their own country.Raelene was universally liked.Can you say the same about yourselves dears!?
Catallaxy has been hacked by “Mahmoud SQL”, apparently a Euro-Muslim hacker or hacking team. If anyone wants to have a look, beware, I have no idea whether the site is safe to view from a Windows system.
IRONY ALERT
From the Paul Sheehan article:
“Being a Liberal at university can be politically very lonely. Courtney Dunn, 19, has never knowingly met another Liberal at the two University of Western Sydney campuses where she studies for a combined arts and law degree. ”The most visible political students on campus are the hard left, who the average student doesn’t relate to, which is further reason why voluntary student unionism is such a positive thing.”
”I think one of the dangers facing upcoming generations, including my own, is that we are developing an attitude of ‘what will the government do about it?’
Yet this is the same person demanding government do something, complaining about the number of trains services that service areas with limited population (and the horror, the horror – having to change trains)
MARIE FICARRA: – To add insult to injury the Labor Government recently cut peak hour rail services to the extent that no direct service from the Southern Highlands to the central business district arrives during the morning peak hour. Courtney Dunn, an 18-year-old Picton resident, recently contacted me. Courtney started working in the central business district after finishing high school at the end of last year. Like many residents of Picton and the Wollondilly shire, Courtney relies on public transport to get to and from work each day and, along with many people from Sydney’s outskirts, she spends a considerable amount of time commuting. Since beginning her job in January, Courtney became frustrated by the state of the rail service when, in a little over a month of working in the central business district, the evening rail service that she catches from Campbelltown to Picton was cancelled on six different occasions.
Unlike some people who are willing to put up with a poor rail service that has been compounded by many years of neglect, Courtney is a young woman who is ready to fight for her local community and has set out on a campaign to get a better deal for Southern Highlands commuters. Within a day of deciding to do something about the rail service, Courtney got over 50 people to sign a petition for better train services and had contacted the local newspaper, the Wollondilly Advertiser, to voice her concerns. The Wollondilly Advertiser has since run a number of stories about the poor train services to the Southern Highlands and is getting behind the campaign for improvements, and more local residents are signing Courtney’s petition by the day. My colleague in the other place, the member for Goulburn, Pru Goward, has been working for a better deal for Southern Highlands rail commuters and I know that she has encouraged Courtney in her efforts.
One thing that particularly frustrates Courtney and many other Southern Highlands commuters is the lack of services in the morning peak hour. There are currently only two services for the morning peak hour and both these services terminate at Campbelltown, meaning commuters are forced to change trains. During her campaign, Courtney has found that many residents have just given up on the Southern Highlands line and are either driving to work or driving to Campbelltown station. With poor services like this it is no wonder that so many commuters feel this way and it adds to the stress on their local roads in peak hour.
Nathan Bracken: get a bloody haircut and lose that bloody hair band.
Philistine!
What a scary ting!
http://blogs.smh.com.au/sport/Bracken.jpg
@42: Hold onto your hat here: I don’t drink VB either.
Noticed a quote in the piece ‘Loneliness of a young Liberal’ complaining about a group that stood for nothing except hatred of John Howard.
Let’s see. A group that stands for nothing but hatred of John, err, Kevin Rudd.
That’d be the Liberals.
Nonsense Rx,
Most libs just think Rudd’s a dud. Nothing like the venom spewed at Howard on this and other forums. Same goes for Obama vs Bush. No comparison.
Peter, I think you are blind on both counts, though, particularly the latter.
Obama is loathed. You hear those good ol’ boys splutter with rage at his very name. A lot of the time just because of his colour.
Kevin, you can tell, gets up those Liberal noses because they just do not take kindly to losing the privilege and power. You see, because they never learned to share, they are now very angry and incompetant with it.
Daggett #28 on 911
Pepe Escobar in Asia Times asks 50 questions about 911. I was wondering, is asking questions a less risky way to avoid defamation suits than making statements?
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KI11Ak02.html
Laura @ 33
Not true. They invented gas chambers. They developed huge public rallies (a la Nuremberg) before the ‘36 Olympics but they most certainly did not invent elite sport. Int’l cricket (Ashes etc) – not due to the Nazis. They persecuted Slavs and Jews and Gypsies and Communists and the mentally infirm, but they didn’t invent elite sport.
Raelene Boyle is not a fascist. She may be harsh, restrictive, misquoted and several other things but she is not a fascist.
Let’s invent a Godwin’s Olympics competition. Event 1: think of something you can blame the Nazis for. Give it no further thought.
Event 2: find someone you can call a “FASCIST”.
Event 3: Have a bit of a lie down after the strenuous effort of competing inEvents 1 and 2.
(Cross-posted to Weekend Reflections on johnquiggin.com)
On Correspondents Report just now (podcast seems unavailable at this moment) an ABC reporter said that a CIA agent told her that ‘Al Qaeda’ was planning an even bigger terrorist attack upon the US than 9/11. I didn’t get all of the words, but she said roughly:
Given the gross, unbelievable incompetence of the US Government in its failure to prevent the 9/11 terrorist attacks (that is if we accept the Official September 11 Conspiracy Theory and not the alternative Conspiracy Theory) and given that not one single figure in the Administration of President George W Bush was even reprimanded, let alone sacked for that incompetence, would anyone here put their trust in the US Government to prevent the next attack?
If the attack were to succeed (or even if it were not to, but were to be thwarted at the last minute) does anyone not see how this could be used as an excuse to completely remove our democratic freedoms, civil liberties and human rights?
Obama is loathed. You hear those good ol’ boys splutter with rage at his very name. A lot of the time just because of his colour.
Listen to what the man says, Peter. Those 9/12 folk are full-on crazy.
I’ve always hated this turn of phrase for its arrant absurdity. As improbable as it may sound however, I was able to buttonhole the latest offender her on the street just yesterday and the impromptu interview with Mr Empty
FB: Mr Empty, you don’t mind if I call you that do you …?
Mr Empty: Not at all. My friends call me that …
FB: You say that you are not ruling it out and you’re not ruling it in…
Mr Empty: That’s right …
FB: It’s impossibly paradoxical, surely?
Mr Empty: How so?
FB: You say you’re statements are logically consistent, do you not, Mr Empty?
Mr Empty: I sure do
FB: You would agree that ruling something out and ruling it in covers the full gamut of policy options, would you not?
Mr Empty: Well yes …
FB: So the conclusion is compelled, if you are consistent, that not ruling something out and not ruling something in are to some extent at least, coextensive.
Mr Empty: Yes I suppose …
FB: So in your view, the words out and in are not mutually exclusive
Mr Empty: Well err … look, all I’m saying is that I don’t want to commit to a policy on this right now.
FB: Oh I think I get that, but that means that you are going to commit to a policy in the future, does it not?
Mr Empty:Well yes …
FB: So before that time you will seek data about the feasibility of the existing workplace relations regime, consider proposals for individual contracts being discussed within the party room with an open mind, correct?
Mr Empty: Well yes …
FB: Can you do that if you rule it out? If you rule it out, you’re saying that such discussion would be pointless and counterproductive, surely?
Mr Empty: Well yes …
FB: So not ruling it out, entails ruling it in, not just in theory, but in practice. You are seeking a discussion of the matter.
Mr Empty: Can we talk about how Mr Rudd is like some Communist Party General Secretary?
FB: If you like … you said it was extraordinary
Mr Empty: That’s right
FB: Yet you also said he was the Bradman of Boredom
Mr Empty: That’s right. I could have added the Baudrillard of Boredom but that would have cost me two points in the polls for knowing a post-structuralist and reading LP.
FB: Indeed. So you are saying that the extraordinary is boring?
Mr Empty: Err yes …
FB: Was Stalin a post-structuralist?
Mr Empty: Oh no … definitely a structuralist … hang on … oh there goes two points …
FB: Out is in, the boring is extraordinary … you’re having a problem with consistency aren’t you Mr Empty?
Mr Empty: Maybe if I could be a post-structuralist, it would be easier …
FB: There goes another two points …
||||
Well one can dream …
Ambigulous – if you’d read my comment properly you’d see i said the Nazis basically invented elite sport in its modern spectacular incarnation, and that Boyle is enunciating the facist principles that underlie sport – not that Nazis invented elite sport per se – nor that Boyle is a fascist herself.
I was interested to observe that the Greens rep who interjected in the parliament and mocked Senator Fielding’s disability wasn’t named by the press. It was Sarah Hansen-Young.
I’m fairly sure the Nazis didn’t invent the gas chamber, though – they only Fordised it.
Laura, I think that claim is rather a stretch.
Professional cricket and baseball dates extends well back to the nineteenth century, and the VFL – which broke away from the VFA to permit professionalism – formed in 1896.
Is your claim that the Nazis invented sport as a vehicle for nationalism? Yes, they may have taken it to new and ugly heights in 1936, but invented it? Hardly.
Adam Tucker @ 54.
I’m disabled in various ways. So, re Steve Fielding’s disability, speaking as a disabled person to non-disabled people – you can be disabled like Fielding – though calling a learning difficulty a disability is a bit of a stretch, I think – and, like Fielding, still be an utter, complete fuckwit.
The Nazis were on about racial and physical purity. Part of the story comes from Germanic culture (and Simon Schama in his book Landscape and Memory articulates how far back that goes). There was a whole set of traditions in both the 19th and 20th centuries in the west that latched onto physical purity and referenced that back to the Greeks vis a vis the re-establishment of Olympism. (And it was no accident Rudolf Steiner built his philosophies, with a deep emphasis on purity, from a Germanic heritage)
What Hitler did was to take this myth within the Germanic context and place it as propaganda into the the mass media, for example through the work of Leni Riefenstahl. Those methods were clearly a development that resonates today, but it was the photography (i.e., tracking shots of athletes), that was the invention. All else can be traced to existing developments with deep historical roots.
“if you’d read my comment properly you’d see i said the Nazis basically invented elite sport in its modern spectacular incarnation,”
I think that’s highly questionable as well, Laura. The 1936 Summer Olympics have strong associations with the Nazis, obviously, given that they took place in Berlin but they were conducted by the IOC on the same lines as previous events. The Nazis certainly didn’t invent the fire, stadium and marching teams spectacular.
Leni Riefenstahl did however make a movie about the Games (called ‘Olympia”) which was arguably the prototype for modern sports filming technique.
Interestingly, there was a gender controversy at the ‘36 games (two female medallists later had FtoM gender reassignment surgery) which led to the much later introduction of gender verification by the IOC.
Rather surprised to see what’s a fairly widely held view so strongly rejected, to be honest. I did state it in a sloppy hyperbolic Saturday Salon style, sure, but the notion that the 1936 Olympics initiated our current culture’s special delight in racial, imperial, gendered and nationalist rituals of domination, expressed via hi-tech representations of fake antique / Classical body imagery, all served within the mediatised stadium spectacular where the crowd becomes part of the spectacle, has been around in sociology & history at least since th e1970s – see for instance Richard Mandell’s _The Nazi Olympics_ – and going back further, it was recognised & described by cultural theorists who were there at the time, eg Benjamin, Lacan.
I’m not specially down with the late 90s melange postmodernism informing this essay, but it cites some of the key work on the links between the modern technologised sporting spectacle and fascism, eg Buck-Morss. http://www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/firstrelease/fir998/AMfr4e.htm For another view see _The Nazi Olympics: sport, politics and appeasement in the 1930s_ ed Krüger, or the essays in special issue on the modern olympics, Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport 67 (June 1996). A jargon-free introduction to the issues can be found in this review of the recent exhibition at the Holocaust Museum http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.la84foundation.org%2FSportsLibrary%2FOlympika%2FOlympika_1996%2Folympika0501h.pdf&ei=1GqsSvCELI7e7AOFm6jUBw&usg=AFQjCNFg_fP3dfVPx-bzHLFUwkTz8TAABA&sig2=XXCLD5y2LEtj9VLzQAmDig . For an exploration of the ways aspects of the 1936 Olympics, including the decisions of other countries to participate, established multiple remarkably persistent patterns informing the conduct of elite sport at the international level, see _The Unlevel Playing Field: a documentary history of the African American experience in sport_, eds. Wiggins and Miller.
“The Nazis certainly didn’t invent the fire, stadium and marching teams spectacular. ”
Geoff, by ‘fire’ do you mean the torch relay? Actually, the Nazis did invent that. It was a lovely touch thought up by the propaganda ministry.
Laura, associating a pastime that I and many other LP readers enjoy with “fascist principles” is pretty inflammatory, and was guaranteed to generate just a bit of resistance.
You know, I just knew the Nazis weren’t all bad.
Some might giiggle. But it seems Catallaxy has been invaded by a hacker. So it might do to be on guard. He’s a real n’ah n’ah n’ah jerk this guy.
Actually, the Nazis did invent that.
.
Yeah they thought they were demonstrating their inheritance. They thought they were the New Wave of Ancient Greece. Fascists alway do seem to corner the market on unintentional irony.
I’ve got to agree strongly with Laura on this one (except to point out that the Olympic Flame dates from 1928; the Nazis only innovation was to make it a cross-country event). Remember that the people who created the modern corporate Olympic games of the post-war were often Fascists too; Juan-Antonio Samaranch for instance was one of Franco’s cronies and a proud son of the Falange into old age.
To be fair, though, I tend to prefer the egalitarian-nationalist ideal of the Olympics and FIFA World Cup over it’s worse alternatives: Baron de Coubertin’s original reincarnation of amateur private gentlemen’s honourable athletism without women or proletarians on one hand, and the kinds of nationalist sporting movements that created bizarre and pathetic late-nineteenth century chauvinist sports like Pankration, and the Gaelic Games that were part of the Gaelic Revival, on the other.
I recall a radio interview with Asa Briggs in about 2002 who said not entirely tongue-in-cheek that modern Europe had displaced the urge to kill one’s neighbours with the urge to watch one’s neighbours beaten in UEFA Cup football. That’s got to be a good thing.
I’m surprised at you, RM.
You’re generally the most uncompromisingly scientistic of the posters here, the most willing on general principle to bend inclination and enthusiasm when faced with proveable fact. The Olympics have radical, nationalist, right-wing roots, with stacks of evidence in their favour, and historically it’s pretty uncontroversial to say make the link. To not follow an argument because of where it might politically lead is something you’d expect of right-wing Laborite hypocrites like me, or the other bourgeois leftists around here [cough], not empiricists like yourself.
ONE OF US, ONE OF US, etc.
The Olympics have radical, nationalist, right-wing roots,
.
So do Combi Vans and look how they ended up.
when even the Greens sold out on it. what hope did the mary river ever have. we need a third political party that is centre-left and opposed to prvatisation of asstes and this dam.
“Geoff, by ‘fire’ do you mean the torch relay? Actually, the Nazis did invent that. It was a lovely touch thought up by the propaganda ministry.”
i was thinking of the Olympic flame that burns in the main stadium.
Liam, actually you’re the one I’m surprised at. “Nationalistic” isn’t “fascist” isn’t identical with “Nazi.” If I understand Laura correctly, the contention was that the 1936 Nazi All-Black-and-Reds were responsible for an original, new set of tropes (which became ours today, is that a fair summation?), viz. we should credit the ‘36 Nazis specifically, not the general historic flow of increasing nationalism.
Depends what you mean, I guess. Babe Ruth’s famous “called shot” happened in Chicago in 1932, four years before the Nazilympics, for instance. Hype? Check. Triumphalism? Check. Huge crowds? Check. Ginormous stadium for the “masses”? Check. Nationalism? Check, sorta (the national anthem was sung before the game). And all this stuff was well-established in sports culture well before that (and I bet in other sports too — anyone care to comment on cricket?).
I think the new ingredients the Nazis added to all this were a profound humorlessness about it, and grim Teutonic precision and determination. Babe Ruth was part of a rowdy squad that played for a rowdy, fun-loving crowd, he liked his beer and had a tremendous paunch for an athlete — presumably he wouldn’t pass muster in a Germanic cult of bodily purity (despite being a German): but we don’t see such a cult in the Anglosphere sporting world today, do we? At least not in a consistent way. Or would one say that we do? (with bodies sculpted by steroids etc.?) Though I will concede that NBA basketball is filmed in a crypto-fascist style full of dominance obsession and body glorification and insane “mighty warrior” posturing. (Good grief, you’re a bunch of grown men throwing around a rubber ball, get over yourselves.)
As for the “gendering” of sport, doesn’t it go back at least as far as the funeral games in the Iliad?
btw, for a hilarious take on gender in sports, look up on Youtube “Babe Ruth in Fancy Curves,” a lame one-reel erstwhile comedy where he coaches an all-girls team. All your gender tropes in one spot — even a scene of Babe Ruth transvestism! (true.)
Sheen Challenges 9/11 Truth Debunkers to Larry King Live Debate
AUSTIN, Sept. 11 /PRNewswire/ — Appearing on The Alex Jones Show today to
discuss his video address to Barack Obama, Charlie Sheen has challenged those
who have publicly attacked him for speaking out on 9/11, particularly Meghan
McCain, Rush Limbaugh Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly, to debate him on CNN’s
Larry King Live.
Following the publication of Sheen’s “20 Minutes With The President,” a
fictionalized account of a meeting with Barack Obama in which Sheen implores
the President to reopen the investigation of 9/11 in light of the majority of
the 9/11 Commission members publicly denouncing the official story as a
deception, McCain attacked Sheen on ABC’s top rated show The View, comparing
people who question 9/11 with holocaust deniers.
…
A familiar theme arising out of such hit pieces is an effort to imply that
Sheen’s questioning of the official 9/11 story is somehow an “outrage” and
hurtful to the family members of the victims, despite the fact that the
majority of victims’ family members share the same questions.
Furthermore, claiming that people who doubt the government story are on par
with holocaust deniers completely ignores the fact that six of the ten 9/11
Commission members, along with scores of other highly credible former and
current government officials, intelligence professionals, military officials,
scientists, structural engineers and architects, and legal scholars have all
publicly questioned the official version of events behind September 11.
Fox News talking heads Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity, as well as popular
radio host Rush Limbaugh, have also attempted to attack Sheen’s credibility
while failing to discuss any of the subjects he actually raised.
In response, Sheen told The Alex Jones Show that he is challenging any one or
all of McCain, Hannity, Limbaugh or O’Reilly to a debate about 9/11 on CNN’s
Larry King Live or any other television show in Los Angeles, adding that the
show must be broadcast live to prevent bias editing. …
“To be fair, though, I tend to prefer the egalitarian-nationalist ideal of the Olympics and FIFA World Cup over it’s worse alternatives:”
I completely agree with the principle of this although the actuality of each Olympics continues to fill me with rage and disgust. And while I personally can’t get interested in any pasttime like NRL which celebrates a distorted version of masculinity as violent dominance, I do agree there are certainly less bad sports, as the great-granddaughter of a Test captain I think cricket is one of them; it doesn’t apparently involve group masturbation or rape, although it is extremely racist still.
Personally I think competitive, win-focused sport which depends on segregations of various types is inhumane, stupid and pathetic. Raelene Boyle believes the IOC has a duty to “protect the rest of us”, maybe by starting a separate Olympics “for these people with not the normal physical make-up or chromosomal or scientific make-up that we have”. Either make it that you can only have races between people who are exactly the same in every possible way, or let everyone race, including animals. Then we’ll find out once and for all whether there will ever be a boy born who can swim faster than a shark.
Jane Austen was a sport fascist. She forced Mr Darcy to carry a torch for Elizabeth Bennet.
Letting humans and animals compete in the same arena has been tried before — think Coliseum, Christians, beasts of the Imperial Menagerie, etc etc.
Result: needs improvement. The chariot races in the Hippodrome were a better ticket, but the fans could get a little, um, unruly.
” Either make it that you can only have races between people who are exactly the same in every possible way, or let everyone race, including animals. Then we’ll find out once and for all whether there will ever be a boy born who can swim faster than a shark.”
I don’t think it is reasonable to assume animals want to race others be they other animals or humans.
Do you envisage the presence of a group of people who specialise in training various animals for sports events? Let’s put it this way – if you can get your cow to my place I’ll get one of mine to race your’s in the river out front. 200m individual medley OK?
Just thought I’d also say surfing is a non competitve past-time . You can arrange to judge each other but that is a small minority much wedded to advertising and corporate sponsorship.
The rest of us are engaged in a quite useless and non productive activity which makes you feel happy when you get out of the water.
Laura @ 53
I don’t think I failed to read your 33 “properly”. But I could be wrong.
The 1956 Olympics in Melbourne were homely, provincial, international, friendly and liberal (under the clouds of the Cold War). Fascist they were not. Fascistic? not that either. Ask someone who was there.
You’re welcome to your views of sport, sporting compoetition, etc. Hitler has little to do with it. Was there any area of life and culture he didn’t attempt to warp and poison? Should we conemn documentary film because Riefenstahl served Nazi aims? I think not.
Bread and circuses were invented long before 1936.
Seeing goose-stepping PLA troops, or massed North Korean persons, or Red Square military parades (in Soviet times) reminds me more of Hitler’s regime and its panoply of regimented, choreographed spectacle than any international sporting meeting.
There’s clearly more to say here, but I would acknowledge the long and dishonorable history of the Olympics.
That said, elite sport and the Olympics are not one and the same thing.
Indeed they are not, Robert.
Some elite sport is mostly conducted within ONE nation with scarcely any international competition. Example: Aussie Rules football. Go Saints!!
By the way, comment 55 is one of the most profoundly callous I’ve read on LP. I think the word “only” sets it apart.
May the innocent victims of Hitler’s regime rest in peace.
Ambigulous, re #55, you’re protesting too much. Let me assure you I am not in the least callous about the holocaust. When I finally finish my marking and get it written, if you give me an email address, I will send you the article I’m working on about what it was like interviewing visitors to the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam last month. Actually, I wish I’d developed a few more protective psychological calluses before leaping into that particular abyss.
Doesn’t it bother you even a tiny bit that women aren’t allowed to play AFL or NRL, or compete against men in almost any sports? They could you know. It would be a simple matter of lifting or adjusting the drug ban, which in some ways is more a mechanism for creating an uneven playing field than for levelling one.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/gameon/2008/08/citius-altius-f.html
Hoges, by prophylactic supply statistics, at least 100,000 roots in the last 2 Olympics but surely the lefties didn’t miss out?
(Could there have been some “blowback” on right wing Christian virginity pledges to validate your assertion of the political flavour of this activity?)
Jam Master JPZ, I certainly wouldn’t ever argue that Nazism is equal to Fascism is equal to nationalism; any more than you’d contend that funk was equal to soul was equal to rock ‘n’ roll. Still—four-four time is four-four time, and a team in coloured shirts is a team in coloured shirts, whether on a football pitch or out in the street, and they share supporters, and they share familiar aims. (Which I say, note, as a supporter of Real Madrid).
Sport history’s full of elite spectacle, as others have noted, going back in organised media-marketed fashion to the circuses of the Romans, and pre-planned games-and-ritual are a universal part of humanity. And just because it can be oppressive and awful doesn’t mean it can’t also be amazing and beautiful; as the celebrated post-Fascist Enoch Powell observed, football’s nothing more or less than working-class ballet.
Excuse me: Alf Garnett, not Enoch Powell.
(So similar but so different)
Thanks Laura,
Did I misread 55 too? I’m distressed to hear of your project in Amsterdam. I had a brief visit to that city and chose Rembrandt paintings on a Saturday afternoon instead. I couldn’t face the Anne Frank Museum.
Instead, Vermeer won me over, in the Rijksmuseum. And a small statue in Leyden: a sad young girl, with the years of the WW2 occupation inscribed. No words. Exquisite anguish, strong remembrance.
Women in sport? What did Anne Frank write about that?
For all the conspiracy theorists out there. And this gem.
Laura, I don’t think merely making performance-enhancing drugs available to adult women would go anywhere close to evening up the score in the AFL.
The average AFL player is 185 centimetres tall. According to ABS figures (from 1995 and across the population, so not quite representative of young adults, but close enough to be indicative) 24.5% of men are over 180 centimetres in height; only 0.1% of women are.
Given that, unless you’re going to give HGH to girls on the basis that a tiny fraction of them might be further chemically assisted to play AFL footy, the odds are that very few women would be competitive AFL players even with chemical assistance.
Furthermore, while AFL players are endurance athletes, they also require a great deal of strength. So while you could give a woman AFL player EPO to assist with their endurance (which is actually an area where the differences between women and men are comparatively small), to be able to compete in strength terms the drugs of choice are steroids of one form or another. And if you want to know the long-term side effects of administering steroids to female athletes, go ask an East German.
On top of that, there’s also the little issue of anterior cruciate ligaments. Female athletes are, apparently, about eight times more likely to suffer this rather nasty injury than male athletes. Given ACL injuries are amongst the most common season-ending injuries in the AFL, it would seem likely that a large fraction of women who chemically enhanced their muscular strength and power to the point where they would be competitive AFL players would suffer an ACL injury sooner or later.
There are sports where your argument is plausible – endurance sports, particularly cycling because some disciplines within it favour small athletes – but AFL and NRL aren’t among them.
Women’s exclusion from much elite sport – and the marginalization of many women’s competitions in sports where they do participate – are important issues to think about in our sports-mad culture. But the idea that chemical assistance is a way out of it doesn’t really stack up.
When I was studying a gender studies course as part of my Honours coursework I had a private joke along the lines that all debates within feminism ultimately boiled down to the question of whether football should be played by both genders or banned for both genders.
I read on the weekend that the West Atlas Oil Spill now covers nearly 6000Km2. The company, PTTEP Australasia says it should have the spill under control within four weeks.
This is very disappointing. Where’s the idea of turning a crisis into an opportunity. Since the spill can be seen from space, why not use ships and booms to fashion it into a shape like the COMPANY LOGO. They could have the world’s biggest ad …
Big signs can be in the ocean as well as the skies — a little dye and you can get out the the good oil …
Fran
Despite my avowed distaste for sport, I do occasionally delve into sport history.And, in response to the query about nationalism showing its ugly face in cricket, from an Australian and British viewpoint may I offer the following: November 1932, the Bodyline matches at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, where the English,threw balls at the bodies of Australian batsman, notably one Don Bradman, (who I’ve never really had much affection for). Jardine was so hated by the mob on the Hill, that when he brushed at the summer flies some-one yelled outr, “Leave our flies alone, Jardine.” According to the TV series Bodyline, Aussies burnt the Union Jack. On one interpretation, the Bodyline matches plunged Australian/British relationships into crisis. (Which just shows how dangerous nationalism can be.)
Most of you probably realise by now, that despite being a socialist (genuine, not what the Americans call socialist) I have a soft spot for the US. Nevertheless, they did poisdon Phar Lap, which, along with the Smoot-Hawley tariff wars provoked a fair bit of Aussie nationalism against the Yanks here in the 1930s.
And I’m not even going to comment on the racist fascism of the Howard inspired Cronulla Riots when Ratty was PM.
Paul, I was also going to mention Bodyline as an example of sporting nationalism.
Not entirely coincidental that the examples we’re all thinking of are from the 1930s, I suspect.
There was also the notoriously bloody water polo match between the Russians and the Hungarians at the 56 Olympics.
Here’s some light reading for anyone interested in the idea of lifting the drug ban, which I understand is rather fictive anyway in that it doesn’t prevent untestable drugs from being used. http://eprints.vu.edu.au/259/ Or this one, without a specifically feminist agenda but saying much the same thing: why we should allow performance enhancing drugs in sport
Not that there aren’t later examples of course. Think Melbourne 1956, the water polo game between the USSR and Hungary …the Black Power salute at Mexico 1968 and the what happened to the Aussie at that event … the use of 1980’s Olympics as a vehicle for boycott by the US/Australia and the tit-for-tat by the USSR at LA 1984 (and the USA’s response). Could anyone have missed the nationalism at Beijing, 2008? Doubtful.
The famous ‘football war’ between El Salvador maybe germane here. It wasn’t caused by soccer or the World Cup, but it did provide the trigger.
A shooting war followed.
Paul Burns,
the legend is that “the Yanks poisoned Phar Lap”. I vaguely recall that recent work points the finger towards a tonic administered by Phar Lap’s Aussie trainer, but not sure of the details.
Robert M: I found Laura’s suggestion that there should be open slather on performance enhancing drugs, just to attempt to get women players into AFL teams, quite remarkably strange. Isn’t there evidence of long-term harm to athletes, who take these (anabolic steroids and others)?
And the largest-scale officially sanctioned drug use program for sports competitors was by the DDR athletes, in a society having (arguably) more similarities to Hitler’s Germany [State control, secret police, heavy indoctrination, etc.] than most other societies across the globe at that time.
Women’s cricket, women’s golf, women’s tennis, women’s swimming, women’s athletics are all thriving. Netball is fantastic: at the elite and suburban/country levels. Some women play Aussie Rules in their own competition.
Don’t aim so low Laura: don’t urge women to copy Fevola, Cousins, Carey and the rabble!!
A most interesting discussion on sport. Fran might be surprised to know that I agree with much of what she said @ 18. In particular I’ll be surprised if 30 years down the track sporting teams are flitting around the world with such gay abandon.
Nevertheless I personally enjoy watching most forms of sport. A large part of it has to do with an appreciation of human skill, speed, endurance and/or power. I enjoyed a performance of Circus Oz last week. There were some aspects of how roles were portrayed that could be criticised, but especially memorable was the strong woman, where half the troupe climbed on her back and the obvious affection between her and the dwarf woman who was about half her height. Also the incredible skill and control in the hula hoop performance by one of the women and much more.
I don’t know a lot about sport history and found the information from Laura and others fascinating. I suspect, though, if we were able to excise the Berlin Olympics from history, elite sport and the Olympics would not be noticeably different now.
I’m surprised that Laura sees cricket as less bad. I seems to be designed for 11 people to humiliate and mentally destroy the opposing team one at a time, and has the converse opportunity for individuals to humiliate the whole of the other team.
I appreciate NRL for the combination of skill, speed, power, endurance, teamwork and tactics. Although wingers are commonly 100 kg these days there is a role for little men, such as Preston Campbell, Brett Kimmorely and others, although they have to be very tough and strong and prepared to tackle head on a 115kg prop forward going like a runaway train. There have been some excellent matches this year now that the tackling/play-the-ball area has been cleaned up.
Apart from State of Origin and always wanting to beat New Zealand, South Africa and the Poms at anything, I don’t much mind who wins. If you follow enough sports some of “my” teams are always winning. The Lions went down in AFL, but the Broncos prevailed in one of the best matches of the year. The Aussie Diamonds beat the Silver Ferns at netball, Federer kept on winning and Clijsters sorted out Serena Williams. And we creamed the Poms at cricket (a magnificent spell of bowling by Brett Lee a highlight).
I see lots of aspects that I don’t approve of all the time. I like to think that the fact that I don’t get angry or upset is because I’ve learnt the futility and destructiveness of those emotions. Probably, though, it has more to do with my system producing less testosterone, or something.
Finally, I think the damaging consequences of an over-emphasis on winning and competitiveness is a greater problem in junior sport, rather than in the elite arena.
Ambigulous #92, there are some quite high-profile examples (mainly from the US) of individuals who are known or strongly suspected to have died an early death due to taking performance-enhancing drugs. One notable case some years ago involved a gridiron player who died a lingering and miserable death from illnesses brought on by steroid use.
Brian @93
I also like some elite sport, including as you know, the cricket.
I wouldn’t favour banning elite sport — bans are only for the most intractable and pernicious of activities IMO, but I don’t think it should be directly or indirectly facilitated by the state or by subsidies. It should have to pay its way, and if this meant there was less of it, so be it.
I’d be a tad disappointed if there were less cricket, but then again, one can argue that we have something of a surfeit — do we really need seven ODIs in England? Doubtful. Either way, it would be a price worth paying on grounds of general utility.
Ambigulous @ 92,
I cheerfully stand corrected on Phar Lap. As I understand it, a couple of years before the nmost recent research, which I think was last year, traces of arsenic were found in Phar Lap’s hair. The latest evidence, coming from the trainer’s diary or medicine book I think, showed the poisoning was accidental.Your comment jogged my memory.
[Whips oneself for perpetrating historical inaccurracy/howler.)
Advocates for allowing performance enhancing drugs suggest there should be a shift of focus from testing for substances to testing for health. Nobody recommends anabolic steroid use for this reason.
There are plenty of practices athletes engage in that are potentially harmful besides taking drugs, and plenty of drugs that are not harmful to health if used properly.
Paul B, please do not WHIP yourself on our account. Or at least have it televised as a reality TV show and make squillions.
Thanks Paul N, I couldn’t recall the details.
Laura, I don’t doubt that there are other potentially harmful pracices: but you raised drug use as a possible “way to go”. It’s not sufficient, to say “look over there, some OTHER harmful practices!”
I hope your marking’s going well. (Some use coffee, others use Jaffas or other chocolate I’m told.)
Fran @ 95, I think that for every ODI we play in this country we are obliged to go and play one in the touring country in return. This has been overloading the schedule for our guys. I think it’s partly behind the recent reduction of our summer commitments in this regard.
Brian@99
Personally, I wouldn’t shed many tears over the demise of L50 cricket. It’s a pretty stale and tame format these days. L20 gives most of those that L50 was pitched at all of what they want.
I know it’s not fashionable, but I like L50 cricket. I find L20 a bit too much hit and run although it can get exciting. I like the more drawn out form, especially when you can really put the brakes on the other team with some good bowling and see the run rate blow out over 6 an over or watch a thrilling chase. I would like to see it stay, but I’m in the minority I think.
I think the thing is Mindy that with an L20 the whole thing is over in an evening after work, so it is more marketable. Potentially you can have a doubleheader and even if there is a little rain you can probably still get through the whole fixture without a D/L result.
Far more people have three hours to spare than have six and it’s a better fit with work patterns too.
I’m not a fan of Twenty/20. It’s just a slogathon and I believe it will morph into a different game altogether.
Nana Levu @49.
Thanks for your interest in my post on 9/11 and thanks for that link to that most helpful article.
I think there are two reasons why 9/11 Truth activists often tend to ask questions. One is, as you say to avoid the risk of defamation suits (although defation laws in this country are not as bad as they once were (which is one of the very few good things brough about by the Howard Govenment, or, more accurately, Philip Ruddock).
The other is that we don’t know many of the answers.
The only people who do are those who planned and executed the 9/11 terrorist atrocity.
That is why there needs to be a proper investigation so that people like Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, Rudi Giuliani, George Bush et al can properly account for their bizarre behaviour on that day. It lokks as if that will occur. It looks as if New York City residents will be allowed to vote on whether to set up an enquiry at the November general elections.
Pepe Escobar in Asia Times asks 50 questions about 911. I was wondering, is asking questions a less risky way to avoid defamation suits than making statements?
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KI11Ak02.html
Sheesh Daggett, cutting and pasting your own comments on the one thread.
Watchit mate – self-parody’s a mug’s game in the end.
Who’s to say that Daggett didn’t author both comments? Why are you denying the only outlet for people who want to question the Official Comment Timeline? What agendas are you serving FDB?
I’VE BEEN SILENCED ALL MY LIFE
Of greater importance here is what certain members of the BAHNISCH FAMILY other LP ILLUMINATI were up to at the time of the thread-comment-temporal-anomaly-and/or-failure-to-attribute attack. Flight records show them on the last two chartered DC-10s out of Brisbane, bound for Nauru – and the official “explanation”? Bah! Missy Higgins isn’t scheduled to play the Yaren Tavern and Grill until next Thursday.
There is also a petition signed by 4,300 electronic engineers and IT specialists which questions the official explanation.
just for the LULZ
BTW This thread is a great read.
Probably because I read a Google News item about season 2 of Mad Men that confused me – has Series 2 started on one or other of the SBS’s last weekend and did I miss it because it was at 11pm at night – or have I missed promos because I didn’t want to be bored out of my mind by cricket? Am keen to know.
Well I for one left the public service 10 years to the day before 9/11, so obviously I had something to do with it! Nobody has ever asked me to date.
pssst, Mark…
Sept 11th is my little sister’s birthday!!!
FDB, that was really me. I came in and had left my computer on. It had logged off and when it does the dumb thing thinks I’m Mark!
Actually, and seriously, I’ll come clean and declare that I’m firmly in the camp of historians who have read enough evidence to convince them there was a clear US-Government supported conspiracy to remove human rights and freedom of speech and association on 11 September.
1973.
Recently I watched Hitchcock’s “The Birds” again which I hadn’t seen in maybe 15 years.
Fun coincidence factoids:
– the movie has performances by a young Veronica Cartwright (as Lydia’s daughter) and also by comedian Doodles Weaver (as a fisherman.) Doodles was of course the uncle of Sigourney Weaver, and both Veronica and Sigourney would go on to star in another horror classic, “Alien”.
Also was struck (never noticed it before) by how The Birds foreshadows Night of the Living Dead, with a) no one ever knows or finds out why it’s happening, and b) Must. Barricade. Farmhouse. Against. Massive. Onslaught. also, c) accidental catastrophe at gas station.
Fortunately nobody suggests they retreat to the basement. We ALL know how that play ends up.
Also, didn’t know Rod Taylor was Australian! And ya gotta love the lady ornithologist.
…. but some of those birdies looked so dashed artificial
not Hitch’s best work, IMO
When the film was first released in Australia, the press made quite a fuss of Rod Taylor’s aussieness
Liam
just curious: are any of the important sources only in espanol?
It seems to me possible that the basic mistake Mr Allende made was grandiose rhetoric: at the first, winning Presidential election he scored about 34%, si? Why then proclaim the “Chilean Revolution”? Nowhere near majority electoral support.
I’m aware there were millions of desperately poor Chileans his Govt wanted to lift out of poverty and despair…. Would a slower pace have had any chance of success? (Yes, RM Nixon hovered in the background…..)
Or does the Chilean political style abhor gradualism, preferring drama, even unto noble death?
The people,
United,
Are frequently
Defeated.
These are lolz to counter the LULZ
This is some sad news for poetry lovers… vale Jim Carroll, dead at 60. Just learned of it.
Despite the notoriety he gained from The Basketball Diaries and “People Who Died,” IMO his standout work was his first little volume of poems, “Living At The Movies,” written by age 19 or so, which beautifully captures a certain something about cosmic teenage pains and pleasures, in a delicately surrealistic idiom. I loved it when I was 17 or so myself, and though there are many far greater poets of his time, I’ve always had a little birdhouse in my soul for that work.
From “Blue Poles” which opens the book (from memory)…
Blue poles (well?) on the beach
In a snowless winter and
I’m too cold to ask you
Why we’re here, but, “we are”…
I love the little joke of the ‘well?’. This is from the last poem in the book, “An Apple At Dawn”…
…They’re “cold and enduring.”
Look out Manhattan
your prince’s sorrow
might be back
again
tomorrow.
From those points A to B is nearly a whole life right there. So long Jim. Tonight “there is a stadium beside my window, filled with winter.”
I had a private joke along the lines that all debates within feminism ultimately boiled down to the question of whether football should be played by both genders or banned for both genders.
.
Well I’d make a snide remark to the effect of that joke underlying the relevance or lack thereof of feminist theory as we now know it. But I won’t.
.
What I want to know is where are the drugs that will make me a world class ballet diva or gymnist.
Jim Carroll RIP. One of the few contemporary poets I dig.
David H @ 24, As you are well aware, I was commenting on two separate questions. What you are after is the National Library of Australia.
Fran @ 18, This is the first chance I have had to revisit this thread. I will endeavour to answer your questions.
I don’t believe anything can, that’s what we have economists for and not even they are sure. No matter what we do in this life, it is a best guess scenario. Even if its not for the nation, what about an individual? I surely don’t think elite sports “stars” should be paid anymore than the median wage at best. That’s never going to happen though, I’m a realist. We cannot always measure things by KPIs – sometimes we have to make value judgements.
I do not know what the term negative utilities (in what context are you using the word utility here? Utility to me means multiple functions depending on the situation thus utility is always useful) means so I can not answer the question. As for the Olympics, itself, although considered an elite sport, is a waste of everyone’s time. You only hear of those people every four years and nothing out of them in between. It’s mainly the other sports I’m thinking of, the major football codes, basketball, netball, hockey, etc.
As for the 1936 Olympics itself, you can only examine things in the context of their times and I wasn’t around then and I imagine you probably weren’t either, I am not aware of the zeitgeist of that era and cannot make a point thus rendering the vast majority of that question moot.
As for Carbon Pollution, stop the fireworks at all the sports events, stop private vehicles going into city CBDs make cycling and public transport the only options – problem fixed. I haven’t done any actual measurements but I think it would go a long way. Overall I’m not too concerned about Carbon Pollution one way or the other.
What effects on public goods does elite sport have? It can prevent and alleviate mental illness and psychological disorders. I rationalise that by when your life is total and utter crap and your sports team is going crap, there is absolutely nothing that will pick you up – not even a good book, but if your team is going brilliantly, you’ll be on a high that will balance out some of your depressed modes. Endorphins work for fans just as well as anyone else doing a physical activity. We are all different.
I’ve just noticed I’ve mainly addressed psychological difficulties there and not mental illness ones, so I’ll just add that it may help to give the mentally ill focus, dependent on their condition (Again depends on context)
Ooh I missed this one: How does elite sport affect housing costs, or skew/constrain transport and infrastructure policy?
The events only ever occur in a major city, so on housing costs, its a boon for those that own their own homes and rent them out. As for housing costs in general, they’re overpriced in the CBD. I understand that their are market rates for location, location, location but when they’re asking for $1000 000 000 for a house that only cost say $200 000 to build (I plucked this figure out of the air), its too much. Especially when it only costs about $11k per 9m2 (These are figures supplied by a Sydney based builder a year or two ago) to build.
You would have to be more specific on what you consider to be infrastructure. I have all ready addressed the transport question.
On Human Rights, it depends on what you consider to be one? For eg. If you are referring to the UN version of Human Rights and use their recent complaint about the indigenous intervention. I think their report is too harsh and that the UN is not aware of the full context.
Overall I am a very context specific person and when I look at your view (not that I’m criticising, critiquing maybe) I think of the nth degree and if all the elite sports disappeared overnight the outrage that would cause.
The lack of inspiration children will have. Some get into physical exercise of what they see others do. It could be a football star, it could be a track runner or it could just what they see at a local sports day.
That’s not to take away from other inspirations people will have in Science, etymology and the like.
Your questions cover quite a range across the spectrum of policy and are difficult to answer in one sitting but I have done it now in somewhat of a rambling fashion (off the top of my head).
I have attempted to answer your questions. So how would you phase out elite sport without causing a major uproar (lowering morale) and what would you replace it with and how Fran?
Bye the Bye,
I didn’t like The Castle but I welcome the adages from it to Australian pop culture.
Senex@121
Definition: utility — an evaluation of net public good — realised or prospective benefits less realised and prospective costs and unrealised risks — obviously can be positive or negative. Broadly, a balance sheet of some particular thing …
You concede that the nation’s ‘morale’ cannot be measured with the degree of precision to allow utility-based evaluation of resource allocation. If this is so then your implication that this objective that deserves public support collapses, at least of public policy is to be evidence-based and an exercise in rational approach of commonly agreed goals. One might consider your claim refuted right here, whatever one thought of the value of morale.
As to the pay of sports stars, as you concede, having them on an average wage is unfeasible. Personally, I see no particular value in promoters getting rich at the expense of athletes, even if one could engineer it.
Your proposals on carbon pollution at elite events would make very little difference to the really big international events and only a marginal difference to the local ones. The moving of all those goods not just on the day but in the lead up are very costly in CO2 terms.
My reference on human rights refers to the necessity to turn the city (and sometimes the country) where the event is into a temporary police state. We had a taste of that in Sydney in 2007 not with a sporting event, but with APEC, and later with World Pope Week. It will happen in London 2012.
On housing, elite events force up housing costs and since it’s wealthy people who own most of the housing, it is inequitable. These also skew infrastructure policy as the state tries to extract use out of the white elephant left by the event — such as the Olympics.
I don’t believe the handful of kids inspired to aim for elite success can justify the multi-billion dollar expenditure each year on elite sport.
As to the phase out, I’d withdraw all state support, direct and indirect for elite sport and instead direct adequate funds into non-elite or community sport. Some of the budget would go into structured sport-relevant fitness and skills programs and into early intervention for families who had putatively unfit children. We’d fund before and after school care for high school kids in state schools, with good meal programs, homework supervision and so forth.
I daresay that would raise morale a lot more, and we could measure it in improvements in primary health statistics, lowered youth contact with the justice system, declines in the scale and demand for DOCs interventions and improved educational outcomes.
You say you are happier when your team wins, but that surely means that you and all others like you are to that extent unhappier when it loses. Since most teams lose, most of the time, the net public happiness — the net utility of elite sport if you will, must be negative. Why should the public fund the decreased happiness of most people and encourage a handful to hang their happiness on the vicarious pleasure associated with events over which they have virtually no control and depend on/foster significant inequity?
apropos an ealier thread re hydrogen power and whether it was realistic or not
http://gas2.org/2009/09/14/germany-to-launch-nationwide-hydrogen-fuel-network-by-2015/
FDB (@ 106) wrote,
FDB, it was a mistake (see 105, 48).
If you look at my posts you will find I often quote at length from other posts. That was what I initially intended to do this time. I changed my mind, but neglected to delete it from the text buffer.
FDB (@ 108) wrote:
Have you ever, in the eight years since it occurred given 9/11 any serious thought?
If you had you would have understood that there were at least two Conspiracy Theories offered as explanations of what occurred on that day, both of which would have seemed implausible to most, including me, before 11 September 2001.
It seems to me that if you reject one you must necessarily embrace the other.
So which of the two do you embrace, FDB?
Perchance, it wouldn’t happen to be the one peddled by the likes of President W, Dick Cheney, John Howard, Bill O’Reilly, Phillip Adams, Rupert Murdoch and now Kevin Rudd and Barack Obama?
Here’s Rupert Murdoch peddling that Conspiracy Theory through his Brisbane mouthpiece the Courier Mail on 17 August:
Does it strike you as odd that our forces have been fighting in a country where 9/11, the Bali bombings and “three-quarters of terrorist plots against Britain” were hatched and yet not one person with a proven link to 9/11 or any other of those events has been captured?
The editorial continues:
So, how much longer do you predict it will be until the first person with link to 9/11 will be captured?
There is not necessarily any shame in having swallowed codswallop such as that written above in the past. I did myself and even initially welcomed the invasion of Afghanistan. It was not until two years ago that I gave a proper hearing to people who rejected the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory and it was not until a year ago that I seriously studied the question.
However, today the truth of 9/11 is readily available to anyone with a critical and open minded, so there is no longer any reason for anyone to be fooled, that is unless they wish to be.
“So, how much longer do you predict it will be until the first person with link to 9/11 will be captured?”
.
In a similar line of questioning -”How much longer do you predict it will be until the first person with a link to the vast co-ordinated conspiracy will come out and explain their role in the controlled demolition?”
Just taking a punt on the date I’d say 1 March 2003:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_Sheikh_Mohammed#September_11.2C_2001.2C_attacks
Fran, are you perchance related to Humpty Dumpty? You seem to share his penchant for making up definitions of words.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humpty_Dumpty#In_Through_the_Looking_Glass
The rest of us understand utility as meaning usefulness. It need have nothing to do with net public good.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/utility
GregM
Here is where I remind you of the concept of context. The meaning of words is determined in part by how they are deployed. The word sanction for example, can mean nearly opposite things, depending on how it is used. My entire response to Senex drew upon the conceptual ground offered by John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham and so the question of utility needed to be understood in this context.
I’m willing to accept that you are unfamiliar with this ground, but such unfamiliarity ill-recommends you to pronounce on the adequacy of my usage here.
You must be related to Humpty Dumpty. The definition you have linked to isn’t the same as the one you made up.
GregM@131
You are either being disingenuous or you are incapable of apprehending simple English. This is not the first time reading your posts has urged a choice between these inferences.
I suspect you are simply trolling. Certainly, your ‘commentary’ if that is not too flattering a descriptor of your text, contributes nothing to any matter of substance, which is unfortunate.
Good News, hot off the press!
Brumby has finally dumped Steve Newnham as ALP State Secretary in Victoria. He is to be replaced by Nick Reece.
This may result in a cleaner next election as, many will know, Steve had form particularly towards the greens. Les Twentyman was subjected to some pretty nasty tactics, as well.
“Since most teams lose, most of the time, the net public happiness — the net utility of elite sport if you will, must be negative.”
- Fran barlow
WTF?
How does that work? How can most teams lose most of the time?
Given that in every match one team will lose and one will win, (cept in a draw), then most teams will lose half the time and win half the time, and all teams will lose and win slightly less than half the time.
And it doesn’t take into account the morale boosting effect of non partisan elite sport. Watching the 2002 (?) AFL grand final between 2 sides I had no emotional involvement with. What a great game, and a fascinating contest.
Net result improvement in my morale.
I agree about the funding shift from elite to local level sport tho.
Somewhere online there is a study that shows underdogs succeed at a higher rate than would be expected and their success is determined by how well they attack weak points in structures. That favoritism is determined by a consensus analysis of what is required to succeed and that using these strengths as weaknesses.
Elite sport provides an excellent environment to study this. Anyway I can’t find the link. Thought it might be at John Robb’s site but it isn’t.
Here is an article connected to the concept, but I don’t think this is what I was originally thinking about.
here
Pretty much covers the same thing.
Daggett, was my sister part of the conspiracy? She was downtown in Manhattan working for Time mag on 9/11, and was plugged, real-time, into the evidence-gathering and cross-referencing systems that largely established the “official version” that gradually emerged to explain the attack. Information that fits the official explanation was flooding in from tens of thousands of sources, collated and sifted for useful info by thousands of hardworking people trying to find answers, communicating with each other in good faith and stricken with grief.
Where were you, buddy?
You do their efforts a grave injustice.
Jules@134
Any division in a sport where at the end of the regular season, the points are not all even is one in which at least half the teams have lost more often than they have won.
In a typical distribution, where there are about 8-10 teams in a junior competition, at the end of the season the top team and a principal challenger win between 65% and 90% of their matches and perhaps draw some of the rest and the remaining wins are scattered amongst the also rans. Typically two teams may go through the entire season with at most one win. Even the fourth placed team may well have a negative win-loss ratio.
Sidenot: A cousin of mine played in a soccer team during the 1970s in which the team won one match and drew another in the course of three seasons. During his time the bottom four of the 11 teams typically won 3-4 times per season — always when they were playing each other.
Over time of course, the better/more enthusiastic players are attracted to the better performed teams skewing the results still further.
When I’ve coached teams (cricket, inline hockey), this is the message I’ve always given them — that they must find a way fo enjoying their sport and regardless of the result, because if it is significantly bound up with winning, then their prospects of happiness are statistically unlikely and that in any event, they can be happy only at the expense of others. I pointed out that their prospects of earning a living in the sport were less than winning the lottery, and each week I’d pull out a scrath lottery ticket at the beginning of training, scratch two lots of $10,000 or $50,000 and then smile as no others turned up.
As perverse as it may seem, this insight lifted morale amongst the kids I was coaching, and we got down to focusing on the things we could control — our own skills, team cohesion and the enjoyment of each other’s company. In my first season of inline hockey, despite working with the “discards”, and suffering some truly awful scores, by the last half of the season we were competitive, though still unable to stay with the top team deep into the second half of the matches.
That said, we laughed amongst ourselves at the end of each match and even got a couple of “star” recruits from the number 2 team following season and finished third out of seven with a 50-50 win/loss and a couple of them that we were a touch unlucky to lose.
Daggett 9/11 is a brand now – nothing else. It has been since around 2005 when the last of 9/11 truth disappeared up its own arse and joined the consensus level of identification to it.
People use it to reinforce their cultural identity.
Anti authoritarian types who want to seem edgy but don’t really challenge authority like it to reinforce their views of themselves without actually doing anything practical to address real injustice in the world. (IE We’re fighting for the truth, and once we win then the Patriot Act, the Afghan and Iraq wars and all the other evil in the world will magically disappear.)
Racists use it to reinforce their particular bigotry – ie “the Jews done it” or “the Muslims done it”.
Rationalists use it to reinforce their cultural superiority, and their preference for putting things in boxes and leaving them there, free of further examination. (IE You challenge our dominant paradigm then you are racist, or crazy or both, and worse – you damned cultural heretic.)
You probably should read the lolz link.
Some of you cereal rationalists could do with a look at the LULZ too.
Mind you its probably only worth it for the historical significance.
Murph the serf (@ 127) wrote:
I can’t say.
If that were to happen, it would require that the person concerned would have reflected upon his/her actions and have changed from being a cold-blooded killer into a person capable of feeling remorse.
Furthermore, blowing the whistle on the controlled demolition of the three WTC towers would obviously entail enormous personal risk. If anyone who were to come forward to blow the whistle, they would need immediate round-the-clock protection, or his/her life expectancy would be very short.
And even then, what guarantee would there be that the Newsmedia which has already covered up so much news contrary to the Official Conspiracy Theory would even report it?
Who is to say that someone may not have already attempted to step forward but been silenced?
It should be worth noting that Barry Jennings, a former New York Housing Authority Emergency Coordinator, who worked in the ‘collapsed’ World Trade Center Building 7 including on 11 September 2001 and who was outspoken with testimony against the Official account of the collapse of Building 7, died mysteriously in August 2008. Before he died he told of how his job had been threatened and he feared for his life. Some of his testimony can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQY-ksiuwKU
The Testimony of Scott Forbes a computer technician employed in the South Tower and who witnessed power downs and many other mysterious events, including visits by large numbers of technicians with toolboxes up to the weekend prior to 9/11 during these power downs, can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brSXmZVVCMI
There is also an enormous amount of corroborating evidence from 9/11 hero William Rodriguez of mysterious happenings in the WTC buildings before and during the 9/11 attacks.
In short there is a mountain of evidence in support of the hypothesis that charges were placed in the WTC buildings prior to 9/11. None of that evidence was considered by the 9/11 Commission.
So, I think it would be wrong to reject the alternative to the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory simply because none of the 9/11 Conspirators themselves have, so far, stepped forward to confess their role in the 9/11 attack.
GregM (@ 128),
Khaled Sheikh Mohammed was tortured and his confessions have not been tested in a proper open trial, so I think, given that no proof that any of the hundreds of other tortured Guantanamo Bay detainees have have been shown to have participated in 9/11 and that not one other person with a proven link to the 9/11 attack has been captured in 8 years of war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, we are more than a little entitled to be skeptical about the claim that the 9/11 attacks originated in Afghanistan.
I therefore think we are entitled, after all this time, to see a new inquiry in which all the large numbers of unanswered question, which were not asked by the 9/11 Commission, are properly pursued, just to be absolutely certain that the wrong people have not been blamed for 9/11, don’t you think?.
—
Apologies for the errors in my previous post.
“So, how much longer do you predict it will be until the first person with link to 9/11 will be captured?”
… should have been:
So, how much longer do you predict it will be until the first person with a proven link to 9/11 will be captured?
… and:
“a critical and open minded”
… should have been:
“a critical and open mind”
Fran, I do accept what you are saying re the stats, I just don’t think thats all there is too it.
I have coached juniors as well (and hopefully will again), Aussie Rules in Northern NSW, and the AFL needs a serious kick up the backside wrt its funding policies in this part of the world. I have coached sides that had one win in a season and one that went through the season undefeated with an average winning margin of 20 goals. We won the flag too. What a relief. (Definition of pressure – undefeated side in the hours leading up to a grand final.)
I totally agree with the focus. On having fun and for me on developing character traits I think are important. Most kids seem to want to develop those traits anyway so thats actually easy. Your scrathcie trick is excellent btw, I will steal it. (Tho some of the kids I have coached have gone on to make money from sport and have a chance at building a career out of it. Lots of talent in this part of the world.)
And to be even more boring I agree with pretty much everything you said in that post. I actually still play seniour Aust rules and my side hasn’t won a game since 2005 (tho we folded for a year that year and coming back has been a huge strugle.)
Tho as far as my comments above go, well i’ll be the example again.
I started playing again in a struggling country side in my 30s, half way through the season (mid life crisis I think). The side I played for hadn’t won a game all year. That year we won one game. But made the finals (4 team league that year), and lost our semi by 8 points. Our average losing margin was about 12 goals all year.
The next year we made the Grand Final only to lose after not losing a game in the second half of the season. (If half the side hadn’t been at a doof off their heads the night before we would have won, bastards. Things went downhill after that.)
My point about morale is that any analysis of stats is irrelevent. Its about the next game, the future, and thats why the chances of winning are always 50% (or just under) whatever the actual stats say. Thats what drove my teams success.
That applies to elite sport as well. Its in the nature of supporting a side.
But also the professionalism of it levels the playing field.
11 Sides have won the last 19 AFl premierships, thats approximately two thirds of the teams in the competition, and there is a 50% chance that will be twelve after this years GF. (IE St Kilda or the Bulldogs have to make the final and they have not won a GF since 1990).
So as far as morale goes you could argue that over two thirds (and 75% if St Kilda or the Bulldogs win this year) of AFL fans have had their morale improved due to the AFL over the course of a year. During the last 20 AFL seasons. A Grand Final win trumps everything else in terms of supporting elite Australian Rules Teams. Therefore a Premiership has a huge morale value compared to everything else in the game.
That one example doesn’t prove my point. But it strongly supports it, especially given the cultural power of Australian Rules football and the AFL in Australia. (BTW non aussie rules people, AFL is the name of a league, Australian Rules is the name of a game, calling the game by the name of the league contributes to the power of the league to define the game on its terms. Please don’t do it.)
I haven’t done any serious analysis of this on any level tho, discussed it with other footy fans sure, and those discussions are a big part of what made me go WTF in repsonse to your comment.
I don’t know whether a similar analysis of other popular elite team sports would provide the same impression/result.
There is another aspect to the morale building effects of elite sport. You don’t have to be a Jamaican to celebrate the performances of Ussain Bolt last month, things like that inspire everyone who is a fan, cos they constantly remind us that as humans we are always capable of surpassing our limits and extending the possibilities that life offers us. (OK it may be hard to that from a flat in gaza, or a village in the Congo but …)
“Every time a scientist, philosopher, artist or athlete pushes our thresholds to new ground the whole race evolves.”
That other aspect of morale applies to the AFL (for example) as well. If your side isn’t playing you can get enormous satisfaction from a great game because you have no stake in who wins or loses. You can be inspired (improve morale) by the performances of both sides. And of individuals on both sides.
There’s even the joy of seeing a team you don’t like suffering a loss. (There’s a dark side to everything.)
BTW I think your insight re the scatchies makes perfect sense. It isn’t perverse at all. People play sport primarily for the fun of it, and winning is far less satisfying if there is no fun involved. Somnetimes the pressure of being required to win, and to want to win interferes with peoples (eps juniors) enjoyment of the game. The scratchie trick is a great idea and a brilliant way to legitimise enjoyment in sport. Well done.
Also if you coach underdog sides that article is definitely worth checking out.
Daggett id right re KSM.
Anything that connects him to 9/11 via his capture, questioning and trial is compromised. There is no way it can be considered a fair trial and so any connection to the attacks that cannot be considered reliable, KSM was placed under extreme duress. Somewhere there are claims by people that his children were abused to get him to co operate in Pakistan, and the people making the claim are prepared to swear affidavids to that effect.
I dunno how true that claim is and aren’t interested in finding out myself but you might want to check it out Daggett.
Tho how you or anyone can claim the uncontrolled collapse of the 2 WTC towers looks anything like a controlled demolition is beyond me. Building 7 might, but its collapse looks nothing like the twin towers anyway.
Calling the collapse of the twin towers a controlled demolition is the sort of abuse of language that makes anyone with a brain look at “truthers” through very narrow eyes.
Jules (@ 141),
Firstly, thank your supporting my point re Khaled Sheikh Mohammed.
In regard to the ‘collapses’ of the Twin Towers, even on the day at least one news commentator commented on how the ‘collapse’ reminded him of a controlled demolotion.
Obviously they would have been of different kind of controlled demolition to the standard bottom-up demolition designed to use the force of the collapsing building to minimise the need for explosives. Nevertheless, there is no ironclad rule that says the buildings must be demolished from the bottom up.
Clearly, if the twin towers had been programmed to be destroyed from the bottom up the claim that the planes caused the collapse would have been immediately seen through.
In regard to WTC Building 7, its collapse was indistinguishable from traditional controlled demolitions as another news commentator also commented on that day. If you agree with me that that is the only possible way that what we observed can be explained, then surely we have to ask: Why wasn’t that hypothesis even considered by the NIST which was charged with explaining what would have surely otherwise been an unprecedented engineering disaster with far-reaching implications for building construction?
That they did not investigate this hypothesis and chose to lie about the collapse demonstrates to me that the ‘investigation’ was, in fact, a cover-up.
For more information, please vist Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth at ae911truth.org.
“If you agree with me that that is the only possible way that what we observed can be explained”
Now why on earth would I do that?
You: a country bored of prosperity and consumerism, longing for war, sacrifice, oil and profit.
Me: a rampaging monster war-criminal of your nightmares, with all the cover-ups already turned down low, and the bed of nails for our ravenous future conflicts all prepared. Let’s make freaky conspiracies with no particular strategy, except to challenge in difficulty every heretofore executed cunning plan. With scented candles.
You’ve got questions, I’ve got innuendo.
Guffaw.
Aw c’mon al-Sarcasti
it’s EASY to hijack two planes and fly them into tall skyscrapers where mysterious men carrying TOOLKITS (oh heavens!) have laid explosives timed to mimic the collapse of skyscrapers after the two planes laden with aviation fuel have hit the buildings.
The HARD part is convincing a sceptical world that you achieved such a fiendishly clever plan….
But none of this is as difficult as giving (home) birth in a fiery bus flying above the massed ranks of burning motorbikes in the Boys’ Own Extreme Home Birthing Comp (semi-finals)
I’d buy that for a steamed prawn dumpling. I always knew you were freakay, Haiku.
Its all a GOP Plot!. Using superior American technology Bush and Company organised for a hollywood horror spectacular to be screened simultaneously on every TV in the world. Even those people who’d never heard of America, believed 9/11 happened so he could declare war on Iraq so he could purloin Iraqi oil. But, in fact, like the moon landing it was just one gigantic hoax. And Ratty was in on it.
How long do you think it’ll take that one to fly around the intertubes? Or has somebody else already thought of it?
Please don’t take me seriously.
White soul and chuck dee-rision in full effect, oh lizard overlord.
Old news, Paul, old news.
(ahem) As a former commo-sewer of conspiracy theories, I think I had something like your suggestion whipped up within minutes. Discounted almost immediately, of course, because a) none of those people are bright enough to dream something like that up and b) even if they were, someone would’ve Deep Throated it within days.
OMFG, you nearly shook my faith – if not my campari – in Duran Duran there, Hoges.
Personally, I’ve alway thought that if you want to see dark conspiracies busted wide open by blokes in the know, you cannot go past Sir Digby.
Jules, legally torture would only invalidate his confession and exclude it from evidence. It would not exclude a trial where evidence independent of the impugned confession was available and sufficient to prove guilt.
Also re the allegations of abuse of his children, however repulsive if true, would only be evidence supporting the impugning of any confession he made. The abuse of his children (or even a threat to abuse his children) would of course be criminal acts in themselves and if there is sufficient evidence of them the perpetrators should be tried for it. However I would not get to excited about the fact that people are prepared to swear affidavits about it. There are people prepared to swear affidavits about all sorts of things.
I understand that KSM wants to be tried before a court or tribunal and plead guilty with open admissions. If that were to take place then whether he had made an impugned confession would be legally irrelevant, although to 9/11 Truthers even that would be insufficient to establish his guilt. They will believe what they want to believe come what may.
If you haven’t yet, listen *right* to the end of that Duran Duran clip for the call-and-response. Who’s that… but I won’t ruin it.
GregM, well said.
Gotcha Liam.
But seriously, WTF???
Greg a legal system that justifies torture is (imo) invalid by definition, so whatever other evidence it comes up with is irrelevent too. Its got no business making judgements and won’t have till it pulls its head in.
Thats just me tho.
Personally I think there are a lot of questions that need answering about sept 11. The most obvious being why weren’t Bush and Cheney impeached or hung from a lamppost for gross negligence the next day?
If there’s a similar attack tomorrow Obama will be.
They were responsible and they failed in their duty of care to the American people. Whether that was deliberate or cos they are incompetent … I don’t really care. The fact they immediately got everything they wanted raises some other questions about whether Americans are mature enough to actually handle democracy.
However I don’t think any of those serious questions about the event or its surroundings relate to CD, no matter how flawed the NIST report was.
I’m not American and even if I was there are countless more important things. Like I said 9/11 is a brand.
People define themselves by it and the idea that any serious investigation of the myriad failures that preceeded it or the stunning corruption in the US that helped enable it is never gonna happen. Its one of those identity things, and it’ll be stuck in the realm of the mythological forever.
Which is a pity cos our (Western culture’s) reaction to it has been appalling, on nearly every level.
But the way so called right thinking people dismiss any questioning of it as loony “conspiracy theory” (a thought killer of a term if ever there was one) is functionally identical to Creationists rejection of evolution.
At least in my opinion.
Maybe part of my scepticism stems from the fact that someone was reporting finding a hijackers passport in the rubble by 10.30 wednesday our time.
Perhaps part comes from the simple fact that within hours of the event people (ie US FEd officials) were naming Al CIA..duh
as the main suspects.
That didn’t happen with OKC bombing despite the fact that McVeigh was in custody within hours, and its pretty damn rare with any police investigation.
Osama made a statement within days strenuously denying any connection with the event, which seems odd given the way Al Quaeda (HTF do you spell it anyway?) operates and that also seems sus, well it does if it was them.
I have no idea if the hijackers acted alone or not, but I suspect they didn’t.
Even if they did the consequences of the event for our democracies and for muslims all over the world suggest it should have been investigated more and many questions surounding the event itself, what lead up to it and what we have done since should probably be answered.
I’d rather talk about the footy tho, Fran….
Thanks for your comments Jules. As should be clear though, my observations were focused on elite sport rather than grass roots stuff, which I think is very commendable when well run.
I did look at the article and it did make sense, though I’m not a basket ball afficionado. As a teacher though, I have always approached sport from a management of outcomes/individual learning needs point of view and that’s what I took into my coaching. That’s probably why, given that I always got the teams nobody wanted to coach, it worked so well. I’m very big on the whole group morale work-as-a-team thing — given my politics that makes sense. Seeing sporting contests as a series of strategic exercises made sense for me.
We had some tremendous fun in our cricket matches.
“As should be clear though, my observations were focused on elite sport rather than grass roots stuff, which I think is very commendable when well run.”
Er… you do know why grass has roots, right?
To get nutrients to the heads?
Paul, or some other Green present
.
There’s a thread on Bob Brown’s critique of the stimulus package at Catallaxy. I know you’re reluctant to face the abuse, they do like to bash Bob, but I’d appreciate some comment viz the rationale for it.
Bingo!!!
That’s mighty fine near-ground rainbows you found, Professor Griff.
Old Isaac Newton, if they’d a had lawn sprinklers in his day, he’d a been onto that quicker than a flash.
Ain’t no mystery. Don’t need no contaminated water.
Hell, we saw dat in suburbs o’ Melbourne (Awstralia) when we wuz kids. Eisenhower wuz Prez. Menzies wuz PM. Conspiracy was Japs bombing Pearl Harbour, or Pig Iron Bob pullin’ Vladimir outa the hat for an election.
We wuz simple folks but heppy. Hell we wuz heppy.
“If that were to happen, it would require that the person concerned would have reflected upon his/her actions and have changed from being a cold-blooded killer into a person capable of feeling remorse.”
Get real – what person who goes off to work on this massive project doesn’t mention this work to anyone? Just accidentally , one night when doing what we humans do so well and let loose sometimes?
What about the supplier of the plan the secret agents need so they know where to place the explosives?
Oh that’s right – it is all done by government agents and we all know how secure anything confidental or secret is within a government.
.
“Furthermore, blowing the whistle on the controlled demolition of the three WTC towers would obviously entail enormous personal risk. If anyone who were to come forward to blow the whistle, they would need immediate round-the-clock protection, or his/her life expectancy would be very short.”
So what does this mean? You live in a darkened cupboard and eat food passed through a small door after the taster has sampled it?
.
“And even then, what guarantee would there be that the Newsmedia which has already covered up so much news contrary to the Official Conspiracy Theory would even report it?
Who is to say that someone may not have already attempted to step forward but been silenced?”
Primarily the fact that thousands of people who believe they have been probed by extraterrestials seem sane compared to those who believe in the World Tower Conspiracy and yet all other readers of media get exposed to these ravings
constantly.
Oh plus the fact that when you just scratch the surface of these sites or “organisations” gross antisemitism oozes out is just repulsive.
ELITE SPORTS UPDATE
The Australian aussie rules football team has been announced. First fixture is a five-match series vs. England.
Called “The Bashes”. Tremendous sponsor support. Australia expected to win the first series 5-nil, as England will not field a side.
Home grown metaphors …thats the thing isn’t it Fran, and FDB.
Elite sports and grass roots are mutually dependant, neither can really exist without the other.
And in Australia sport is a part of culture and identity, hence the value of both. But the imbalance needs addressing. Elite sport generates huge amounts of cash and it returns very little of it to the grass roots IMO. That needs to be addressed. imo its fundamental to the health(mental, physical, emotional and spiritual) of our society.
The underdog strategies are great learning tools btw. The world constantly pushes us into situations where we are “underdogs” and we need to react to a greater level of force, energy delivered, power or skill. Its important to be able to understand the dynamics of those relationships.
I look at some of our fire fighting tactics in the RFS in that way. A fire thats serious (tho not catastrophic) delivers greater energy than the people dealing with it can withstand. Classic underdog situation.
But an understanding of how fire works (ie the fire triangle, heat, O2 and fuel) gives us tools for dealing with the fire. Remove the fuel for example and the fire collapses. thats how we fight fire with fire (aka backburning).
The 9/11 attacks were also a classic underdog strike.
John Robb’s Global Guerillas site is good for that sort of analysis, open source warfare (and everything else) and decentralised networks, and their use in systems disruption is where its at.
Oh, Jules. You’re not a member of the school of Humpty Dumpty definitions as well are you? That you make up definitions as you go along, and everyone has to agree with you? If you reflect upon it, it’s not a very intelligent way of thinking, is it?
If so ,and I hope it is not true of you, it just makes you opinionated but smug and ignorant in your opinions.
Legal systems don’t justify torture. They reject it. They exclude “evidence” – for it is false evidence and illegally gained- obtained from it. That does not mean that they do not go about determining breaches of the law proved on other evidence obtained and submitted to the exclusion of that false evidence. This is the intelligent way of behaving and that is the way the law operates.
They also punish of those who seek and submit to them such false evidence, while according to them the same legal rights as those who were falsely accused.
That is the intelligent approach, even if it does not satisfy the smug and unintelligent who think that their uninformed opinions should be accepted, by their own definitions, as law.
Greg, can’t you read?
here we go try again:
Greg a legal system that justifies torture is (imo) invalid by definition, so whatever other evidence it comes up with is irrelevent too. Its got no business making judgements and won’t have till it pulls its head in.
Thats just me tho.
Sure I make up definitions as I go along, but no one has to agree with me. We are commenting on a blog FFS not writing the Gospels.
Why don’t we agree on a consistant definition of a legal system, torture and then we can see if there is one that justifies torture, accepts evidence gained under extreme duress and uses it.
“Legal systems don’t justify torture. They reject it.”
What all legal systems, ever? Ok then…
I still think KSMs trial was far from fair. For a start he didn’t seem fit to be tried.
But again thats just me, based on my opinion, having NOT ACTUALLY BEEN THERE.
By whom? the US government, as daggett, whose opinions you seem to think we should give credence, proposes.
or do you have some other nutcase theory that you want to expose to the world?
Also, just a point of due diligence here,(for there was a previous commenter here called jules who was one of jinmaro’s many manifestations) are you the latest manifestation of LP’s hydra (and psychologically struggling interlocutor) in one of her infinite forms?
If so best wishes to you. I’m glad I don’t have the cross you have to bear.
And if it is so I will respect your privacy and comment no more on your posts.
Umm. He hasn’t been tried yet. So to what trial are you referring? Please provide a link.
I see your allusion, FDB@157 …
So what you are saying, metaphorically speaking, is that the role of the grass roots is to feed athletic flowering heads – which will explain why so many are dopes.
Once the heads have flowered, h. rumensis grazes the sports pages ‘consuming’ the athlete and belching out massive amounts of gas in order to breakdown the hemi-cellulose athletic sheath and convert its worth to a kind of morale boosting protein. And even the feacl matter can culture new athletes in our suburban parks.
Fascinating.
A favourite Monty Python skit comes to mind:
We’re talking about Khalid Sheik Muhammad right?
OK perhaps some confusion arises from the fact that the trial that started in 2008 at Guantanamo hasn’t finished as yet to the best of my knowledge, and is awaiting a plea (which strangely, you know about) thats been delayed due to hearings to determine how nuts his co accused might be. But still, far from fair, and his comments … he sounds a bit like he has lost the plot.
Anyway you have been smugly condescending and can’even be bothered to read what I type, let alone answer my questions. You can find a link yourself, I’m not your waiter.
I’m sure someone will tell you how to use wikipedia.
GregM ’smugly condescending’? You must have the wrong GregM.
I wrote (@ 142):
FDB (@143) wrote:
FDB, my comment was addressed to Jules who had acknowledged that the collapse of Building 7 might have been a controlled demolition.
If anyone has any doubt that the collapse of WTC 7 was not a controlled demolition, please check out these videos by US Physics teacher David Chandler.
“WTC7 in Freefall”
“‘WTC7: NIST Admits Freefall’ …The Movie”
“WTC7: NIST Finally Admits Freefall (Part II)”
“WTC7: NIST Finally Admits Freefall (Part III)”
Each is at the very most 10 minutes. The presentation style is quite lively. The videos of NIST people finally admitting to what David Chandler had maintained all along, but they had previously adamantly denied, that is, that for over two seconds WTC 7 collapsed at accelarations indistinquishable from free-fall, is not to be missed.
Jules (@155) wrote:
Please think more carfully about this. The NIST was, very belatedly, after the 9/11 Commission tried to pretend that WTC 7 had not even ‘collapsed’, charged with establishing how WTC 7 had ‘collapsed’. They have clearly failed to provide an explanation that makes sense and they have failed to consider any of the overwhelming video evidence and eyewitness testimony in support of the controlled demolition hypothesis.
Do you think that that is good enough? Why aren’t the US taxpayers and, more importantly, the construction engineering profession, given a clear picture of what happened that is, unless the ‘inquiry’ was intended to cover up a crime.
As I have pointed out, large numbers of US citizens are demanding a new and proper inquiry into 9/11 including into the ‘collapses’ of WTC 7 as well as the Twin Towers, so that we can discover the truth of what happened on that day one way or the other.
So, why shouldn’t a proper inquiry be set up as the 9/11 Truth Movement demands?
Jules (@ 164) wrote:
How does it help an underdog to judge him/her guilty of a crime he/she did not commit?
I thank you for your many helpful contributions to this debate, but they are somewhat marred by statements such as that above.
GregM (@ 152) wrote,
Of course, I would be most interested to see Khaled Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) openly admit to having helped mastermind 9/11 in a court room. I would also be most interested to learn where and how he and his alleged co-conspirators plotted 9/11 and I would be most interested to see that evidence corroborated by other witnesses and other evidence.
In the meantime, until that happens, I think I have every right to remain extremely skeptical given the total lack of any other creidble evidence after eight years and given the vastly stronger body of evidence which implicates senior figures within the US Government.
In fact, 9/11 appears, to some extent, to have been carried out by patsies who genuinely believed that what they were doing was going to strike a mortal blow against the infidel West. It may well turn out that some of those patsies did operate from Afhanistan and KSM may have even been one of them, but we have yet to see any solid evidence that they did, as even you acknowledge.
GregM (@ 152) continued,
Judging from the comments I have read on this forum thus far, this charge seems more applicable to 9/11 Truth Deniers.
I wonder if it is time to comment on the Dennis Ferguson case. It is particularly pertinent for me, since he is staying five-seven minutes by car from where I grew up and I still have primary-school-aged family members in the area.
Now DF is not one of nature’s gentleman, and I can’t say that I’d befriend him or even giver him the time of day if the occasion arose, but I do accept that he has a right to live, which clearly implies a right to live somewhere, and provided he is getting an appropriate level of ’support’ it might as well be in Ryde as anywhere. It’s hard to imagine that he could in practice be a threat to anyone, and the protests are, it seems to me, an exercise in pure animus, which reflects poorly on those involved.
I heard one of the protesters complaining that he keeps moving from place to place, which probably qualifies as one of the more ironic claims in the public discourse I have heard. I’d have loved to ask the woman why she thought that was and what could be done about it.
Re Dennis Ferguson. i suspect he’s too old to be a threat to anyone. I agree that now he has served his time he has the right to live peaceably and quietly at a reasonable distance away from schools, playgrounds and other places where children gather.
The thing that bothers me about the way he’s being treated by a lot of understandably terrified parents, is that, according to a forensic psychologist I saw on TV last night or this morning, if he is harrassed in this way and not allowed to live a normal life (eg grow red flowers in pot plants) there is a grave danger he might re-offend, because the community does not allow him to adapt back into society.
For all we know he might be “cured” -though I wonder if that is possible. But he has got himself engaged in some peculiar jobs that might bring him in contact with children. I can’t help being suspicious. But then again such news comes from the Murdoch stable, so it might be a lie.
btw, isn’t wonderful the way these Saturday Salons are turning into real gab-fests? I like it, anyway.
I doubt he is cured but that’s not the same as claiming that he is an ongoing threat.
In any event, the crime for which Ferguson was convicted involved systematic grooming. He didn’t snatch a child at random from the streets but befriended a woman whose husband Ferguson knew to be serving time for sexually abusing the very children in question. Then, in concert with another man, persuaded the mother to allow him to take these vulnerable and very young children on holidays. That’s his MO.
He’s one of Australia’s best known hate figures, so how likely is that in the current context? Zero. One may assume that all the people with children in the area have cautioned their children, so really, apart from an extreme version of not wanting unpleasant neighbours in the street, I don’t see the problem.
If you’re not going to have a death penalty or a life without parole for single low level sex offences (and on the evidence by the crown in 1987, he was interrupted in the nick of time) then you have to allow even very undesirable characters to live somewhere.
In Florida this is what has resulted from the hysteria.
The most pathetic comment that I heard regarding the unfortunate Dennis Ferguson is that he should be in an area away from young families, of which there are apparently a preponderance in the Ryde area. Unlike most other areas of Sydney? WTF? I live (sadly out of place) in the ultra trendy inner west area, and even here it’s full of young families infesting the footpaths and cafes with their four wheel drive prams and ordering skinny babychinnos for their delightful offspring.
So where the hell is he supposed to live? The only place I can think of that doesn’t have young families nearby is jail.
Daggett, you have every right to remain skeptical, if by skeptical you mean the process of reserving judgement about something and keeping an open mind. But that’s not what you’re doing is it?
What’s your suggestion? What’s your theory about what happened? What could possibly satisfy you that there was not a massive conspiracy to whip Americans into war-frenzy? Is there any evidence that could be presented to you that would change your mind about the invalidity of your so-called Official Narrative? Unless there is it’s on you to suggest a reason why your Senior Government conspirators would have done it, and innuendo just doesn’t cut it. You’ll just keep reaching for ever more tenuous “facts” to support your paranoid fantasies.
The September 11 attacks had no secret agenda. They were just tragic, senseless violence, and should be remembered as such.
Yours is not a search for “truth”, it’s an obscurantist, occultist search for hidden gnostic pearls, rejecting all fairness with primary sources, and it’s the opposite of history. I will not watch your videos. I will not read your Questions. I will not debate you on the differences between detonation and deflagration and the finer points of aluminium thermite’s utility in demolitions. I utterly reject the idea that your argument can be dealt with fairly or reasonably. Your “movement” should be engaged with only with derision, mocking and contempt.
So in that here’s some fucken’ youtube of a bloke wheelieing his bike on a skyscraper. Enjoy.
I think that the word your searching for is “mockery”, Sheik, of which your rant is a fine example.
I think the word you’re searching for is “you’re”, GARU.
That’s why it’s gratuitous, FDB.
I think you’re right FDB. Your attention to detail is commendable, unlike mine.
Shit, there goes the white beret and scarf. Might get a haircut too.
Sorry, just can never resist the holy grail of the pedant – correcting another pedant.
I’m sure you understand.
Oh and daggett, if you don’t care to be dissed be me, you could try out being dissed by Taibbi (stousher’s stousher).
I understand the temptation. Perhaps you and the sheik would prefer a beret of a rather fetching green, with red and gold highlights.
Thanks, Liam for your post @ 177.
It should be framed.
I can see 9/11 Truthers collapsing in uncontrollable fits of laughter for years to come when they read that.
Sorry, I will try the link again:
Thanks, Liam for your post @ 177. …
GregM I am not whoever you think I am. (I missed you question last nite or i would have answered it then.)
My take on 9/11 is a lot more complicated than most people on either side of that pointless debate would have.
I think its stupid to assume their were no hijackers involved, but equally stupid to assume there was no dodgy bullshit going on at the time. Dodgy bullshit the hijackers might not have been aware of.
I have known people in the “truth” movement for years. Most of them are pretty upset that the focus is on how the buildings collapsed rather than the drugs, arms people smuggling networks that intersect intel agencies and terrorist groups worldwide.
The only theory I have is that you can’t trust unaccountable power.
if thats a nutcase theory fine.
oh I hve another one.
Any discussion of 9/11 feeds the egregore.
Daggett – all that stuff about building 7 may be true. I don’t know and I don’t really care.
At a guess 15, 000 kids have died from poverty and disease since I last posted on this thread.
Who gives a fuck about 3000 dead yuppies nearly 10 years ago?
no one believes me
That comment was way too harsh and unreasonable and an insult to the firemen, cops and other people who died trying to help save lives. ASnd the ordinary working people who went to work that day expecting to go home to their families friends and lives. Its also completely bogus to call the janitors, cops and firemen and whoever else was there “yuppies” when odds are they weren’t.
I apologise to the families of the people who died there for letting my frustration drive me to make such a tasteless comment.
Like most people who hacve paid attention to the events of 9/11 I rather doubt the full account has come out. Certainly anyone who read that book on the 9/11 Commission would have cause to believe that there is more to come out.
On the other hand, I think it utterly implausible to imagine that anything that could be described as a high-level government conspiracy took place to either facilitate the attacks or engineer events to look like same (as some “truthers” claim). To carry such a thing off would have entailed far more organisationasl coherence than the Bush Administration was capable of and implied literally thousands of people keeping stum for years after the events when there was a huge incentive to spill the beans and practically no incentive not to.
It might well be said that the Bush Administration was asleep at the wheel, and it is perverse that on the morning of the attacks the SAC was running a simulation of the attacks in question and it is bizarre that the towers collpased as neatly as they did and much of the steel reinforcement material that would have been evidentiary was apparently removed, but much as I would like good answers on these things, filling these curiosities with outlandish and often contradictory conspiracy accounts serves no good purpose.
I can’t believe i am gonna type more pointless stuff about 9/11.
But here goes:
“In fact, if there were any conspiracy here, I’d be far more inclined to believe that this whole movement was cooked up by Karl Rove as a kind of mass cyber-provocation, along the lines of Gordon Liddy hiring hippie peace protesters to piss in the lobbies of hotels where campaign reporters were staying.”
Thats about the only intelligent thing in the article. Its probably true, too, cos all we hear in the media is CD this and holograms that coming from those troofer nuts.
And it obviously worked cos Taibbi didn’t even mention Indira Singh or Sibel Edmonds.
Now I’m gonna ask a question thats been drowned out by the banging on about buildings that collapsed into a huge mess at significantly less than free fall speeds outside their own footprint. (Don’t believe me daggert, analyse the collapse for yourself. I have.) So far outside that footprint that a huge chunk of them slammed into building 7 as is clearly visible on any video of the event.
That question.
What orders were Dick Cheney referring to when he said “The orders still stand” (as quoted by Norman Mieta in his testimony to the 9/11 commission) at approximately 9.30 am on 11 sept 2001. Truthers claim Cheney issued stand down orders that morning, which is another misinterpretation (at least) of the evidence.
Is Cheney referring to the revocation of the shoot down orders that were in place pre July 01 wrt hijackings in the US. (IE shoot down orders were revoked in July, not the morning of the attack as some nutjob conspiratainment superstars like Alex Jones claim.)
Orders that came suspiciously close to the numerous reported briefing of potential Al Qaeda attacks that could well involve hijacking of planes to use as weapons. (Briefing to, if I remeber rightly, Rice, Addington, Ashcroft and numerous dept heads in the FBI, CIA and other alphabet agencies that sem to infest the US and the rest of the world.)
I believe theres even a record of Mossad trying to make these warnings clear to US somewhere (apparantly they did this on more than one occasion in the months leading up to 9/11), something the wanna be Nazis that hijacked the troof movement to further their own vile agenda never acknowledge.
This may all be innocent, and it may simply be a case that Cheney couldn’t bring himself to order the deaths of hundreds of hijacking victims. I can certainly relate to that. (Tho I seriously doubt it.)
Either way it has to be investigated properly. here we have testimony that clearly states Cheney was in the bunker at 9.25 am, while the commission itself claims he didn’t enter until 9.58 am. This sort of inconsistency deserves to be investigated.
Conspiracy or incompetent negligence who cares.
The fact that bush and cheney weren’t locked up, shot or hung from the white house chandeliers for such a massive failure in their duty of care to the US, but instead got everything they wanted as they proceded to dismantle centuries old legal protections and disappear people into a worldwide network of bases uses for detention and torture of anyone unfortunate enough to get in caught up in the mess, while at the same time they acted against the very constitution they were sposed to be bound by, and procdeed to start an illegal war with no rel;ation to the attack itself… (takes a deep breath)
That is something that really needs answering.
Anyway i’m off to give myself an exorcism.
Sorry for all the typos and poor grammer but really I’ve sunk enough energy into this black hole already.
Here’s an article by Paul Craig Roberts just published on Information Clearing House and not to be missed.
Why Propaganda Trumps Truth
Here are some excerpts:
Change of topic please!
Is anyone getting so sick of the ABC that they would advocate that the government sell off most, if not all of it. To put it another way, what is the point of a public broadcaster that:
-Is relentlessly partisan to one side of politics, and does little more than repeat coalition/News Ltd talking points ad nauseum.
-Is dumbing down most of its news/current affairs content (particularly on-line) to the extent that it is virtually indistinguishable from commercial networks.
- Produces little local content of any significance apart from the odd quiz show and embarrassingly bad ‘dramas’ that attempt to mimick their most recent success, Seachange (and that was 10 years ago).
- Whose only programs that are of any quality are usually imported from overseas, and could be sourced through other means if the ABC didn’t exist.
Please, someone tell me why we need the ABC in its current form?????
Rage, although the programming on that has been a bit suss lately too. In a three hour period all the good songs were by women, and all but two of the songs by men were sung by Australian Idol contestants. Also, Backstreet Boys now that you are in your 40’s (or very late 30’s at least) don’t try and cash in on the Vampire phenomenon and take yourselves seriously at the same time. You have to take the piss or retire.
It’s here. Go on I dare you.
Selling the ABC would only compound rather than mitigate a serious problem.
Part of the problem with the ABC is that has become infiltrated with employees of News Limited. Three names which come to mind are Madonna King, Sally Neighbour and Phillip Adams. The fact that they selected Rupert Murdoch to deliver the 2008 Boyer lectures is a symptom of that problem. stopmurdoch.blogspot.com has a lot to say about this.
In Queensland we have largely the ABC to thank for the fact that Anna Bligh got into office without her being required to inform the Queensland public her privatisation intentions. For more information, please see “Brisbane ABC suppresses alternative candidates in state elections despite listener dismay with major parties”
If it was sold to News Ltd, then at least it would have to abandon the pretence of independence, and maybe we could use the money to fund something useful and worthwhile. The ABC is neither of these at the moment.
Anyone who posts article which includes the eye-opening sentence:
Is just asking for some arsehole to come along and link to Mein Kampf to draw your analogy out, daggett, and I hope yu’re happy. Omitted from the Roberts quote you linked to is the rather essential sentence in my italics:
Hitler argued that Jews were behind the Big Lie of German leaders’ responsibility for the defeat in 1918. At least the Fascists were honest in having a positive target to conspiratorial paranoia. When you look through the Big Lie you claim is there around 9/11 what do you see?
And while we are doing controversial stuff … isn’t it time the ISAF forces left Afghanistan?
It appears that opposition in the US is now over 50% and it seems unlikely, with Mike Mullen describing the situation as serious and deteriorating, that it will become more popular any time soon. The recent elections underscored the difficulties involved. The exchange with Lindsay Graham “how many tanks have the Taliban got?” was devastating.
Obama would lose face leaving, as he (unwisely in my opinion) pledged support but in the longer run, as they say, all politics is local. He only needs to find a face saving way to leave — perhaps retreating to a watching brief in neighbouring states and he can say they are ready to send in troops if anything of national security concern develops. That would radically cut the cost of the intervention in money and bodies and many of the people the West doesn’t like could shoulder the business of killing each other.
The project was always unworkable. There is no significant group of persons upon which one could found a viable inclusive state, even with armed support from the outside. Accordingly, Afghanistan has never been a nation in any meaningful sense. What we have there is a largely 8th century patriarchal tribal culture equipped with the rudiments of late 20th century technology — an ugly mix.
Admit you got it wrong, and get the hell out of there I say.
PS … can anyone recall when the last time someone in power claimed that apprehending OBL or Mullah Omar was seen as a goal of the occupation? I think Obama mentioned it before becoming President in relation to Pakistan.
Great Taibbi piece Liam.
Daggett, did you read it? I like the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld planning session especially, and also this:
“the “conspiracy” they’re describing is impossible everywhere outside a Zucker brothers movie — unbelievably stupid in its conception, pointlessly baroque and excessive in its particulars, but flawless in its execution, with no concrete evidence left behind and tens of thousands keeping their roles a secret forever.”
BTW, I note you haven’t responded to my #136
On the ABC. Part of the reason they no longer do a lot of local drama is a) Howard and his cronies forced them to outsource it -ten years ago.
b) Their budget was cut to the bone by the Howard Government. i know Rudd sort of restored it, but it takes a while to get good drama series up.
Eventually Rudd will get sick of the Murdoch propagandists and put a broom through the place.
And. NO! IT SHOULD NOT BE PRIVATISED – EVER!
FDB @200 – IRL it would probably be more like a Coen brothers movie
Adrian the abc is more than the tv.
And Mindy is right.
We would all be fucked without Rage.
If that goes then the turrists have really won.
And Good Game is actually one of the best shows on TV. (Which is a damning indictment in itself.)
My wife hates video games and never plays them, but she never misses that show. They must be doing something right.
That’s very true, Paul Burns. The commercial broadcasters have local content quotas they have to meet, but strangely enough nether ABC nor SBS has had to do that. That’s a good thing because after they were cut to the bone by the Libs, they didn’t have enough money to make sufficient programming to fulfill a quota. That’s one reason why you see so many cheap and cheerful panel shows – they’re dirt cheap to produce.
The Labor Party promised that both that the ABC would have to meet local content quotas in the future and increased the funding, specifically for drama production, in the last budget. So, we should be seeing the fruits of that in 2010. Bear in mind that drama production costs $500,000 – $800,000 per hour to produce, whereas it only costs about $50,000 per hour to buy in a top rating British or US series.
Jules, if you like Good Game, you really should check out Yahtzee. Do yourself a flava, etc. That goes double for you, Liamerick.
I’d love someone to explain to me what the point of the ABC is in its current form. OK we may get some decent drama in 2010 or whatever, but maybe the ABC isn’t the best vehicle to deliver this drama, given its track record.
Yes, I know it’s more than TV – the radio news and current affairs content is even worse than the TV counterpart. Anyone remember when AM and PM used to be genuine current afairs programs?
If it doesn’t really have any point, why not use the money for a worthwhile media initiative?
I think that it’s the old boiling frog routine. We have gradually come to accept less and less from the ABC and react against any calls for its sale more from some imagined ideal of the past rather than present day reality.
And I keep saying you fly boys crack me up.
“L’argent prevaricateur”? The money/silver (the metal) prevaricator? Hmmm
Prevaricateur? Get crackin’, FDB.
Monsieur L’Agent, Yahtzee is forbidden by my work’s access policies. Unlike Adolf Hitler’s major work—make of that what conspiracies you please.
Well, grammatically a nonsense, but in the struggle to use our moniker to segue from something daft someone else has just said to our own youtube clip, we work with what we’re given eh?
In this case, 2 years of high school French and a lazy afternoon bottle of Cooper’s Sparkling in the sun.
Fuck me dead.
Okey dokes, that’s going in the bookmarks list for the next youtube Vjaying on acid night.
Must be just around the corner, too.
I was able to listen to local Victorian ABC radio from Northern NSW on Feb 7 this year.
Its performance that day wasn’t pointless.
*lifts jaw off the floor*
Simply outstanding, Haiku. I never knew Kath Day-Knight was an intersexually-challenged hermaphroditic dancing machine. Seems obvious, in retrospect.
Wow L’Ergot that was fucken awesome.
isn’t it time the ISAF forces left Afghanistan?
.
They can’t. If they do it will be percieved as a defeat and those people who’d side with the Taliban and Al Qaeda would flock there in droves to train for other 9/11s. Eventually another war would obtain.
.
Of course that’ll probably happen anyway. We should never’ve gone to war in Afghanistan in the first place.
On the fearsome Dennis Fergusson I want to grab these rabid mothers and raging fathers and force them to acknowledge that the responsibility for keeping their children safe is entirely theirs. Stranger danger certainly can’t be an issue in this case, parents can surely warn their kids of his “oddness” without unduly alarming or distressing them.
As well they need to be reminded that most child abuse occurs within the family, whether immediate or wider, or is perpetrated by someone known to and often trusted by the family in church, school or the neighbourhood at large. And of course most of the outrageously real statistics about child sexual abuse shows it to have been perpetrated in institutions into which children were taken for so called “care”.
Child abuse was not bruited about in my long ago infancy and primary school days,
but I can tell you it was real. I vividly recall the 1947 suicide in his about-to-be consecrated newly re-built church of a popular, married Anglican priest. Adults were totally astonished and postulated ideas about over-work (he had done so much to raise funds for that restoration) and money worries (he was already the father of five with another on the way). The children at his youth club knew differently. He had for some time been “playing with” some of the girls and inevitably they whispered their sad little stories to each other. Some of the boys heard about it and being particularly straight thinking they went as a group and told him he had to stop it! They could never have foreseen the tragic outcome. The true story never surfaced publicly.
In those days most children were left to their own devices for hours and days on end, some because their parents worked or many out of “benign neglect” and the belief that children needed to develop self reliance. There was little thought of sexual exploitation.
I am not sure that today’s full awareness of the extent of sexual predation makes children any safer. Parents still leave their children too much to their own devices without giving them the information and guidance which would protect them against abuse. Why are youngsters still left unsupervised in playgrounds and swimming pools? Why do we need internet censorship when parental supervision and monitoring of cyber-contact is so easily done? Because parents are lazy and expect someone else out there to do it all for them. Those making the loudest protests are often the least ready to take personal responsibility for what happens to their kids.
On the fearsome Dennis Fergusson I want to grab these rabid mothers and raging fathers and force them to acknowledge that the responsibility for keeping their children safe is entirely theirs.
Why do we need internet censorship when parental supervision and monitoring of cyber-contact is so easily done? Because parents are lazy and expect someone else out there to do it all for them. Those making the loudest protests are often the least ready to take personal responsibility for what happens to their kids.
Well said, Patricia WA. Ditto bans on junk food advertising. Get off your arse and parent your kids for Goddsakes, it’s not the TV’s fault their stuffing their face with McDonalds.
Adrien@215
It makes no difference either way. If people are determined to create new 9/11s then whether western troops are bleeding in Afghanistan is neither here nor there.
Right now the war is bleeding the west and making it look ineffectual. There is a victory for the other side of this asymmetric war right there. Whether the west admits defeat or not, everyone know it is defeated — it’s just here, nobody in power wants to say it out loud, and even worse, admit the death and injury toll has been for nothing.
To keep going though — for ten years which is what they are saying, throws good resources after irrecoverable resources for ends that are utterly improbable. The separation of church and state, the creation of a distinct civil sphere, or modernity took hundreds of years in the west and it wasn’t peaceable either. Afghanistan isn’t getting anything like that inside 50 years and certainly not at gun- and drone-point.
Well said PatriciaWA
and Michael Sutcliffe who agrees with her.
Except for one thing: from Fran Barlow @175
I take it that what Fran has written is true.
If it is true then that is nothing, short of stifling their child, a parent can protect them from such a calculating predator.
In such cases society should, through its instrument, the Parliament, pass laws to protect children from predators who do those things and in the face of such predation continue those laws through the life of the predator.
Fran’s conclusion (that we, as a society, should do nothing) from the facts she has laid out are, of course, nonsense. If she took the time to research the literature she would find that for pedophiles it is the impulse and the opportunity, not the MO, which drives the criminal behaviour.
Afghanistan is a classic example of why asymetric warfare tends to favour the underdog or “weaker” party. For a start the definition of weaker is problematic. The language used is not appropriate to the situation. Greater access to tech, more advanced tech, and greater access to resources on a scale bigger than the place where the conflict is taking place doesn’t translate into greater access to resources and tech in the actual theatre of battle.
A fair bit has to do with the nature of combatants. Greater access ot resources means greater centralisation and anyone familiar with how fire fighting in Victoria works will be aware of the problems with that.
Afghanistan is called the graveyard of empires for good reason. Its a logistical nightmare. Empires (and the US is an imperial force these days) get their advantages from greater access to resources, and without the logistical networks to supply these resources the empires are immediately disadvantaged. This is Afghanistan all over.
Of course there is more to it than just that, but its a start.
As usual GregM, you are mistaken on anumber of matters.
At no point do I claim/imply that “we, as a society, should do nothing” about sexual predators. I merely point out that as long as we don’t have life sentences or death, then they have to live somewhere. As a matter of practice, it’s probably unrealistic to house them in the suburbs — as the events in Ryde suggest. Rational or not, this is the reality, so maybe a next best solution is some sort of gated community designed to house them at some distance from regular folk.
I disagree though that parents have no role to play. Handing your already-abused kids over to some person for a “holiday” who has suddenly befriended you sounds like pretty poor judgement to me. If no alarms go off in your head at the suggestion, you probably aren’t up to the job of parenting.
Even as children you knew the parts of the neighbourhood with dangerous dogs and you took that into account when making your way home. This is no different in principle.
Finally we are not talking of Ferguson’s impulses but the threat he poses. These are quite separate.
Afghanistan isn’t just asymetric warfare, its 4th generation warfare, its a classic example of it, and the Taliban are using 4th gen tactics to great advantage. They have succeeded in delegitimising the state, tho its wasn’t that legit to begin with, and increasingly they are delegitimising the occupation forces, tho they, well we, have done a fair job of that themselves.
* The difference between 4th gen war and traditional insurgency is not always apparant, not always existant even, 4th gen warfare is jargon, but its useful jargon.
The only legitimacy left is basically with tribal groups and traditional elders. This is hardly great for “demcracy” and probably not real good for the future of human rights in there.
But it does provide an opportunity for the US to strike back. And they apear to be about to take it. (Tho whether they will, time will tell.)
Open source is where its at apparantly. And the US has decided to repeat its (successful it seems) experiment in open source counter insurgency.
You might remember the serge in Iraq? Along with the increased troop numbers the US poured a fair amount of resources and effort into arming, training and protecting Sunni militia. The also gave them a fair amount of autonomy to act, in the understanding that the militia would direct its own efforts against other insurgents that the US had been fighting and losing to.
With this tactic it effectively co opted the insurgency and used it to further the US’ own ends. This was a radical departure from previous Counter Insurgency policy which was based on maintaining and extending the legitimacy and sovreignty of the state.
Not quite sure why, Michael, @ 217, but I disagree with you about the McDonalds and other junk food ads. I think it’s because drawing the same analogy as yourself from my comment would mean I thought it OK for pedophiles to be trawling the internet and openly offering abusive sexual experience to any takers.
Junk foods are determinedly and openly targeted at children during their prime time viewing. Advertising by manufacturers and retailers in supermarkets is carefully designed to achieve maximum effect i.e. to push their products at parents through their kids. The ban on advertising for smoking seems to have had a healthy impact on the population at large over the years so I don’t see why some control of junk food advertising targeting kids shouldn’t work too. And that’s not just good for the particular kids who might grow up into healthier adults, but it’s good for the national budget too.
And yes, I do think parents should be mindful of what their kids are watching on TV. Unless, however, you can be like my daughter and other like-minded parents, and don’t have TV on for kids at all, then we should be able to look for some social controls on what is beamed into our homes. By the way, initially I was sceptical that the TV ban next door was practical, but it has been and the pay-off in happy, active and creative kids is huge. But as a one time working parent who relied on Skippy, Gilligan’s Island and Hogan’s Heroes to entertain my kids while I made tea and unwound from the job I can sympathise with the vast majority of Mums and Dads out there struggling with what their kids are exposed to.
So how is that different from my feeling that parents are directly responsible for their children’s moral and physical welfare with particular reference to sexual abuse? I’m thinking hard about it and I’d be glad of help on this!! After watching the 7.30 Report just now I was really glad there are people out there at least threatening arrest to these predators. However I still think general censorship like the clean feed will just make parents more complacent and feel less directly responsible for giving these sick individuals the opportunity to satisfy their impulses (thanks GregM) with children who clearly feel alone in their world.
So anyway I’ll get to the point.
There are signs the coalition is about to adopt the same tactics in Afghanistan. Following on from Pakistans recent move toward open source CoIn, Sherard Cowper-Coles the British foreign secretary’s special representative for Afghanistan siad this lately: “… the solution lay in devolving political power back to tribal elders who have traditionally held sway in Afghanistan, and funneling money for development through them.”
This flies in the face of what Mullins is reorted to have said today. But it appears Mullins wants a surge in AfPak. He reaffirmed his committment to tradition CoIn, but obviously thats not compatible with a surge strategy. Of course expecting a military leader to come out with his actual tactics in the news media is dumb as so when they do it you have to wonder they actually plan to do.
There’s not alot of difference between using militias and open source CoIn, but the major diffrerence, and its fundamental I reckon, is the shift from maintaining and extending the state’s sovreignty.
Anyway hopefully this shift to Open source CoIn might create a situation that enables a quicker withdrawal.
Cos “We should never’ve gone to war in Afghanistan in the first place.”
Thats fucking well right Adrien.
underdog or “weaker” party. For a start the definition of weaker is problematic. The language used is not appropriate to the situation
Are we to take it, jules, that you are arguing in favour of symmetric warfare, (posited as its contrast- and I have used the word posited here only to excite the interest of Fran who uses big words she doesn’t understand, and I think it is only charitable that I indulge her in that) where the combatants bring every resource at their disposal to bear, so as to prevail over their enemy (essentially the story of WW2)?
And on that basis the stronger party, which is overabundantly armed with nuclear weapons should just nuke every last place held by its enemy so as tc end the war?
That’s what symmetric warfare is.
Note that I haven’t expressed my views on the topic, Ive just asked for yours.
GragMan it really seems as if you have comprehension problems. Then again that was a pretty long winded up meself way of saying: “expect the coalition in Afghanistan to move away from supporting Khazai and pump more resources into tribal groups.”
It was annoying enough to write so I can’t blame anyone for finding it hard to follow and incoherent.
The only real significance of that is the shift away from traditional US counter insurgency. The implications of that shift are interesting and will be far reaching.
I’d never argue in favour of any warfare, unless I’m/we’re under a direct threat, its a waste of energy and resources.
Anyway wrt the quote you used, if weaker parties are actually weaker why are tho so successful in those situations referred to as asymetric warfare?
Sure in a symetric conflict the weaker party would get flogged, but asymetric warfare isn’t symetric wherefor, obviously. So using the same sort of language and the same sort of values to judge and define asymetric conflict is dumb. You’re already ata disadvantage cos the language you use interferes with your ability to accurately describe and therefore to accurately understand whats going on.
Its interesting tho, cos the nation state is on the way out and this conflict is a great way to see how the nation state in its most powerful incarnation (the US) copes with that, and what tactics it employs to slow the process.
Jules (@192) wrote:
What do you mean “significantly less than free fall speeds”? I don’t have the precise total collapse time at the tip of my fingers, but it was not much less than free-fall speed.
How could a building with so much redundant strength in its supporting structural steel collapse at anywhere near that speed through the path of greatest resistance?
One thing that is totally inexplicable if we accept the explanation that the collapse was due to gravity alone was that during one measured interval the speed of the front of the wave of building collapse on the North Tower actually exceeded free fall speed. See for yourself in US Physics teacher David Chandler’s video “Race With Gravity”.
Something other than gravity must have driven that collapse.
Jules (@192) continued
So, what point are you trying to make?
As I have already acknowedged the Twin Tower ‘collapses’ were obviously different from standard bottom-up controlled demolitions. Surely I don’t need to point out again that if the Twin Towers had been demolished in the conventional way there is no way they could have passed the collapses off as having been caused by the impact of the aircraft.
Although I am not an engineer, far less a demolition engineer, one would expect that it would be much harder to make the building collapse completely into its own footprint if the detonation sequence was top down.
The fact that so much building material was ejected such great distances would be due to the fact that those who set up the demolition would have erred on the side of using too much explosives to be more certain that no incriminating evidence would be subsequently found.
The critical point with the Twin Towers is not how well what we saw conforms with traditional controlled demolitions, rather it is whether the sudden total loss of structural strength can be fully explained by the impact of Flight 11 and the fire.
If not, then we have to ask what else could have so suddenly removed that strength. The only explanation offered is that it was removed by planted explosives detonated in a rapid sequence from the top down.
The term I choose to use for this and whaht news reporters used on the day is ‘controlled demolition’. If you want to use a different term, than that is fine by me.
A proper investigation that was seriously intended to explain how the towers collapsed would have investigated this hypothesis and taken account of the recorded evidence and numerous eyewitness accounts in support of that hypothesis, but it did not.
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Liam (@198),
Thank you for pointing out that when Hitler enunciated the principle of the Big Lie, he was meaning to accuse Jews of employing the technique. At least that explains to me why Hitler would have included that in Mein Kampf. It would hardly have helped his cause if he had announced to his own followers that he intended to use the same propaganda technique that he accused jews of using.
Regardless, the passage acccurately explains how that technique works and so it seems appropriate that Paul Craig Roberts chose to use that quote in his article.
Liam at #177 “Yours is not a search for “truth”, it’s an obscurantist, occultist search for hidden gnostic pearls, rejecting all fairness with primary sources, and it’s the opposite of history.”
Did someone say Dan Brown?
Daggett I am not having the same argument with you that I have had countless times with countless others.
Just consider for a moment.
You are asking people to accept that something can fall faster than free fall. Both in the case of the towers and building 7.
The towers obviously didn’t fall at free fall speed – debris from them clearly does, thats why it is falling ahead of the collapse. IE when you see a photo and there is a huge chunk of wall falling beside the building, ahead of the collapse wave or whatever you call it, then clearly that debris is falling at free fall speed. When the building takes 50% longer to fall than an object in free fall would its obviously wrong to say it fell at free fall or near free fall speeds. I accept the NIST report also makes ridiculous claims about the speed of the fall etc etc trying to fit some pre concieves norion of what happened thats no reason to imitate them.
also if ….
Arggggh fuck I can’t believe I’m typing this.
Sucked in again…
Did you (everyone besides Daggett, he should already know this,) know Mohammed Atta went out with Amanda Keller.
No shit, google it.
Not the Amanda Keller, of course.
Why would a Wookiee, an eight-foot tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of two-foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case?
I know. That’s why I showed it to you.
People who look through Big Lies usually see something on the other side, daggett. Apart from fluff and bluster and pre-emptive Chewbacca defence, what’ve you got? A secret Cabal blew up buildings to hide the fact that planes wouldn’t destroy them? I mean, why bother with the planes at all? Why are we arguing about freefall “speed” when it’s really on you to answer WHY THE HELL THIS SUPPOSED CONSIPRACY MAKES ANY SENSE?
Heh. Convenient.
PatriciaWA, I think you are a bit out of touch re. these “benignly neglectful” parents of today. The prevailing culture at the moment is not to let the children out enough , to drive them most places and not let the poor things have an unsupervised moment. This brings with it its own different risks – a naive and sheltered teenager or 20something is also at risk of sexual assault and other harms. The pendulum needs to swing back more towards the benign neglect, IMO (and that of others – there have been a few discussions of this topic on the blogs lately). My twelve year old is allowed to walk around the neighbourhood and visit his friends and vice versa. If Ferguson moved in next door, we’d simply tell them not to have anything to do with him.
Actually, Liam, what nobody ever seems to mention is that the WTC towers were in fact made completely out of explosives. It’s really sort of amazing that they didn’t blow up long ago. Why they chose to build them that way is something that nobody in NY ever really understood.
I remember when we were kids, we used to take the trolley over to lower Manhattan during the summer, and chip off little bits of the WTC to bring home and use as fireworks at Fourth of July picnics.
True story. Although these days I can be “disappeared” for relating it.
Eminently reasonable, Helen … well said.
Jules (@ 229) wrote:
Please contemplate the fact that a monstrous crime was committed on 11 September 2001 and millions of people around the world who have looked at the evidence believe that people innocent of having committed that crime have been blamed for that crime. As a result hundreds of billions have been spend on wars, well over one million have died, many more have been maimed or displaced.
So, some of us believe this is important. Some of those people happen to have had loved ones killed on that day. They include Jean Canavan, Manny Badillo and Bob McIlvaine. Please take all of 50 seconds to hear them appeal for your support for a new and proper inquiry into 9/11 in a youtube broadcast embedded at nyccan.org. They include the Jersey Girls who fought heroically against the Bush amdministration to even have the 9/11 Commission held as rigged as that was.
You rightly apologised for having written the words “Who gives a fuck about 3000 dead yuppies nearly 10 years ago?” If you were sincere in that apology and, even more so, sincere in your professed concern for people in third world countries who have died because they were wrongly blamed for the murder of those 3,000 people, then you would also retract those words.
Incidentally would it have been acceptable to you if those who had known Lindy Chamberlain to have been innocent of the crime murdering baby Azaria to have remained silent and left her behind bars?
I don’t know where you get the figure that “the building takes 50% longer to fall than an object in free fall”.
The 9/11 Commission (obviously erroneously) accepts that it was 10 seconds. Another figure is between 14 and 16 seconds. As the height of the taller tower is 417 metres, then my calculation of the time taken for free-fall speed is 16.7 seconds, so even that figure seems not to be right (that is unless my calculation time = sqrt(2*1368/9.8) is wrong).
Whatever, the speeds of the collapses seem to have been significantly less than “50% longer” than free-fall and vastly faster than what the time should have been given the enormous amount of strength in the structural steel that had to be overcome.
Do you seriously maintain that the strength of all of that steel could have been so suddenly lost without the use of exploseives?
If you want to stop wasting time, then why not at least accept my simple point that a new inquiry into the ‘collapses’ should be held so that we can find out why the Twin Towers and WTC 7 did collapse?
—
sublime cow girl, FDB and Lando Calrissian now that we have reached over 233 comments, we desperately need many more such comments which help so greatly to clarify the question we are discussing.
sublime cow girl, I have never read one Dan Brown novel, nor watched the movies, nor even watched The Simpsons parody of the first of those movies. I think you will find that as Tom Hanks, the main actor in the movie,s wants to make a movie that is intended to disprove any suspicion that JFK was murdered by elements within the US state, that he would be on your side on the question of 9/11.
—
Liam demands yet again that I explain “WHY THE HELL THIS SUPPOSED CONSPIRACY MAKES ANY SENSE”.
It makes sense because it enabled the Project for a New American Century cabal that gained control of the White House in 2001 to achieve their domestic and international geopilitical goals. They said themselves in their document “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” on page 51:
Perhaps Liam should ponder the question, “what sense did it make for Muslims to launch 9/11?” How did the consequent invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan help them achieve their political goals?
Liam’s sole argument in defence of the Official Conspiracy Theory is that in order to stage 9/11 thousands would have had to have been involved in the conspiracy and it would not have been possible for so many people to have been kept quite. Another estimate that I read is that around 500, from my recollection, needed direct knowledge of the plot in order for it to carried out.
In any case, how many were involved in the Manhattan Project? Or in the Bletchley Park project to break the Enigma code?
This single argument hardly amounts to a reason to ignore the mountains of other evidence that flatly contradicts the Official Conspiracy Theory that Liam is evasively attempting to peddle. It hardly amounts to a reason not to demand a new inquiry which seeks answers to the 70% of questions asked by the Jersey Girls that were ignored by the 9/11 Commission.
Jules, please look again at the broadcast “Race With Gravity” that I referred to above. No-one is arguing that any physical part of the Twin Towers actually fell faster than free-fall speed, but at one point the wave of collapse clearly moved faster than an object falling that was falling at free fall speed.
Such a wave of collapse could not conceivably have been driven just by the weight of the building falling from above.
The only way that could have been possible that I can come up with is if explosives had been used.
Fran – If people are determined to create new 9/11s then whether western troops are bleeding in Afghanistan is neither here nor there.
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Americans like their wars fought in other peoples’ countries. I do suspect you’re right however. You go to Afghanistan everyone dies. If they pull out it will be a mistake tho’ the way Clinton snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in the Battle of Magadishu was.
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And if they stay it will probably also be a mistake. I do imagine that they’re be deploying less troops and more robots however. And that may make a difference. And as always ordinary innocent people are the ones that will pay. But Mr Bush’s bonehead plays are going to cost us all.
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Even more.
All Wordpress bloggers please note.
I haven’t upgraded since Media2 started in 2004! And I share the domain with Barista, so you can imagine the internet odium that would descend on me if I started trying do this with cheery abandon and deleted possibly Australia’s best loved blog… Going to have to do something about it, anyway!
If your blog is hosted on Wordpress.com you don’t have to worry.
Daggett – you are a poo-face.
Now, why don’t you go and prove to me that your face is not made of poo, following the same rules of evidence (sorry, EVIDENCE!!!) that would satisfy you that you are wrong about 9/11.
GO!!!
dagget and the rest,
There are plenty of well qualified structural engineers that have opined that the strike of a heavier aircraft that existed when the buildings were designed and built, carrying more fuel than had been believed possible at that stage was more than sufficient to cause the collapse of the towers in the manner in which they collapsed.
Further – getting sufficient explosives into the building would have taken weeks, lots of preparation and many people.
There is no evidence that this happened. None at all – other than a lot of unqualified people speculating.
FDB – You should be at the Cat proving Bob Brown is right.
Sgr daggett,
there is a point of error in your missive numbered 236, on the matter of how long it takes for an object to fall freely.
You have used the right method to calculate this
sqrt(2*H/g)
for a height H, and acceleration g.
The time is the square root of twice the height, divided by the acceleration.
But you said the height was 417 metres, and g is 9.8 metres per second squared, so the time is 9.23 seconds.
I believe you used the conversion factor 3.280 (feet in a metre) and converted 417 metres to 1368 feet. But then you used the acceleration in METRE units (9.8), rather than 32.2 feet per second squared.
As to the rest, you remind me of my acquaintance Simplicio.
ciao!
Beelzebush has some tinfoil set aside for me
Has it occurred to anyone that the only cabal ruthless and singleminded enough to pull off the destruction of a large chunk of downtown Manhattan would be New York Property developers.
Another flakey theory it’s true but on the other hand, who wouldn’t wanna see Donald Trump perp walked and then executed by lethal hair transplant?
Just as the WTC projected itself into the NYC skyline (lot harder for a visitor to navigate around downtown without the towers as a reference point I can tell you), its absence allows anyone to project anything into the space left behind.
And really, if the powers that shouldn’t be but are were smart enough to pull off such a conspiracy off without a leak, then how did they then fuck up the US’s current Totally Bogus Central Asian Adventure?
There’s probably a plausible case to be made for LIHOP but in that case, I doubt “they” had the sheer balls to go for it – never mind the competence to so believably accidentally fuck up in response.
Sometimes a black swan is just a black swan.
Galileo Galilei (@243),
Thanks for spotting my error. I did say, after all, that my figure did not seem right.
What had happened is that I pointed my spreadsheet formula to the cell containing the height of the first tower in feet and not in metres.
So, it turns out that on one question, Jules was right, after all. My apologies, Jules.
It seems that the towers did indeed take “50% longer (14-16 seconds) to fall than an object in free fall (9.2 seconds) would [have taken].”
Nevertheless, that remains a phenomenally short time for all that massive structural strength in all that steel to have been overcome. Furthermore as David Chandler showed on the YouTube broadcast “Race With Gravity” that I referred to above, at one short interval the wave of collapse actually moved faster than a falling object.
The only possible explanation for all of this that I can come up with is that explosives had to have been used. Given that that is exactly what it looks like happened and given that that is what numerous eyewitnesses attested to having witnessed, then I would suggest that that the evidence that explosives were used is conlcusive.
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Andrew Reynolds (@ 241),
I am not aware of any credible document by any structural engineer that shows how either of the Twin Towers could have collapsed the way they did as a consequence of the impacts from the 767’s. Please show me any you know of. The Towers were designed to take a head on impact from a 707 a plane of comparable size to a 767. The 767’s did not hit front on and computer analysis shows that sufficient intact or partially damaged columns should have been left to easily allow the full weight of the building above to be supported.
Also, there is plenty of eyewitness testimony of strange happenings in the twin towers in the weeks before 9/11. Please refer to my post @ 139.
—
Did I miss some subtle and clever humour in FDB’s post @ 240 or is it what it appears to be?
Why is this person still allowed to contribute to this forum?
“Why is this person still allowed to contribute to this forum?”
Yep Daggett, that’s the way to encourage free ranging and vigorous debate about bringing the truth to the surface.
Speaking of which, can you prove you’re not an agent provocateur muddying the waters with waffling minutia in order to deflect attention from the real conspiracy?
“The Towers were designed to take a head on impact from a 707 a plane of comparable size to a 767.”k
Si Sgr daggett
you did say your figure seemed wrong. It is good to be humble.
ciao
Aha!
So you admit your face is made of poo!
I just knew you’d slip up sooner or later.
Galileo Galilei (@ 247),
I wasn’t aware that FDB was engaged in a debate with me. Which of his posts do you think have helped shed light on the 9/11 controversy?
Galileo Galilei (@ 249) wrote,
Perhaps you would prefer that I contributed the same amount of facts and ideas to this discussion as FDB has.
It’s far easier to avoid making mistakes if you say nothing and do nothing.
In any case, as I have shown, even the 9/11 commission mistakenly stated that the Twin Towers fell to the ground in 10 seconds, perhaps amongst the least of the almost innumerable glaring mistakes they made.
So, Galileo Galilei, did you mean to imply by making that link to a YouTube broadcast of a part of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” that you dispute that the Twin Towers were designed to withstand a head-on impact from a 707?
“Although I am not an engineer, far less a demolition engineer …”
Me either thats why I am in no position to actually evaluate any of the claims wrt the collapse from any side, and thats why anything i say about it will be functionally meaningless. And anything I think about it has to be filtered through the “I don’t actually know wtf I’m talking about” filter.
Unless I sit down and follow all the specific maths that specific people (steve jones for example, or NIST,) use, then learn what they mean, and the maths they use that I don’t understand then i’m not in any posisition to make any kind of comment beyond the ones I have already made.
“As a result hundreds of billions have been spend on wars, well over one million have died, many more have been maimed or displaced.”
10 times as many children died that day as people who died in the attacks, and every day since as a result in the inequities in the world that are directly caused by our culture being dominant and controlling access to resources. That doesn’t include the countless children and adults killed in minor conflicts over resources and access to them in places like the Phillipines, West papua south America central and east Africa etc etc etc.
Whether the attacks occurred or not the US would have invaded Afghanistan and Iraq anyway. they would have found some pretext cos ultimately they need to be able to guarantee their access to resources.
The Patriot act and the Invasion of Iraq, or our anti terror laws are all a direct result of 9/11 yet these things can be challenged on their merits and should be, without the need for reference to the possible involvement of certian corrupt US govt officials. The fact that people who should have helped engage those issues on their own were distracted by trying to find some holy grail truth about the 11 sept attacks were too busy with something else that still hasn’t produced any results makes me wonder if the whole movement wasn’t a distraction in the first place.
“Sometimes a black swan is just a black swan.”
Yeah true.
BBut Bush and Cheney are responsible for it.
Whether it was MIHOP, LIHOP or sheer incompetence, they are still responsible, and should have been pitchforked immediately, Cheney probably should have faced impeachment, or ewhatever version VPs face for his actions in taking control in the bunker despite the fact that its not constitutionally allowed, but I guess the US constitution didn’t mean much to that admin.
They are responsible cos it happened on their watch, and afterward when asked for an explanation the only excuse they actually had was their incompetence and the failures of the departments they are ultimately responsible for.
This should be basic, obvious, look at what some people are saying about the leadership of the CFA in Victoria after the fires.
And honestly they deserve a lot more “slack” for what happened than the US govt did years ago. Then again communication and decisions making pathways in emergency responses in Victoria are a bit of a basket case.
There are serious doubts about the legitimacy of the Bush 00 admin to begin with, then their first serious test comes along and they say:
“Oh sorry, we weren’t up to it. Tell you what, here’s the patriot act, that’ll fix it.”
We live in democracies, and idiots rule.
Well I think that just about covers it jules.
“Not the Amanda Keller, of course.”
No of course not. But it is one of the many rabbit holes that lead to information that makes me go WTF? How does that reconcile with what we accept as the consesus view of the event.
But what I actually find far more interesting is the way that event was predicted by so many little referneces in art and pop culture.
What about the end of fight club? The proposed album cover by The Coup, a radical hip out outfit from the US:
The Coup’s proposed cover for Party Music
(In no way does linking to that image indicate my endorsement of anything Lew Rockwell has ever said. At the least he’s a Rothbardian wanker. It was the biggest image on the first row of the first page of a google image search.)
I know plenty of people who dreamt about the event, I did many times, over 10 years before it happened (tho at the time I put it down to anxiety about growing up under the threat of nuclear war between the US and USSR). Or dreamt about planes in the days leading up to it, and although that on its own might seem like nothing, the context is that it was unusual for them, unusual enough that they would bring it up.
There are countless comic book images and images in art from the last 40 years that show similar images/concepts. maybe not countless ones, but enough.
There’s the Global Consciousness Research Project at princeton, though after a fair bit of examination that looks less and less credible.
I once saw someone have a psychotic episode (in 1999) and in the middle of it they just happened to describe the events that took place two and a half years later.
The event obviously had a huge effect on the people who use electronic media to structure their world (and a huge effect on people in Iraq and Afghanistan afterward, tho a completely different one.)
Thats whats really interesting about it.
Of course most people would probably consider that even less rational than the stuff troofers go on about, but rationality is over rated anyway.
And most people don’t even understand their own minds or motivations so … its not like they have anything other than noise to offer.
“Well I think that just about covers it jules.”
Yeah can we talk about something else now, (unless someone’s up for a discussion on what is consciousness)?
Jules (@ 252) wrote,
Then how do you suppose the jury trial system works in cases where forensic evidence is disputed?
The fact is that in order to see that much of the Official explanation of the Tower Collapses cannot be true, one only needs a year 10 level understanding of physics. Sometimes not even that is necessary.
Quite a few other people I know who were sceptical about the claims of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, or even hostile to them, have easily grasped their case once shown their video presentation. So, I don’t see why you shouldn’t also be able to.
Jules wrote,
Nonsense!
In any case, you almost immediately contradict yourself when you write:
Do you believe that the US Congress could have passed that motion supporting the bombing of North Vietnam if it had not been for the staged “Gulf of Tonkin” incident in 1964?
They got away with their crimes against Vietnam as long as they did because not enough people were able to see through that lie.
The same is true of the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and there is no way that they would have had congress pass the Patriot Act if not for 9/11. The Project for a New American Century understood that as I have shown above.
Why can’t you?
Jules continued:
Why can’t you see that a good many people out there believe that the argument, that the people who committed the 9/11 and other terrorist atrocities did so from the sanctuaries of Afghanistan and continue to do so to this very day, has ‘merit’?
Precisely that argument was put in the Courier Mail editorial that I quoted above. That is only one of many I could have quoted. That is also how Rudd, Obama and Brown repeatedly justify the war in Afghanistan and, now, Pakistan.
If that lie is not challenged, then I believe it will be impossible to stop them launching yet more wars and taking away yet more of our democratic freedoms.
If you think I am wrong, just recall how, in early 2003, what seemed to be a rock solid majority of public opinion opposed the invasion of Iraq. At the time I was euphoric. I could not conceive of John Howard daring to procede with the war in those circumstances.
Yet he did so brazenly and the solid majority, instead of become an even larger and more outraged majority, somehow changed into a minority to my enormous dismay.
Not only that, but John Howard actually was re-elected in 2004 and gained complete control of the Senate.
It took many more years and almost incalculable harm to Australia and the rest of the world caused by a re-elected Howard Government for that minority to become a clear majority again.
The best explanantion I can come up with to explain that is that the anti-war movement failed to challenge the Big Lie of 9/11. In spite of all the warm and fuzzy arguments against the invasion, and in spite of the tenuous basis of the claims for links between Saddam Hussein and ‘Al Qaeda’ people still felt threatened as Hermann Goering would have put it, and so they decided then to support the war (even if only by a small majority).
You rightly state that figures in the Bush administration should have been jailed for what could at the very best describes as their glaring failure in their duty of care to the American public.
Yet this has not happened.
These people, that every informed person agrees had to be, at the very best, grossly incompetent, were allowed to overtly wield the reins of US Government for 7 more years causing incalculable harm to the world in that time.
The 9/11 Truth Movement believes that that is just not good enough and are doing their utmost to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.
The best way to ensure that that does not happen again is for those responsible for 9/11 and the other false flag terrorist atrocities of recent years to be unmasked and held to account for what they have done in criminal trials.
So why won’t you support them?
If the 9/11 Truth fails in this then we are doomed to go on fighting costly and bloody wars at least until either the exhaustion of our non-renewable natural resources or ecological calamity make it no longer possible.
I did not link to a youtube, Sgr daggett.
That was someone called 39 Steps.
I don’t even know what a “youtube” is.
Me, I’ve got enough troubles.
I’m under house arrest. They want to silence me. I want to write about mountains on the Moon, and little stars orbiting Jupiter, and why Copernicus should be taken seriously.
Speaking of tubes though, I made an optical tube that you can use to look at the Moon, or examine ships far off. Care to see it?
ciao
I think the Patriot Act passed partly cos someone got anthrax in the mail, but in a hypothetical world where 9/11 never happened the Bush admin would have invaded Iraq and Afghanistan anyway IMO.
“Then how do you suppose the jury trial system works in cases where forensic evidence is disputed?”
Honestly I don’t know. I’d hope the jurors make the effort and take the time to understand as much as they can about the processes that generates the forensic evidence and then employ critical thinking in their examination of the evidence itself. I would hope that juries have the time and resources available to make those decisions then act on them.
Thats how it would work in an ideal world.
If I was on a jury judging 9/11 building related evidence then I assume I would be given the time and resources to satisfy myself that I understand enough about whats going on to make a valid judgement.
I’m not in that position and have more important things to consider.
PNAC’s got nothing to do with it. If populations were genuine about controlling their governments then none of the things you refer to (vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan) above would have happened. End of story.
“…the anti-war movement failed to challenge the Big Lie of 9/11.”
True, but the big lie of 9/11 isn’t dependant on why the towers collapsed, and that event had such an impression on people, it was on the level of imprinting, not conditioning. Its dependant on what allowed the planes to hit in the first place.
And that isn’t dependant on whether it was incompetence, complicity or worse. The best that can be said about why 9/11 happened is incompetence – that should be enough to challenge the wars and dismantling of human rights and democratic protections that followed. Do you really think exposing 9/11 would make any difference on top of that.
people are imprinted with the idea of the official story.
It doesn’t matter how many time you bang on about CD or what you actually prove. You won’t change those minds.
Shit, I don’t believe the official story, on its own. There’s enough doubt about the relationship between al qaeda and elements of the US lolitical and intelligence infrastructure to mean the official story can’t be taken on face value.
Yet you are berating me for not dogmatically accpeting the official “troofer” story, I don’t agree with the whole CD cult so I blindly accept what the govt says.
You are as bad as the people who insist considering any “conspiracy theory” about 9/11 is a sign you are incompetent as a human being.
Its like being caught in an argument between Catholics and Protestants or Christians and Muslims about whose God is real.
The 9/11 troof movement doesn’t believe in bringing Bush to justice for his failings on 9/11. they don’t even recognise they might be failures.
the 9/11 troof movement is concerned about validating its dogma and defining the world in religious terms even tho it can’t see this for itself.
Okay everybody. Time for this useful information, to clarify matters…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7t7cGwN7_0
As that famous and justly revered statesman once warned us all, “Don’t be blind to the big surprise, swimming round and round like the deadly hand of a RADIUM CLOCK! At the BOTTOM! of the pooool….”
The rest, as they say, is history.
Oh, and, uh…
Watch out for signs that say, “HIDDEN DRIVEWAYS”!
Interesting. Daggett is making a claim about 9/11 that as far as I’m aware no-one been able to refute. Everytime I ask the free fall question I get treated like a loony but no-one can tell me how it works.
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They’ll link to some complex document that has a lot of equations and fancy theories that explains how such a freak occurence is possible and there’s nothing untoward about it happening three times on one morning in one place. There’s citations of various experts who’ve written debunking articles but those I’ve read can’t explain it either.
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Can you? Can you understand? Because this is what Noam Chomsky refers to when he talks about the manufacturing of consent. The issue is inherently outré . This is how Foucault describes our power structure as a demarker of normality, morality, sanity and those that fall outside.
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And it’s interesting that people who’ve read books by both men somehow play the game they’re describing. By all means ban Dagget. S/he’s obviously crazy.
Chomsky is not a particularly clear thinker on either foreign policy or media. (There, I’ve said it.)
Beneath the thicket of his citations and the appearance of scholarly work is sloppiness, the brute force of very partisan cheerleader polemic (propaganda), and deep ignorance.
His sly criticism of Ponchaud’s book on Cambodia under the KR is a clear case in point. Ponchaud was right about the KR long before Chomsky; Ponchaud had lived in Cambodia and was immersed in the culture; Chomsky was always an outsider and dilettante; yet Chomsky claimed Ponnchaud’s book was flawed because the refugee eyewitnesses he quoted couldn’t really be trusted. Chomsky ignored the fact that Ponchaud quoted KR Radio extensively.
KR Radio lied; Ponchaud realised this. Many admirers (at that time) of the KR were less sceptical of KR Radio.
Take any particular country or regime: read some knowledgeable authors, then read Chomsky.
Then consider carefully what it is “to be an intellectual”. You may wonder, as I do, why folk still call him an intellectual. And why he seems revered.
Then again, you may admire his writings. Feel free.
Irrespective of what anyone may think of Chomsky or even 9/11, the general point that Missy makes is a very good one.
Maybe you should channel Missy more often, Adrien.
“Interesting. Daggett is making a claim about 9/11 that as far as I’m aware no-one been able to refute. Everytime I ask the free fall question I get treated like a loony but no-one can tell me how it works.” – Missy H
“It seems that the towers did indeed take “50% longer (14-16 seconds) to fall than an object in free fall (9.2 seconds) would [have taken].”
Nevertheless, that remains a phenomenally short time for all that massive structural strength in all that steel to have been overcome.” – Daggett
Does it? Says who? Some guy in a video? Given there was at least 10 or 15 stories of the core still standing in at least one tower (possibly more) then the idea that then entire core just crumpled to the ground has to be shown for the simplication it is. The collapse started below the top of the building, at around the 80 and 90 floor marks which means lower free fall time for the actual cos the distance is actually shorter, and there was a mass of concrete and steel being accelerated by gravity, so the collapsing mass had momentum. (It also took up space, which could explain why it pushed some of the dust that was released during the collapse outward in pyroclastic looking clouds.)
Missy i think thats why the idea of the towers in free fall should be taken with a few grains of salt. They didn’t fall at free fall speed and the behaved exactly the way I’d expect them to behave if the building collapsed of it own accord. they also behaved in a way that strongly suggests they were aided in their collapse. I’m not denying its a possibility, but its functionally meaningless. I’m not talking about Building 7 either. Just the towers.
Consider tho that if the collapse was aided then the sort of sloppy thinking I’ve outlined above wrt the actual mechanics of the collapse will forever be a thorn in the side of proving it. It doesn’t matter if NIST were as sloppy, if you are trying to provide the extraordinary proof that sort of claim demands then the onus is on you to get your facts right at the start.
“Because this is what Noam Chomsky refers to when he talks about the manufacturing of consent. The issue is inherently outré . This is how Foucault describes our power structure as a demarker of normality, morality, sanity and those that fall outside.” – Missy H
Thats one of the more intelligent comments I have read re 9/11.
I completely agree. Tho I see the same thing happening on both sides of the argument.
Implicit in the 9/11 Truther argument is the assertion that the persons who allegedly smuggled demolition explosives into the buildings were associated in some way with persons who incited Atta et al. to fly their planes into those same buildings.
Now it is an admitted fact that among the more than 100 attempts on Fidel Castro, at least one involved the construction of a very large explosive conch shell. One can only conclude that weirdness and the US Security State are on much more than nodding acquaintance.
However, on the other hand, the CIA of the early 1960s had privileged access to the purest LSD on the planet, a fact which may explain some of their more bizarre exploits of the time.
Alas, nowadays agencies of the US Security State are much more bureaucratic and rule-bound than they were in the great days of the 1960s.
To be blunt, ingestion of psychotropic drugs is now a sackable offence.
Without access to a goodly supply if hallucinogens it would be nigh impossible for any agency of the US Security State to come up with a plot of the utmost baroqueness involving BOTH the setting of “nanothermite” AND incitement of almost two dozen Muslim chappies with their gazes fixed on jihad and a plentiful supply of compliant virgins in the hereafter.
The world is a poorer place without government-sanctioned acid.
I wrote (@ 256):
Then Jules wrote (@ 263):
Yes it does. Here’s why:
If we take the longest estimate of 16 seconds, then the average accelaration would have been:
Where a = average acceleration of ‘collapse’, h = the height of 415 metres of WTC2 (the slightly shorter of the two), and t = longest estimated time of collapse.
The figure of 3.24 metres per second per second is 0.331 or 33.1% of free fall acceleration. Put differently, the tower accelerated at an average rate 66.9% slower than it would have if it had accelerated at free fall. This means that as the tower fell the structural steel underneath exerted 33.1% of the force that gravity would have exerted on the building above. (If it had fallen at free fall speed it would have been exactly zero. If it had not fallen at all the force exerted would have had to have been 100% or more.)
If the World Trade Center Twin Towers had been built with just enough strength to support their own wieght, this would mean that we would have to explain how structural strength equivalent to 33.1% of gravity had suddenly been removed. (In the case of WTC 7 which did fall at free-fall speed for the first 2.5 seconds, as I seem to recollect, we would have to explain how structural strength equal to 100% of gravity had suddenly been removed).
However, the Twin Towers (and WTC 7) had hugely redundant structural strength. I think the figure I read for the Twin Towers was they had structural strength capable of supporting 10 times their own weight, but let’s just, for argument’s sake assume it is 5 times.
Based on that assumption, structural strength of (5 – 0.669) or 4.331 times the force of gravity on the second tower would have had to have been removed throughout the whole building within that 16 second interval.
That is why I regard even 16 seconds total collapse time as still phenomenally fast for such a building. Whatever possible way was there for all that structural strength to have been removed within that interval, but explosives?
And, again, as I pointed out, at one point the collapse front, if not the whole falling building, moved even faster than free-fall which further confirms that explosives had to have been used.
There are enough other interesting points raised above to keep me writing for a week. I will have to return later.
Of course, I thank Missy Higgins (@ 260) her incisive and helpful observations.
To be fair, Adrien, this happens even when you don’t ask the free-fall question.
As to Chomsky, Daggett will explain to you that Chomsky is a phony, because he accepts the “official conspiracy theory”. http://candobetter.org/node/1286
That is convincing proof of just how vast and pernicious the cover-up is, wouldn’t you say?
I want to quote some things Jules wrote earlier:
“I know plenty of people who dreamt about the event, I did many times, over 10 years before it happened (tho at the time I put it down to anxiety about growing up under the threat of nuclear war between the US and USSR). Or dreamt about planes in the days leading up to it, and although that on its own might seem like nothing, the context is that it was unusual for them, unusual enough that they would bring it up.
[...]
The event obviously had a huge effect on the people who use electronic media to structure their world [...]”
One of my oldest and dearest friends literally could not sleep at night for months beforehand. When the news came through (to me) at five in the morning, I called him straight away. We spoke for two or three hours.
It was one of the most mysterious events I’ve encountered in my lifetime.
If you know anything about the basics of paranoia, you know about the basics of herd instinct.
To deny instinct over reason…
(Australian conservative-columnist type “instinct”, which it tries to umpire, and constantly stab about looking and feeling for – that ain’t it)
Firstly, my apologies for my mal-formed link (@ 265) back to Jules’ post (@ 263).
Jules, of course I geatly appreciate the fact that you are willing (to a point) to discuss my arguments and that you have not resorted to personal attacks. And I appreciate the fact that you supported my argument that it was ridiculous to accept that Khaled Sheikh Mohammed was one of the masterminds of 9/11 when the only basis for that is confesssions extracted under torture. Nevertheless, much of what else you write, including what you write in regard to the ‘collapses’ of the Twin Towers, is illogical and would undermine the most powerful and conclusive evidence (that is with the arguable exception of the ‘collapse’ of WTC 7) that the 9/11 Truth Movement has if I were to let that stand unchallenged.
GregM (@ 266), why do you think it is that people are treated like loonies whenever they question 9/11?
Why is the Australian far-left seemingly unanimous in its resolve (as Paul Craig Roberts pointed out above) to defend ground which accepts that terrorists, from the region in which our armies are now fighting wars that they say they oppose, did launch 9/11, 7/7 the Madrid bombings, Bali, etc, but refuse to even contemplate examining evidence that would enable them to shift to ground which I would have thought would be much easier to defend, that is, the ground on which it is maintained that the US government itself committed the crimes which it has knowingly and falsely blamed on so-called Muslim extremists. (Words self-plagiarised from earlier discussion on Online Opinion about the movie “Balibo”.) Why, instead of calmly asssessing the evidence to determine whether it just might be true, do so many on the supposed left of Australian politics, instead, spill bucketloads of electronic ink personally attacking 9/11 Truthers?
Noam Chomsky
Of course, part of the reason, but only part, must lie with the influence of Noam Chomsky, who is regarded as an unquestionable guru by many in Australia. In spite of the fact that Noam Chomsky has written some good ideas as Missy Higgins pointed out, I am, nevertheless, convinced that he is a fraud.
In fact, Noam Chomsky, himself, has acted contrary to many of his own good ideas.
Very shortly after the 9/11 attacks, he produced an article which essentially accepted the Official US Government 9/11 Conspiracy and has spent much of his energy since then attacking the 9/11 Truth Movement.
This, together with Chomsky’s absurd insistence that there was nothing suspicious about the murders, in the 1960’s, of all four of America’s most charismatic and effective political leaders who were prepared to stand up to America’s oligarchy — JFK, Malcolm X, MLK and RFK — has resulted in some, including an erstwhile protege, Canadian Barrie Zwicker to question Chomsky’s true motives.
I have written some of this in the brief article “Noam Chomsky, phony American Dissident” that GregM mentioned. I urge people to read that article and to follow the links to other articles and YouTube Broadcasts. The Short Youtube Broadcast “The Shame of Noam Chomsky & left gatekeepers” by Barrie Zwicker linked to from there is well worth looking at.
I would be most interested to know if GregM concurs with Chomsky’s view:
I consider Chomsky’s ludicrous position on Cambodia, which he inexplicably held on to even as late as early this century to be a component of his overall disinformation effort.
Sometime earlier this decade I heard an interview of Chomsky by fellow left gatekeeper Phillip Adams. In that interview he accused the media of being hypocritical for focusing on Cambodia in the late 1970’s instead of on East Timor. It may well be that for a while some of the media was hypocritical, but his point seemed ludicrous. If anything, the Cambodian genocide was an even greater crime than Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor.
Sadly, some on the left had an emotional need to deny that those who had ‘liberated’ Cambodia in 1975 were not gencocidal killers, but surely years after the Khmer Rouge had been used as a tool by the West against the Vietnamese who removed that genocidal regime, that emotional need should have long disappeared.
However, the greatest harm that is done when Chomsky effectively apologises for Khmer Rouge crimes, is not to himself, but to others who oppose US foreign policy, who the broader public assumes to share his views.
Daggett you ask:
Then you are good enough to provide the answer yourself:
There we have it.
You would have the vast conspiracy extending to agents of the US Government not merely bring down the twin towers but blowing up the Sari nightclub, the Madrid metro, the London underground and, I guess from your “etc” the Australian embassy in Jakarta, two hotels there (one twice), the US embassy in Nairobi, and even one of their own warships, the USS Cole, not to mention the recent attack on Mumbai, always covering their tracks so well that they get away with it every time, leaving no trace of their involvement but always a trail of false evidence to implicate innocent others and deceive investigators.
This even when the perpetrators of the atrocities make open admissions, at times boasts, of committing the acts.
Looney? Yes. Barking mad too.
Daggett I’m not arguing that there was no assistance to the collapse of the twin towers, just that its outside my ability to comment, and I am criticising some aspects of the way the case for it is presented, including the analysis you just gave of the reasons why the collapse was indeed too fast.
The WTC was not a uniform structure, it was a network of places that held the weight. If certain nodes fail then the assumption there is suffieicient redundancy in the system to deal with that is flawed IMO cos we honestly don’t know. As I said there is enough photo evidence to show the entire core didn’t collpase to the ground and that changes everything about the forces acting on it, and on the floors (ie structure) that were joined to the core. I don’t see CD proponents taking that into account, and thats just one example.
Also, many people claim there is no actual evidence the hijackers were on the plane… often while explaining the very things you have explained.
Now the hijackers and their connections and all the dodginess that surrounds them are vital to understanding the actual political situation on the planet right now, imo. Thats what I’d rather focus on. I tend to agree with your assessment of Chomsky tho. He’s overrated. Despite some astute structural observations he makes about western culture, esp American culture.
I kind of agree with him about Kennedy too, he wasn’t the Messiah of truth and kjustice some claim him to be. I don’t buy the camelot myth. But kennedy did challenge the power of the CIA, they have a reputation for killing people and then nothing comes of it. And he did inspire the name of one the best bands evah.
Daggett do you remember the Dateline interview from 2005 with former indonesian PM Wahid? Thats more important info than any discussion on the actual explosions in Bali imo. I feel the same way about the 9/11 attacks, and wonder why you haven’t yet mentioned Sibel Edmonds (or Wolfgang Bohringer).
GregM,
As I wrote close to the commencement of this discussion, there are two Conspiracy Theories (and possibly a third being a combination of the two) which can be used explain 9/11 and the other spectacular attacks of recent years. If you reject one, you must necessarily embrace the other.
Why should the Conspiracy Theory that you embrace be automatically held to be reasonable and not paranoid?
There are mountains of evidence in support of the Conspiracy Theory I support and have provided only some of it here.
The supporters of the Conspiracy Theory that you embrace have supplied no evidence whatsoever on this forum.
BTW, which “perpetrators of the atrocities” have made “open admissions” and “at times boast[ed], of committing the acts?”
Please supply the evidence.
I am most interested.
—
The statement that no-one involved in the 9/11 Conspiracy has spilled about seems to untrue. It seems that Nicholas Rockefeller had indeed confided in Aaron Russo, the film-maker who produced “Trading Places” details of the 9/11 attack before it occurred. Aaron Russo died in August 2007. Here are Aaron Russo’s words in an interview with Alex Jones:
The YouTube interview is here. I quoted these words on the Online Opinion forum “Scrutinising our counter-terrorism laws” of 6 Nov 2008.
I doubt that you are in the slightest bit interested but here it is for 9/11:
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2004/10/29/binladen_message041029.html
For the Bali bombing:
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/stories/s726286.htm
GregM,
All the videotaped bin Laden ‘confessions’ have been shown to be fakes. I will come back to that later.
Even the FBI doesn’t consider them sufficient evidence to justify charging Osama bin Laden for the crime of September 11 and have said so. Why not check for yourself his FBI ‘wanted’ poster?
As Jules has alluded to, FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds has defied a gag order to reveal that Osama bin Laden worked for the US at least up until 11 September 2001. See “Bombshell: Bin Laden Worked for US Till 9/11″.
Yes, patsies who truly believed that they were striking blows against the infidel West played roles in both the 9/11 attacks and the Bali bombings, but they were clearly tools of intelligence agencies without whom their attacks could not have hoped to succeed on the scale that they did.
In regard to Bali, the convicted terrorists could not possibly have planted the second bomb which blew up the Sari club.
As Jules has also alluded to Indonesia’s former president, Abdurrahman Wahid, when asked who planted the second bomb, said in an interview on SBS’s Dateline:
I also briefly mentioned this in my own submission to the National Human Rights Consultation on “Terrorism and National Security”.
I dunno about “shown to be fakes” but they certainly have some inconsistancies about them that make some people wonder.
Especially that particular tape, coming as it did less than 2 weeks before the 2004 elections.
And while weare on the subject that was the first time Bin laden claimed responsibility for the attacks despite the fact that in the years before that tape he was considered a hero by the Islamic world cos of his claimed involvement in sept 11.
And what the first time he claims responsibility is just before Bushes re-election. It sure smells funny to me. Then 3 years later he releases a tape praising Noam Chomsky, panicking about global warming and claiming that converting to Islam is the way to go cos the tax rates are lower….
Somebodies taking the piss.
I’d also like to point out that individuals in a govt may not have their primary loralty to said govt, it is probably to their own personal advantage. Therefore to assume that (for example) Cheney was acting on behalf of furthering US interests may not be true. He may have been acting on behalf of his own personal interest. (I dunno if there is actually any evidence to suggest Bush 2 was involved either. I’ve seen footage of him that day, especially in the school and he looks genuinely scared and confused at times.)
“…leaving no trace of their involvement but always a trail of false evidence to implicate innocent others and deceive investigators.”
I’m not speculating about anything (other than 9/11 and wondering about Wahids comments re bali), but there’s plenty of evidence to implicate US intelligence services in the 9/11 attacks. Get to know the history of Muhammed Atta, or even Ramsi Yousef. Or is that the false evidence you are speculating about.
What about the Venice flight school he trained at? Check out its intel and drug connections if you are interested. manufactured consent and the psychological cost of abandoning your most preciously held beliefs (ie that ultimately we are the “good guys” in some global morality tale: that people are all actually loyal to the stuff they say they are loyal too, especially people in power,) have more to do with the failure to examine these convulted but verifiable connections between terrorists, intel agencies, drug, arms and people smuggling and various other trans national nastiness than any form of so called sanity.
I find it amazing that in a country where the only actual terrorist attack in the last 40 years was in all likelihood a state sponsered event that went pear shaped, people are considered insane if they wonder whether a government was involved in a terrorist event, then tried to cover it up and shift the blame away from themselves. That could never happen could it?
Nah, not on Earth.
Every one of them? Can you provide a link? For every one of them.
But Daggett, according to your theory the FBI are at the heart of a vast Government conspiracy, beginning at first with Clinton then Bush and now Obama. Why would you want me to rely on anything they say? With their record of deceit and subterfuge (according to you) anything they said would have to be unreliable and probably done for the purposes of deception.
You cite Abdurrahman Wahid as your authority on this (although he says they planted the first bomb)? What particular knowledge or expertise does he have about what happened in Bali that puts his comment above anything more than speculation? Of course he would have no love for the Indonesian Army- nasty lot that they are- which facilitated his removal from office for mental incompetence, so he’d hardly be a neutral commentator. You’ll have to do better than that.
What other evidence do you have?
“What about the Venice flight school he trained at? Check out its intel and drug connections if you are interested.”
Do you happen to know who Kevin Bacon is, and why many people find him to be of continuing interest?
I am curious to learn what the truthers think about the 1993 WTC bombing. Was that a preliminary, far-sighted, ground-laying false-flag attack, designed to set up a long-term anti-alibi for the greater project they were planning much, much later? And if these nefarious demons planned so carefully to assume Total Control Over America, why did they then give it all up to Obama just a few years later? Even Doctor Faustus got a whole twenty years in exchange for his soul. Is the dollar really that worthless nowadays?
Also, have you ever noticed that the game “pinochle” sounds an awful lot like “PNAC’ll”?
“Do you happen to know who Kevin Bacon is, and why many people find him to be of continuing interest?”
Yeah, and maybe you have a point. Check it out for yourself and make up your own mind.
Or don’t.
Really, I honestly don’t give a fuck. There are more important things.
Seriously.
Cos even if you thought all troofers were nuts, and something I said, or even something Dagett said, well typed on this thread convinced that there was something in it.
And you get over taken by a surge of activist zeal and feel the need to get all activist.
pick something else
seriously
Do something useful.
If “they” are the enemy move on.
They have. This was 8 fucking years ago.
30, 000 kids a day. (at least)
8 years.
The very least you could do would be to contribute to your community. By which I mean your neighbours, and those people who might need help in your part of the world. And you could work to make your community more resiliant, and something you could be proud of. Cos then you don’t need to shout about your beliefs or values, they will be respected cos of your actions.
Arguing on the internet won’t do it. You are dealing with people, not a screen. (cept the trollbots of course… so why bother with them?)
And lets face it. It they are the enemy ask themselves what it profits you to look into the past constantly while “they” look into the future and plan….
Think about it.
Even if there’s no “they” there are still some serious problems facing humanity right here and right now.
Of course if you think that, obviously, people who question 911 are on a par with holocaust deniers and baby raping cannibals or just nuts fine. Think what you want. I doubt you re still reading this thread anyway.
There are still some serious problems facing humanity.
Tho I lack faith in people without the ability to question a media generated taboo to actually deal with those problems.
Especially one generated by a primarily neo con media in the middle of that neo con circle jerk that was the first 8 years of the 21st century.
But you know.
Its a free country and all that.
“pick something else
seriously
Do something useful.”
Well me oh my. How bloody condescending is that. Pray tell, are you con-descending at, um, free fall rate, or only 60% thereof?
What makes you think I can’t ‘contribute’ to ‘my’ ‘community’ in a ‘meaningful’ ‘way,’ and yet also think (that’s “think”!, not “feel”!) that troofers have driven over the cliff… both at the same time?!?
Wow, it’s almost like a regular Dan Brown novel, or sumfin.
O ye of little faith. Never heard of multi-tasking, I guiss.
Without that capability, how on earth do you blog-comment and stay saddled on a hobby-horse, both at the same time?
GregM (@ 276),
One page that demonstrates that the video-taped confessions are fake is here.
GregM (@ 276) wrote:
If you want to regain any credibility in this forum, you should stop wasting peoples’ time with such obviously ridiculous arguments.
The legal basis for the invasion of Afghanistan and its ongoing occupution is the US Government’s claims that Osama bin Laden is guilty for 9/11, yet the US Government’s own leading national law enforcement agency that wants to charge Osama bin Laden with other acts of terrorism against the US has inexplicably omitted 9/11 from the crimes he is to be charged with.
I note that you are silent on the revelations of FBI whistle blower Sibel Edmonds’ revelations that Osama bin Laden worked for the US Government up until at least 11 September 2001.
That probably provides a very good clue as to why Osama bin Laden is not wanted for 9/11 and the whole justification for the “War on Terror” is every bit as fraudulent as Aaron Russo said it was. The FBI knew damn well that Osama bin Laden was a CIA asset up until 11 September.
Other evidence that Osama bin Laden was a CIA asset right up to 11 Sep 2001 include:
“Bush Administration knew the Whereabouts of Osama” and “Hospital Worker: I Saw Osama”
GregM (@ 276) wrote:
If a former head of the Indonesian state says he beleives that the Indonesian secret police played a role in the Bali bombings then I think that that allegation should be taken seriously and thoroughly investigated.
GregM (@ 276) continued:
In spite of his age and his near blindeness, he was clearly an admirable, strong-willed and principled leader. He stood up to the Indonesian military in order to end the reign of terror in East Timor and to allow it to gain independence — obviously the kind of leader of whicn neither you nor the Indonesian secret police would approve.
I also recollect his successor President Megawati Sukarnoputri making a similar allegation although I can’t find the source righ now.
GregM (@ 276) wrote:
There is a massive amount of evidence of the Indonesian secret police deliberately nurturing Islamist terrorist organisations in order to stage false flag terrorist attacks since the days of Suharto, in order to further their own goals. Check out also “Exclusive Interview Inside Indonesia’s War on Terror” of 2 Oct 05.
One convicted terrorist Umar Abduh stated:
Corroborating evidence for the involvement of Indonesian secret police in planting the second bomb can be found in an interview with convicted Bali bomber in the Times Online interview “We killed too many, say Bali bombers” of 2 Mar 08:
Before you demand yet further evidence from me, GregM, how about you either.
1. Refute this and the other evidence I have provided; or
2. Accept that evidence and the conclusions I have drawn from them
?
Jules,
I had been meaning to address the many points you raised.
The essential point of 9/11 is that either humandkind takes control of its own destiny out of the hands of those responsible for 9/11, the Bali bombings, the London Tube bombings, the assassinations of JFK, Malcolm X, MLK, RFK, the Vietnam War, the Chilean coup, etc., or it doesn’t.
If it does, we stand some chance of solving all the serious problems confronting humankind, some of which you alluded to.
If it does not, we stand no chance.
As I pointed out, thanks largely to people like Noam Chomsky we lost the chance we had in the 1960’s to bring the murderers of JFK to justice.
Had that happened the whole course of history since then might have been different and so much death, destruction and ecological and economic mayhem that we have endured since then could have been avoided.
Let’s not lose the chance that the evidence of their complicity in the crime of 9/11 has given us today to rectify the problem.
The strongest evidence the 9/11 Truth movement has is that the collapses were controlled demolitions. The evidence bears this out. If you think the case is weak anywhere please provide links.
My guess is that at some time in the past you were thrown by technological gobbldegook from a supposed expert abusing his professional authority as I was, for a while on this forum.
I think if you look again, you will find that the case is rock solid.
The towers were brought down by controlled demolitions.
If elements in the US government did not do it themselves, they had the resources to find out who did, but chose not to.
So, by denying that the towers were brought down by controlled demolitions, and not even considering that possibility, they have covered up a crime.
However, a mountain of other evidence points to the conclusion that people high up in the US administration of former President George Bush did commit that crime.
Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga says CIA and Mossad ran 9-11
Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga, who revealed the existence of Operation Gladio, has told Italy’s oldest and most widely read newspaper that the 9-11 terrorist attacks were run by the CIA and Mossad, and that this was common knowledge among global intelligence agencies.…
Daggett, you ask:
Let’s look at the quality of your evidence;
You say @273 that:
I asked you to produce evidence that, as you assert, all the videotapes are fakes. You provide a link that claims that one of them (Tape E)is fake but does so on the basis that another tape (Tape C, released by Al Jazeera in December 2001) is authentic. The problem is that on Tape C Bin Laden states that the WTC towers were brought down by the aeroplane attacks and claims responsibility for it for his group.
You should read the material upon which you rely to bolster your conspiracy theories more closely. They do have a tendency to turn around and bite you on the bum, much to my amusement.
Another instance of this is your statement that:
But the very same link you provided regarding the tapes provides the reason (at least according to them) for this:
Note that this is the evidence you produce and want me to accept. OK, I accept it. It makes sense to me. Of course it contradicts the conclusions that you draw and want me to accept but then the evidence you produce does have a tendency to turn around and bite you on the bum, as I have pointed out.
I don’t know much at all about Sibel Edmonds. As much as I have found out about her is that she was employed by the FBI as a translator in September 2001 and fired in March 2002, a career of all of six months. She is fluent in Turkish, Farsi and Azerbaijani, though not, it seems, Arabic or Pashtun, languages that are likely to be relevant to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. I would have to wonder how much truly highly classified information a translator would be given access to in her first six months of employment. Nevertheless the central thrust of her claims, that there was a genuine plan by Bin Laden and his cohorts to attack the US with planes, of which the FBI had evidence but which it ignored or failed to act upon, contradicts yours that the destruction of the WTC towers (and presumably the damage sustained by the Pentagon) was caused by demolition explosives.
I do not think it is controversial that there were major intelligence failures leading up to the 9/11 attacks, which had they not occured, may have averted those attacks. Edmonds’ claims seem to be of a piece with that. However that is evidence of incompetence (which would not surprise me at all), not conspiracy.
Let’s look now at the link you provide: “Bush Administration Knew Whereabouts of Bin Laden” which claims that Bin Laden was in hospital in Pakistan, on 11 September 2001, having kidney dialysis -they even provide a pretty picture of the clinic he was in. One problem with the article is that it doesn’t say that, even if Bin Laden was there, the US knew about it. The other is that it doesn’t make the claim at all but speculates on a CBS investigative report led by Dan Rather, a person of absolutely no credibility as an investigator (remember Bush’s military record upon which Rather relied on military records generated from a computer typeface that did not exist at the time of their alleged creation?).
Yet again your evidence turns around to bite you on the bum. Do you ever read the material that you rely on to construct your conspiracy theories? Do you ever conduct the slightest analysis to test its credibility and internal consistency before you adopt it as part of the proof for your conspiracy theories?
Do you not see why this means that to sensible people you have no credibility?
Maybe it was …. something from outer space?
[Runs and hides.]
Dagget – in the article you linked too at least the antisemitism isn’t denied or hidden away.
Why keep harping on about what is basically a distraction ?
You want Israel and the jews destroyed but don’t seem to be able to say so.
Why not?
GregM (@ 283)
Perhaps I should claim that I deliberately stated, “All the videotaped bin Laden ‘confessions’ have been shown to be fakes,” in order to set a trap to see if those, who had refused to acknowledge the strong evidence about much more central aspects of the 9/11 controversy would, as a result, go over this claim about a secondary aspect with a fine toothcomb.
Perhaps it was rash to state “All the videotaped bin Laden ‘confessions’ have been shown to be fakes,” and perhaps there are weaknesses with the document I linked to.
In science it is always difficult to prove such absolute statements. A more accurate statement would have been “the authenticity of none of the tapes has been proven and there is strong evidence that suggests that are all faked.”
That is the conclusion of another document, far more meticulously researched and sourced. That document is “Osama bin Laden Dead or Alive?” (2009) by David Ray Griffin.
In that book a number of credible witnesses, including former CIA operative Robert Baer who beleive that Osama bin Laden died in December 2001.
If that is true then all the tapes and audio recordings, with the excecption of the first “Smoking Gun” were indisputably faked.
The book provides overwhelming evidence and arguments to doubt the authenticity of all the Osama bin Laden ‘confessions’.
Furthermore, it shows how those ‘confessions’ and their timing served the political ends of George Bush and the cabal behind him.
The most authentic looking (which neverthless featured an inexplicably more youthful Osama bin Laden) appeared shortly before the 2004 Presidential elections.
Of that video, Karl Rove, Bush’s media said, “This has the feel of something that’s not gonna hurt us at all.” (Griffin, p84)
Funny that Osama bin Laden would be so obliging to such a mortal enemy of Islam, don’t you think?
Robert Baer has said that it is technically feasible to produce fake audio tapes and videos that cannot be detected as such by forensic science.
GregM demanded:
Yes I do, and, if you look back at this thread you will see evidence that I have read far more extensively and more carefully on this than you or any other Truth Denier appear to have.
As to that extensive quote, I chose not to read it in full, because it’s essential point was encapsulated in the heading “Justice Department Not Seeking 911 Charges Against Bin Laden!”.
Of course, it is possible that a lot of the content will contradict the rest of what is on that page. (Unlike the US Government and their 9/11 truth denying shills, including quite a few on this forum, 9/11 Truthers are not frightened of confronting the arguments of their detractors.)
The document states excuses for the FBI not formally seeking to charge Osama bin Laden with the crime of 9/11 and you would have us accept those excuses.
You seem to forget that the legal basis for the invasion of Afghanistan was the US Government’s claims to have proof that Osama bin Laden launched the 9/11 attacks from the sanctuary of Afghanistan.
So are you saying that it is acceptable for the US to invade another country without being required to provide any evidence of that country’s alleged transgressions against the US?
Presumably it would have also been acceptable to you if the US Armed Forces Joint Chiefs of Staff’s planned Operation Northwoods had proceeded (instead of being over-ruled by the subsequently murdered President Kennendy) and the resultant terrorist acts against US citizens perpetrated by the US military and falsely blamed on Cuba had been used as the legal justification for the invasion of Cuba.
Now how about telling us why you believe any of the bin Laden ‘confessions’ to be authentic and why you believe he lived beyond December 2001?
—
As for your attempts to downgrade the siginificance of Sibel Edmonds allegations, a good many other former Intelligence professionals also dispute the fiction of 9/11. Have you checked patriotsquestion911.com? If there is no substance to Sibel Edmonds’ allegations, then why are they so desperate to gag her? Why shouldn’t all such allegations be investigated by a proper inquiry into 9/11?
I think you should try to properly understand the case of the 9/11 Truth Movement.
The 9/11 Truth Movement also doesn’t preclude the possibility that Al Qaeda, which, after all, was a creation of the CIA, may have played a role in 9/11, including the recritment and training of patsies.
The crtical component of the terrorist attacks were not the hijackings and the crashing of flights 11 and 175 into the twin towers, which would have left around 2-300 dead at most. It was the controlled demolitions of the Twin Towers and Building 7, which the impacts were only designed to make appear to have been the causes of.
There is no way that Al Qaeda could have done that.
Murph the Surf (@ 258) wrote:
Where is the ‘hidden’ anti-Semetism in anything I have written above or anything I have referred to?
In regard to that that article concerning Francesco Cossiga, I concede there may be a problem and I have had second thoughts.
To some the statement:
… may seem anti-Semetic, so I would need to seek further clarification as to exactly what he means.
However, even if some supporters of the 9/11 Truth Movement can be accused of anti-Semetism, that charge, to me, seems tame in comparison with the charge of condoning the lie the Muslims perpetrated the 9/11 and effectively allowing that lie to be used to justify wars that have killed well over a million Muslims and have displaced millions more.
Even if that statement by Francesco Cossiga was not intended to be anti-Semetic, I still have a problem with the all-too-common viewpoint that places Israel and Zionism at the centre of nearly everything that is wrong with the world today as the statement seems to imply.
It seems to me that Mossad did play a role in 9/11 and had an interest in getting the US and European nations go to war against Afghanistan and Iraq, but I am not conviced that Israel and Mossad were the principle instigators of 9/11 as Cossiga seems to be saying.
I also note that Francesco Cossiga is not listed in the Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth web site at pl911truth.com.
If some people who support the 9/11 Truth Movement seem questionable (and I have yet to arrive at a firm view in regard to Francesco Cossiga), they should not be used to judge the whole 9/11 Truth Movement. Again I urge people to look at sites patriotsquestion911.com to get some idea of calibre of the people who have given their support to the movement.
—
To the person who changed the title of this forum to “Saturday Salon – The Truth is Out There! edition”:
I thank him/her for giving this thread a title which will differentiate it from other Saturday Salons and give people a rough idea of what the predominant controversy is, but I should point out that, just as I have never read a Dan Brown novel, I am not a fan of “The X files” and whilst I have watched it on a few occasions when I was a guest of friends, I have never once viewed that program at my own initiative.
The truth is not to be fooound “out there”. It is to be found in hundreds of documents and videos to befound readily on the Internet and in books. Few of the Truth Deniers on this forum have demonstrated any ability to comprehend those documents.
Daggett
It’s a bit hard to respond to your post @286.
Your post @ 280 demanded:
<blockquoteBefore you demand yet further evidence from me, GregM, how about you either.
I met this demand by refuting part of your evidence (the fake tapes) on the bsais of the very link you provided and accepted other of it (the FBI reasons for not charging Bin Laden for 9/11) on the basis of the very same link you provided.
Now you state, in a garbled form over several sentences, that you were not sincere in what you said about “all” tapes and your comments about the FBI rebuttal are simply unintelligible.
I have tried to entertain and respond to your 9/11 Truther claims by looking at the “evidence” you present for them sincerely and you respond with that garbage.
I’m not going to waste any more time on your pathetic nutcase delusions. I just recommend you seek help and if you are on medication, which you should be, go back to your medical provider and discuss increasing the dose.
Murph the surf has cut to the chase about your motivations. I am not going to soil myself any further with your sickening filth.
GregM (@ 288) wrote,
“I met this demand by refuting part of your evidence (the fake tapes) on the bsais of the very link you provided and accepted other of it (the FBI reasons for not charging Bin Laden for 9/11) on the basis of the very same link you provided.”
No you didn’t.
Firstly you only ‘refuted’ a small fraction of that post and ignored the rest and have not even attempted to address the considerable amount before that.
On top of that your ‘refutation’ was an exercise in splitting hairs rather than dealing with the key issue, that is, what is the evidence of Osama bin Laden’s guilt. To claim that if I can’t prove that all four tapes are faked then he must be guilty is absurd.
Again, surely if any one contained a confession and could be authenticated then the FBI would be grossly negligent in not using that confession as a basis for charging Osama bin Laden.
Your claim was:
The basis upon which. Tape E the main “smoking gun” tape of 9 November is shown to be fake is much more than just a comparison with Tape C.
As one of many examples the “Osama bin Laden” tape in Tape is wearing a ring which is forbiddne by Islam.
You don’t attempt to defend the main “smoking gun” video but instead make the claim that Osama bin Laden confessed in Tape C. I haven’t seen the transcript of that video tape, so why not provide it?
In any case, why would Osama bin Laden issue numerous denials of his involvement in 9/11 only to confess on tape?
Here are his denials:
12 Sep: bin Laden “thanked Almighty Allah and bowed before him when he heard this news,” but said he had “had no information or knowledge about the attack.”
16 Sep: Osama bin Laden told Al Jazeera: “I stress that I have not carried out this act, which appears to have been carried out by individuals with their own motivation.”
17 Sep: Osama bin Laden sent the Afghan Islamic Press a statement saying: “I am residing in Afghanistan. I have taken an oath of allegiance to [Mullah Omar] which does not allow me to do such things from Afghanistan. We have been blamed in the past, but we were not involved.”
28 Sep: “I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children and other people. Such a practice is forbidden even in the course of a battle. … [W]e are against the American system, not against its people, whereas in these attacks, the common American people have been killed.”
3 Nov: In a videotape broadcast bin Laden’s only reference to 9/11 was this statement: “[N]o evidence links what happened in the United States to the people of Afghanistan. The people of Afghanistan have nothing to do with this matter.”
The closest to a ‘confession’ was on 7 Oct, in a video, just after the first US strikes on Afghanistan, bin Laden praised the “vanguards of Islam … [who] destroyed America,” but he did not himself claim responsibility for the attacks.
In regard to your ‘refutation’ of the story “Bush Administration knew the Whereabouts of Osama”, the critical point is:
Dan Rather and Barry Petersen fail to draw the implications of their January 2002 report. They fail to beg the question: where was Osama on 9/11? If they are to stand by their report, the conclusion is obvious: The administration is lying regarding the whereabouts of Osama.
Inpatient dialysis treatment tends to be longer than 24 hours in most American hospitals, which suggests that Osama would have been discharged from the Hospital on or “after” September 11.
If the CBS report is accurate and Osama had indeed been admitted to the Pakistani military hospital on September 10, courtesy of America’s ally, he was in all likelihood still in hospital in Rawalpindi on the 11th of September, when the attacks occurred. In all probability, his whereabouts were known to US officials on the morning of September 12, when Secretary of State Colin Powell initiated negotiations with Pakistan, with a view to arresting and extraditing bin Laden
This hinges on Dan Rather’s reporting even if he did not draw the obvious conclusions. If he was wrong about Oasama bin Laden entering the military hospital on 10 September, then don’t you think someone would have attempted to refute that story?
Getting one story wrong three years later doesn’t mean that we have to completely ingnore evey report Dan Rather made.
I note you have ignored the other inconvenient fact contained in that story, that fact being that in July 2001, when Osama bin Laden was wanted by the FBI for numerous pre-9/11 terrorist charges, he was met by the Dubai CIA station chief when he underwent kidney dialysis in that hospital.
Gregm wrote:
I don’t care that much whether you continue to ‘argue’ with me or not, but I think it will be obvious to anyone who carefully reads through all this that you have acknowledged very few of my arguments amd not refuted any, except, just possibly, in the narrowest, pedantic, nit-picking sense in one instance.
GregM, I enjoyed and learned some things from your post @ 283, and I’m glad you took the time to respond and write it, but @ 288:
“I’m not going to waste any more time on your pathetic nutcase delusions. I just recommend you seek help and if you are on medication, which you should be, go back to your medical provider and discuss increasing the dose.”
Was unfunny, laboured sarcarsm, and:
“Murph the surf has cut to the chase about your motivations. I am not going to soil myself any further with your sickening filth.”
Was, along with Murph the surf @ 285, uncalled for, and way out of line.
To imply someone’s suspicision of accounts of 9/11, whether evidenced to your standards or not, necessarily equates to *wanting Israel and the jews destroyed*, was nothing but gross logical (absurdly rhetorical) stupidity.
Or, at best, a simplistic alignment to a right-wing consensus-column.
Thanks, Nick (@ 290) for taking the stand that you did against personal abuse in this discussion.
That said, I think have still been overly generous in your evaluation of GregM’s post (@ 288) even if it is, by far, the most substantive of contributions from the Official Conspiracy 9/11 Theorists participating in this discussion. How has my subsequent post (@ 289) not answered his arguments?
—
My apologies for that large block of boldfaced text in my previous post. I had intended to use <blockquote></blockquote> tags.
—
I wrote (@ 227):
Liam (@ 232) wrote:
So, Liam would have us believe that the people who demolished the three buildings removed the evidence of their crime for the 9/11 Truth Movement’s convenience and not for theirs?
Liam, are you trying to imply that if, instead of obliterating all of the three towers and immediately shipping away all the material to be melted down in China before investigators could examine it, and, instead, leaving substantial sections of the three towers standing as could have happened if they had used substantially less quantities of explosives that their innocence of the crime could have been proven?
Apologies for the grammatical error and awkwrd expression in the last paragraph and the bad link in 291. (I don’t have a fully working ‘preview’ capability on my browser.) Here’s the last part of that post again:
I wrote (@ >a href=#comment-825698″>227):
Liam (@ 232) wrote:
So, Liam would have us believe that the people who demolished the three buildings removed the evidence of their crime for the 9/11 Truth Movement’s convenience and not for theirs?
Liam, are you trying to imply that if, instead of obliterating all of the three towers and immediately shipping away all the material to be melted down in China, they had, instead, left substantial sections of the three towers standing for investigators to examine as could have happened if they had used substantially less quantities of explosives, that their innocence of the crime could have been proven?
“I don’t know much at all about Sibel Edmonds. As much as I have found out about her is that she was employed by the FBI as a translator in September 2001 and fired in March 2002, a career of all of six months. She is fluent in Turkish, Farsi and Azerbaijani, though not, it seems, Arabic or Pashtun, languages that are likely to be relevant to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. I would have to wonder how much truly highly classified information a translator would be given access to in her first six months of employment. Nevertheless the central thrust of her claims, that there was a genuine plan by Bin Laden and his cohorts to attack the US with planes, of which the FBI had evidence but which it ignored or failed to act upon, contradicts yours that the destruction of the WTC towers (and presumably the damage sustained by the Pentagon) was caused by demolition explosives.” – GregM
I don’t think the claims of demolition and prior knowledge of an attack are mtually exclusive claims. Not that it really matters…
Have a look at the other claims she makes that aren’t really related to 9/11 though, cept maybe through one degree of seperation. They are pretty full on claims, and they haven’t gone away in years.
She names names, documents evidence and launched actions in the US court system that were ended, not cause they were shown to be false, but cos they potentially threatened state security. She was sacked because she made valid complaints against people in her dept, and it was found she was sacked as much for the info she had as for the fact that she made complaints against her dept.
“However that is evidence of incompetence (which would not surprise me at all), not conspiracy.”
How do you know its one and not the other when the events have never been investigated properly, and ultimately does it matter? Incompetence is no excuse, especially when you cynically exploit your own incompetence to gain humungous amounts of advantage.
GregM wrote (@ 283):
It’s strange how apologists for political leaders like Bush and Howard will claim them to be incompetent at the time they are under the public spotlight for their misdeeds, but later, will try to have us forget that incompetence.
Years later we read nonsense that tries to tell as that the greatness of such leaders was not sufficintly acknowledged by aficle and ungrateful public at the time.
Here’s a list of the warnings that we know that the Bush Government received prior to 9/11, but ignored — almost as many warnings as Alexander Downer recieved about the AWB scandal, it would seem.
I would be curious to know whether or not GregM also believes that John Howard were not aware at the time that AU$296million was being paid in bribe money to the regime of Saddam Hussein, the same regime that they were to tell us in 2003 were such a mortal threat to humankind that we were left with no choice but to invade.
If the newsmedia truly believed that they were that incompetent then why didn’t they immediately demand their resignation?
How could Howard then have stood any chance whatsoever of being re-lected in 2007?
And how could they have allowed Bus to be re-elected in 2004?
The reality is that the media, unlike what GregM would have us think he believes, understand perfectly well that they could not possibly be that incompetent.
Daggett, the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.
I have a 9/11 theory too!
Iraq was behind all the big attacks, from 1993 forwards, and the White House always knew it, but tried to deal with it secretly – and this is standard operating procedure for dealing with state-sponsored terrorism when it’s inconvenient to mention the culprit. “Deal with it secretly” means that you construct an alternative public narrative for both the attacks and for anything you do in response.
Of course it wasn’t supposed to drag on as it did. The mid-1993 bombing of Iraqi intelligence headquarters was supposed to deter all further such attacks. But it didn’t; Iraq’s WMD programs became the safe public rationale for everything; and what happened under Bush – 9/11, followed by the occupation of Iraq – was simply the amplification and logical conclusion of the process begun under Clinton.
Excellent. A truther stoush. Now for all you people out there who don’t know. You know you’re getting close to the truth when these dudes start installing cable TV for all your neighbours.
Welcome back, Liam (@ 295),
Were you intending to respond to my posts @ 236 and 271?
Liam wrote,
I never claimed the fact that the evidence was removed was, in and of itself, proof that the buildings were demolished. Nevertheless, removal of evidence from the scene of a crime is, itself, a crime under US law.
Those who removed the evidence should have been treated as suspects in the far more serious crime of the 9/11 attacks and thoroughly investigated both by the police and, subsequently, by the 9/11 Commission and by NIST.
But this didn’t happen.
Why?
Anyhow, let’s take a few steps back.
I offered a possible explanation for Jules’ point:
My explanation or theory, again, was:
You challenged that with the quip
Then I responded:
—
My apologies for mistyping:
‘a fickle’ had accidentally been typed as ‘aficle’.
At the risk of actually engaging with you daggett, something that I set out my refusal to do at #177;
I’m saying you’re basing your Search For Truth on something which conveniently will defy proof, no matter how strongly investigated. Building demolished? Must have been blown up by persons unknown. Building doesn’t appear to have been demolished by explosives? Must have used so much explosive as to defy investigation (awesome, BTW). No explosives found? Must have been a special thermite explosive. No thermite marks? Must have been secret military thermite. No such thing as military thermite? Must be a requirement for more investigation, and anyone who denies it is a PNAC stooge.
It’s head-stuck-in-sand solipsistic fantasy, based on confirmation bias and speculation, flat-earth anti-investigation at it’s worst, and it’s turtles all the way down.
“It’s head-stuck-in-sand solipsistic fantasy, based on confirmation bias and speculation, flat-earth anti-investigation at it’s worst, and it’s turtles all the way down.”
Nice.
You think?
It’s more like standard smart-arse LP putdown, complete with punctuation error to me, but who am I to judge?
Liam, like any good blog commentator, obviously knows his audience.
Adrian, I certainly do know my audience and my co-smartarses. Let’s have a quick review of some of your contributions to this thread:
At least daggett’s got some interesting stoush in him, even if he is fixated on the Deus Ex PNAC to provide the answer to all of life’s little engineering questions. When you make a contribution to any thread that’s more than the stock-standard nyah-nyah rah-rah please let me know, and I’ll give you a golf clap for the effort.
But seriously folks, it pisses me off when someone like daggett comes along, putting forward a controverial and non-mainstream view and gets personal abuse for his troubles, from the snide putdowns to the full on questioning of his sanity. Yet he doesn’t respond in kind, but continues with his patient explanation of his case, which most of his critics think it is beneath them to respond seriously to.
Nick said it best @290, and also jules elsewhere, but where is the tolerance for views that are outside the conventional?
Paul Burns #284, your perspicacity is commendable.
adrian: tolerance goes as far as allowing him to publish here, is my guess.
But “tolerance” doesn’t entail his readers must AGREE with him, and aren’t permitted to point out flaws in his case, or say the whole shebang is silly.
daggett writes on a topic that is seared into our memories and has had enormous quantities of newsprint, forensic investigation, TV doco time, etc. Most of us formed a view, and applied our customary levels of scepticism and inquiry to the matter. Gosh, some of us even read books and/or web sources about it.
Along comes daggett. He cannot expect some sort of tabula rasa here on which to inscribe his screeds….
Hellfire and bloody damnation! It was Lord Foul and his Ravers that dunit!
Just a note to say “hi”.
It’s nice to read that I haven’t been forgotten.
Ambigulous @ 305 – Fair enough, but it’s the level of hostility to views outside the mainstream that I was getting at.
Liam @ 302 – Try reading for meaning or whatever.
Liam(@ 299) and FDB (@ 300),
It’s your right not to debate views which you hold to be too preposterous to even discuss, but simply stating that those views are preposterous over and over and over again is surely a waste of your time and everyone else’s time.
Liam wrote:
Liam (@ 177) wrote:
It seems that you are totally satisfied that 9/11, Bali, London 7/7, Madrid etc was the result of a vast global conspiracy, yet you have not provided any evidence for that belief.
This conspiracy is supposed to consist of a network of terrorist cells all over the world including in Australia. This terrorist network is supposedly controlled and sustained by people operating from sanctuaries in Afghanistan and Pakistan, The fact that not one person with a proven link to those attacks has been catured in spite of over 7 and a half years of military occupation of Afghanistan and numerous incursions into Pakistan appears not to have shaken your belief.
What just might satisfy me that “there was not a massive conspiracy to whip Americans into war-frenzy” would be a proper investigation into 9/11 as the 9/11 Truth Movement has been demanding for years. The 9/11 Truth Movement has amply demonstrated that the previous investigations were shams which appeared to be intended to be cover-ups.
It is conceivably possible that a proper investigation would come up with an explanation other than a conspiracy be senior figures within the Bush Administration, but, at the moment, I couldn’t even begin to imagine what that explanation would be. If you could either suggest another explanation or provide evidence for the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory that you support I would be most interested.
The reason that past investigations were shams were:
A. A large number of questions, including questions of those who lost loved ones on 11 September 2001, were not even asked, let alone answered. One question which was not asked was, as I asked before: Why was so much of the evidence so quickly and systematically removed from the scene of the crime? Other questions not asked, which are further elaborated on the 9/11 Truth Statment are:
1. Why were standard operating procedures for dealing with hijacked airliners not followed that day?
2. Why were the extensive missile batteries and air defenses reportedly deployed around the Pentagon not activated during the attack?
3. Why did the Secret Service allow Bush to complete his elementary school visit, apparently unconcerned about his safety or that of the schoolchildren?
4. Why hasn’t a single person been fired, penalized, or reprimanded for the gross incompetence we witnessed that day?
5. Why haven’t authorities in the U.S. and abroad published the results of multiple investigations into trading that strongly suggested foreknowledge of specific details of the 9/11 attacks, resulting in tens of millions of dollars of traceable gains?
6. How could Flight 77, which reportedly hit the Pentagon, have flown back towards Washington D.C. for 40 minutes without being detected by the FAA’s radar or the even superior radar possessed by the US military?
7. How were the FBI and CIA able to release the names and photos of the alleged hijackers within hours, as well as to visit houses, restaurants and flight schools they were known to frequent?
8. What happened to the over 20 documented warnings given our government by 14 foreign intelligence agencies or heads of state?
9. Why did the Bush administration cover up the fact that the head of the Pakistani intelligence agency was in Washington the week of 9/11 and reportedly had $100,000 wired to Mohamed Atta, considered the ringleader of the hijackers?
10. Why did the 911 Commission fail to address most of the questions posed by the families of the victims, in addition to almost all of the questions posed here?
11. Why was Philip Zelikow chosen to be the Executive Director of the ostensibly independent 911 Commission although he had co-authored a book with Condoleezza Rice?
B. A vast body of evidence which conflicted with the official explanation of 9/11 was ignored.
C. The hypothesis that the ‘collapses’ of the three towers were controlled demolitions was not even considered by NIST in spite of a vast body of eyewitness testimony including even from news reporters on the day, video footage and other physical evidence that they were.
Thank you, Adrian @ 303.
Ambigulous (@ 305),
Of course I greatly appreciate anyone going to the trouble and expense to provide a platform, such as Larvatus Prodeo on which people can post views which may differ from their own, but I would have, nevertheless thought that people taking the considerable time and effort to post views that are substantiated and carefully argued as I believe I have done, should be welcomed rather than just ‘tolerat[ed]‘.
As it happens, I also help to provide a platform on which others can post views which I may not agree with. It is candobetter.org. You will certainly find there views opposed to the goals of that site.
Anyone here is welcome to post comments relating to material contained on that site, although, in the interests of other site users, I have close to zero tolerance of personal attacks and will either remove posts containing personal attacks or remove the personal attacks from those posts. I would certainly not allow any site visitors to be subject to posts such as FDB’s to 240 and 250. I think the moderators of LP should also consider enforcing some minimal standards of decency and civility
Ambigulous wrote,
Firstly, where did I or anyone else say that my readers must agree with me?
Secondly, please show me even one post in this whole forum which points out the flaws in my case.
Ambigulous wrote,
If you had comprehended the arguments I have put here, you would know that there has been no proper ‘forensic investigation’ into 9/11, except by those who dispute the official account of 9/11. Please provide even one example of proper ‘forensic investigation’ by any US Government agency.
Let’s say, daggett, that I do hold the position that all of the terrorist attacks you mentioned were perpetrated by a central, organised, conspiratorial group.*
If I then pointed out the lack of evidence to back up the theory that all of the terrorist attacks were the product of an organised conspiracy, and then used that lack of evidence to argue in favour of the theory, what would you think of that? Or if, to whatever objection anyone put in front of my faith in my theory of a Terrorist Conspiracy, I simply retreated behind a further statement that a more powerful group had hidden the required evidence?
*For the record: I don’t. I’m perfectly happy with the conventional consensus that all of those terrorist attacks were perpetrated by loosely-aligned and opportunistically-organised extremist groups operating in a foaming seething clusterfuck of competing national, subnational, ethnic and religious grievances, encouraged by political parties, tribal groups, churches, sects and official Intelligence services, fed by easy anonymous money and drugs and arms deals, and massively empowered by globalisation. I read John Robb and I vote.
It is doubtless that al Qaeda, which was little more than a shelf company that outsourced its work to sub-contractors and other organisations, leaked like a sieve in the months, weeks and days leading up to 9/11.
US and other counterintelligence organisations were picking up loads of chatter. These snippets can be likened to pieces of a jigsaw whose pattern became clear after the event only.
Moreover, it would take little expertise to profit from shorting relevant stocks and financial instruments so long as the time frame for the attacks was known.
Even fringe figures like our own Mandouh Habib and ASIS knew that something was cooking:
This buzz swept through the entire intelligence community. Failure to act on it is entirely characteristic of the fatal weakness of large, bureaucratic organisations when confronted with a nimble enemy.
On Afghanistan again:
Jim Molen on ABC this morning asserted that 180,000 or so troops to the mission, but this can scarcely be reconciled with the US Army’s Counter-Insurgency Field Manual which, authored in part by Petraeus, insists on a ratio of 20 counter insurgency trained troops for every 1000 civilians. On a population of 33 million in Afghanistan, that works out not to 180,000 troops but … 660,000 troops. Remember also that these can’t be any old troops but specially trained counter-insurgency troops.
How much would these cost to keep in the field? Figures are hard to come by but we can hazard a ballpark guess. During the whole period of the US occupation of Afghanistan, during most of which time the US had far fewer troops than now, the average annual cost of the war was $US38 billion, yet as late as April this year the US only had 34,000 troops. Simple maths tells us that this is nearly 1.2 million per year per troop in the field, even at this rather larger number. Costs for the war this fiscal year are up to $US55 billion with 64,000 troops for most of the year, so that’s a little cheaper at $860,000 troops each. The Canadians 2300 troops present between November 2001 and March of 2006 cost a little over $CAN600,000 each (about $US552,000 on today’s conversion) for each year.
Again simple maths tells us that even if we accept this low figure — improbable since we are now not merely fighting and holding but doing capacity building — that amounts to $US3.643 trillion dollars annually. IOW, for each of the ten years optimists think it will take to win, the world would spend about 5% of GDP on Afghan counter-insurgency, in addition to what has already been spent. Even at Jim Molen’s super optimistic 180,000 estimate for a landlocked country with very porous borders its near enough to $US 1trillion per year. It is worth noting that no nation in history has ever gone from feudalist/tribalism to modern governance in ten years, or anything like it. No nation has ever done this at gunpoint.
It’s deceitful special pleading to say that if we don’t increase resources we won’t win when even increasing resources to unsustainable levels can’t confidently predict such an outcome, and indeed predicts nothing more than throwing good resources after bad.
Currently of course there are about 100,000 troops in the field. A whole bunch of the non-US troops are looking for an early exit — Berlusconi has been explicit. The Dutch aren’t renewing and its likely the Germans will also pull out shortly. So even on the most optimistic of estimates Obama is going to have to find and maintain most of 120,000 extra troops in addition to the 64,000 he already has there. Since many of these have to be redeployed from Iraq and redeploymnet is also more expensive than coming home, we have another expense. If you want to allow the troops 4 weeks annual R&R you can add an extra 1/12 of however many they have there. Allow for 2% casualty rate (dead and indefinitely incapacitated each year) and there’s another 3600 for 180,000 that you have to allow. And this is all very optimistic, because if Petraeus is right (and if he’s that far wrong, what is he doing in charge?) they are going to need most of 600,000 extra US troops — for ten years.
The whole thing is mad on an epic scale.
I think a South Park song is in order about now, don’t you?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyrlcoKRjn0
Liam (@ 311),
On the one hand you adamantly refuse to consider and discuss any of the evidence I have presented:
Then ont the other hand you imply that you or others have demolished the arguments I have put:
How can you have put any ‘objection’ in front of my ‘faith’ if you adamantly refuse to discuss the substantive content of my posts?
I see now that you are now attempting to distance yourself from the ludicrous Official Conspiracy Theory that is used by Rudd and our corporate newsmedia to justify the war in Afghanistanistan.
Perhaps that’s a start. Nevertheless, I would still be interested to see the evidence for your claim that:
I would like to know how you think it was possible for a “loosely-aligned and opportunistically-organised extremist group” to have carried out the terrorist attack of September 11 and what your evidence is.
As you now seem to concede that all of this is “encouraged by … official Intelligence services” (which, of course, I consider a gross understatement) I would be most interested to know want has led you to that conclusion.
Katz wrote (@ 312) :
Clearly, Katz has not read the list of warnings that I linked to above. Here are the specific warnings tath attacks would be launched from the air grouped by the nations from which those warnings originated:
1. In 1999, British intelligence gave a secret report to the US embassy. The report stated that al-Qaeda had plans to use “commercial aircraft” in “unconventional ways,”“possibly as flying bombs.” [Sunday Times, 6/9/02] On July 16, 2001, British intelligence passed a message to the US that al-Qaeda was in “the final stages” of preparing a terrorist attack in Western countries. [London Times, 6/14/02] In early August, the British gave another warning, telling the US to expect multiple airline hijackings from al-Qaeda. This warning was included in Bush’s briefing on August 6, 2001. [Sunday Herald, 5/19/02]
2. In June 2001, German intelligence warned the US, Britain, and Israel that Middle Eastern terrorists were planning to hijack commercial aircraft and use them as weapons to attack “American and Israeli symbols which stand out.” Within the American intelligence community, “the warnings were taken seriously and surveillance intensified” but “there was disagreement on how such terrorist attacks could be prevented.” This warning came from Echelon, a spy satellite network that is partly based in Germany. [Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 9/11/01, Washington Post, 9/14/01]
3. In late July 2001, Egyptian intelligence received a report from an undercover agent in Afghanistan that “20 al-Qaeda members had slipped into the US and four of them had received flight training on Cessnas.” To the Egyptians, pilots of small planes didn’t sound terribly alarming, but they passed on the message to the CIA anyway, fully expecting Washington to request information. “The request never came.” [CBS, 10/9/02] Given that there were 19 hijackers and four pilots (who trained on Cessnas) in the 9/11 plot, one might think this would now be a big news item. But in fact, the information has only appeared as an aside in a CBS “60 Minutes” show about a different topic.
4. In late summer 2001, Jordan intelligence intercepted a message stating that a major attack was being planned inside the US and that aircraft would be used. The code name of the operation was Big Wedding, which did in fact turn out to be the codename of the 9/11 plot. The message was passed to US intelligence through several channels. [International Herald Tribune, 5/21/02, Christian Science Monitor, 5/23/02]
5. Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly stated that he ordered his intelligence agencies to alert the US in the summer of 2001 that suicide pilots were training for attacks on US targets. [Fox News, 5/17/02] The head of Russian intelligence also stated, “We had clearly warned them” on several occasions, but they “did not pay the necessary attention.” [Agence France-Presse, 9/16/01] The Russian newspaper Izvestia claimed that Russian intelligence agents knew the participants in the attacks, and: “More than that, Moscow warned Washington about preparation for these actions a couple of weeks before they happened.” [Izvestia, 9/12/02]
6. Five days before 9/11, the priest Jean-Marie Benjamin was told by a Muslim at an Italian wedding of a plot to attack the US and Britain using hijacked airplanes as weapons. He wasn’t told time or place specifics. He immediately passed what he knew on to a judge and several politicians in Italy. Presumably this Muslim confided in him because Benjamin has done considerable charity work in Muslim countries and is considered “one of the West’s most knowledgeable experts on the Muslim world.” [Zenit, 9/16/01] Benjamin has not revealed who told him this information, but it could have come from a member of the al-Qaeda cell in Milan, Italy. This cell supplied forged documents for other al-Qaeda operations, and wiretaps show members of the cell were aware of the 9/11 plot. [Los Angeles Times, 5/29/02, Guardian, 5/30/02, Boston Globe, 8/4/02] For instance, in August 2000, one terrorist in Milan was recorded saying to another: “I’m studying airplanes. I hope, God willing, that I can bring you a window or a piece of an airplane the next time we see each other.” The comment was followed by laughter [Washington Post, 5/31/02]. In another case in January 2001, a terrorist asked if certain forged documents were for “the brothers going to the United States,” and was angrily rebuked by another who told him not to talk about that “very, very secret” plan. [Los Angeles Times, 5/29/02] In March 2001, the Italian government gave the US a warning based on these wiretaps. [Fox News, 5/17/02]
well, daggett
those little snippets point to aircraft hijacked by islamist terrorists, not super-secret thermite demolition crews.
but that’s only my opinion.
Clearly Daggett doesn’t understand the difference between non-specific chatter and “specific warnings”.
None of Daggett’s list specifies time, place or personnel. This chatter is constant and much of it is either deliberate disinformation or pub talk. Intelligence services are notoriously incapable of detecting the difference and also are overwhelmed by the pressure of following up the myriad of false leads. Welcome to the wacky world of counterintelligence.
Incompetence, overwork, and being fooled are regrettable enough. But Daggett would have us believe that in addition to these failings there existed elements of US intelligence services that deliberately ignored firm and specific leads.
And worse, that these elements actively conspired with the terrorists for their own fell purposes.
And still more unbelievably that those elements of the US security state that were not involved in this alleged conspiracy have decided not to blow the whistle on their treasonous colleagues!
That last claim is, of course, the height of absurdity.
Katz wrote:
Oy vey.
There is in England a sect which maintains that the English are the lost ten tribes; there is a stricter sect, which maintains that they are only the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. Whenever I encounter a member of either of these sects, I profess myself an adherent of the other, and much pleasant argumentation results.
What possible excuse?
Try these:
1. Which day?
2. Which airport(s)?
3. Which target(s)?
4. How reliable have the Russians been in the past?
5. How sincere have the Russians been in the past?
6. How do we prioritise the alleged Russian heads-up in relation to the dozens of other warnings and rumours circulating at the same time.
7. On the basis of the alleged Russian heads-up what level of response is appropriate? For example do we ground all civilian flights? Do we take all Muslims into custody?
daggett,
I certainly do not “need” to make myself more familiar…. your own postings have been quite sufficient. Given that the chatter involved Cessnas (going to bomb a hay barn?) and vague hints, only seemingly relevant in hindsight, how was it that the demolition crews just happened to choose for demolition two of the very buildings the airliners flew into?
There is a gaping hole in your scenario.
There are others. Katz and Liam have indicated several.
Just because some relatively amateur blokes pulled off an extremely destructive attack, doesn’t necessarily imply they had assistance from the militarily mighty USA or any other State.
Sometimes really horrible things happen without the CIA pulling the strings, daggy.
I see that Katz has already forgotten that intellignece agecies from five other nations other than Russia gave the US very detailed warnings.
And Katz has ignored my point that people in the US who were trying to prevent the 9/11 attacks were obstructed.
At least Ambigulous and Katz have demostrated to the rest of us that they have no aptitude whatsoever for intelligence analysis or crime investigation.
It appears that if they had been in command of the US air defences on that day they would have waited until the flights that the hijackers had intended to hijack had been given to them and their intended targets had been provided before acting to prevent them.
If Ambigulous claims that he understands the case of the 9/11 Truth movement then isn’t it about time she/he demonstrated some comprehension of that case on this forum?
Hmmm. Let’s see.
Daggett suggests that the US should have taken notice of the British, the Egyptians, the Germans, the Russians and the Jordanians.
With the exception of the Germans (who played host to the plotters of 9/11) every other nation he mentioned has suffered at least one serious terrorist outrage since 9/11.
Following Daggett’s logic it is possible that the intelligence authorities of these nations were also in cahoots with the terrorists for their own fell purposes, just like US intelligence.
That being the case, why should US intelligence take any notice at all of those warnings that possibly emanated from corrupted sources that conspired with Islamic fanatics?
Yes, that is a reductio ad absurdum argument. But at least I didn’t start it.
“There is a gaping hole in your scenario.” @323.
We also need to consider the long term decoy plan pulled off in 1993 – the forerunner of the second attack on the WTC buildings. From Wiki -
“The attack was planned by a group of conspirators including Ramzi Yousef, Mahmud Abouhalima, Mohammad Salameh, Nidal Ayyad, Abdul Rahman Yasin and Ahmad Ajaj. They received financing from Khaled Shaikh Mohammed, Yousef’s uncle. In March 1994, four men were convicted of carrying out the bombing: Abouhalima, Ajaj, Ayyad and Salameh. The charges included conspiracy, explosive destruction of property and interstate transportation of explosives. In November 1997, two more were convicted: Yousef, the mastermind behind the bombings, and Eyad Ismoil, who drove the truck carrying the bomb.”
You have to congratulate the conspirators who did all this just to mask who really did the attack 18 years later- those wily neoliberals!
If that doesn’t make sense it must be aliens- yes , some people blame shape shifting reptile aliens who are in control of all the governments of the world.
.
Welcome to the thoughts of David Icke.
“Icke cites the Holocaust,[22] the Oklahoma City bombing,[22] and the 11 September 2001 attacks[23] as examples of events financed and organised by the Global Elite. British journalist Simon Jones writes that, according to Icke, “Ordinary people are being massively duped into believing that the ordinary course of world events are the consequence of known political forces and random, uncontrollable events. However, the course of humanity is being manipulated at every level. These individuals arrange for incidents to occur around the world, which then elicit a response from the public (’something must be done’), and in turn allows those in power to do whatever they had planned to do in the first place.”[22]”
.
Or this gem-”In 1999, Icke wrote and published The Biggest Secret: The Book that Will Change the World, in which he identified the extraterrestrial prison warders as reptilians from the constellation Draco.[25] They walk erect and appear to be human, living not only on the planets they come from, but also in caverns and tunnels under the earth. They have cross-bred with humans, which has created “hybrids” who are “possessed” by the full-blooded reptilians.[26] The reptiles’ hybrid reptilian-human DNA allows them to change from reptilian to human form if they consume human blood. Icke has drawn parallels with the 1980s science-fiction series V, in which the earth is taken over by reptiloid aliens disguised as humans”
.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Icke
Weirdly enough others would have us believe the same rubbish.
daggett
I believe you do not have expertise or skills in ‘intelligence analysis’ or ‘crime investigation’. Several posters here have picked you up on crucial errors of logic.
It’s interesting that their clear thinking was sufficient. As far as I can see they didn’t need specialist training for that.
What is your point, murph the surf (@ 326)?
And what is yours, Katz (@ 325)?
Ambigulous (@ 327) wrote:
As far as I am aware, I have responded to all aguments put to me. What do you claim are my “errors of logic”?
Katz, one law enforcement officer who seriously tried to prevent 9/11 was John O’Neill, who was head of the FBI’s counterterrorism branch in Washington.
He died because he was given a new job as the security director for the World Trade Center on 10 September 2001. His office was on the 34th floor of the North Tower.
Well, there’s an error of logic right there. Right in front of your nose, daggett. Can you see it?
You claim that this O’Neill guy was harassed into resigning from the FBI, presumably because he was getting too close to the ‘truth’ about Bin Laden.
Now, this could easily be explained as normal bureaucratic politics. But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that there was a more sinister explanation — that the shadowy powers behind the upcoming Twin Towers operation feared he might expose them.
Well, in that case, the very last thing in the world they would have done is allow him to have that security director job. As a competent ex-investigator with, presumably, complete access to the WTC, what if he had noticed some aspect of the preparations? Hey, why is there nano-thermite attached to that there girder?
Imagine if ex-Special Forces operatives, with links to the White House, were arrested by the NYPD as they were rigging up the buildings. It’d make Watergate look small beer. I’d love to see Dick Cheney try to explain that away.
Naah, if there really were a conspiracy, O’Neill would have been posted off to Alaska or somewhere, and then had a little car accident.
Logic. Look it up in the dictionary. It’s under ‘L’.
Oh, and your dates are wrong. O’Neill started as WTC security director on 23 August 2001, according to Wikipedia — giving him almost 3 weeks to notice any preparations for the ‘demolition’.
“I’d love to see Dick Cheney try to explain that away.”
“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know. And there are the things that were known to us and that we didn’t tell you, that we knew, and that we have no plan now of letting you know, we knew. You know.
Having trouble keeping up Daggett?
David Icke has outed you – I think you are one of the alien hybrids who are confusing us mere mortals with your outlandish tales so we can’t focus on where the real problem is.
And there isn’t anything anyone says or writes that will convince me otherwise . Any such so called evidence is only a smoke screen , a put up job , a lie peddled to stop true comprehension. The more you deny this the more we will all know that you are guilty.
We are onto you Daggett.
Paulus (@ 239)
There’s no error of logic, because I only stated the facts of John O’Neill’s death. I concede that did mistakenly assume that he started his job as the security director for the World Trade Center on the day that he moved into his office on the 34th floof of the North Tower. The facts are:
August 23, 2001: Former FBI Al-Qaeda Expert Begins Job as Head of Security at the WTC
Of course, the fact that they took the risk that O’Neill might have discovered what was going on occurred to me, but do you really think that it would have been inordinately difficult to steer him away from where he would have learnt what was really going on for that period of time?
As one example, there were numerous additional telephone bomb threats in late August. See “Late August-September 10, 2001: WTC Security Raised, Then Scaled Back, in Weeks Before 9/11 Attack” on the History Commons Complete 9/11 Timeline.
It should also be pointed out that the 34th floor was below where flight 11 struck between the 93rd and 99th floors of the North Tower, so he theoretically could have easily survived the day. On the other hand, I expect he could have easily been persuaded as security director to stay in the building in order to personally investigate the crash. As experienced firefighters such as Oreo Palmer who reached the crash scene in the South Tower (and subsequently died) had no reason to expect each of the towers to collapse to dust in less that 16 seconds, then why should he?
Other relevant facts are:
Mid-July 2001: John O’Neill Rails Against White House and Saudi Obstructionism
December 2003: FBI Agent Says Officers in CIA’s Bin Laden Unit ‘Have Blood on Their Hands’ over 9/11
Paulus wrote:
The fact remains that mysterious people in overalls with tollboxes were observed going into the Twin Towers during poere downs in the weeks prior to 9/11.
If you had been following 9/11 you would understand there is already a vast amount that has been revealed that would “make Watergate look small beer” but which the newsmedia refuses to report. What about Sibel Edmonds’ explosive revelations of corruption in the FBI translation unit that concealed knowledge of the the 9/11 atacks and the sale of nuclear secrets to Turkey as just one of dozens of possible examples?
you have outdone yourself, daggsy
And you were up against some fairly fierce competition: there’s this poster “daggett”, who’s …..
GregM (@ 283) wrote:
Then Jules (@ 293) wrote:
Good point, Jules.
Jules continued:
Yes it does.
If their failure to protect America on 11 September 2001 was truly incompetence then the sacking of all those found to be principly responsible may have been sufficient redress.
However, if it were to have been found to have been the result malicious intent, then those responsible should be put on trial and put behihd bars, possibly in a prison similar to Guantanamo Bay or Abu Ghraib for at least the rest of their natural lives.
Would anyone here find it acceptable if someone they beleive had murdered their husband or wife were not even investigated by the police, let alone charged, tried and imprisoned?
Yet, many who lost loved ones on the 11 September believe that they were deliberately murdered by senior members of the Bush administration.
Yet, in spite of a vast amount of evidence implicating them in that crime, no proper investigation has been conducted.
—
In any case, when have any group of political leaders who were as grossly incompetent as members of the Bush Administration must have been to have unintentionally allowed the September 11 attacks to succeed, then been able to cover their arses so well that not a single one was sacked, demoted or even reprimanded? Indeed may of those responsible were subsequently promoted and nearly all profited immensely from the ensuing wars and the imposition of disaster capitalism on the United States.
The competition is hotting up.
911! From those wonderful folks who brought you the Bay of Pigs, Watergate, Operation Eagle Claw, Contragate, Carry On Up The Khyber (the 2002 Remix), the Mesopotamia Caper and much much more.
When it comes to a choice between the US shadow military-security-industrial complex and a cell of highly motivated young men who don’t care about living in this world any more, I’d know which stocks I’d short and which I would go long on.
However there’s probably a case to be made for Osama not quite being the omnipotent mastermind behind it all.
“They did what!!? That was just a feasibility study! No survivors you say? OK, let’s get in front of it. I’ll just jot down some bullet points here. Where’s the mike?”
They have blood on their hands. They have three thousand deaths on their hands
.
Well, assuming the truth of this assertion, they have a lot more than 3000 deaths on their hands don’t they?
Nabakov (@ 337) wrote:
When it comes to a choice between the US shadow military-security-industrial complex and a cell of highly motivated young men who don’t care about living in this world any more, I’d know which stocks I’d short and which I would go long on.
If Nabakov, believes that 19 “highly motivated young men who don’t care about living in this world any more” had vastly more capacity to pull off 9/11 than did the “US shadow military-security-industrial complex” with all its hundreds of billions of funds, equipment and potentially thousands of highly trained personnel it could call upon, then perhaps he/she should ponder why other many “highly motivated young men who don’t care about living in this world any more” were so demonstrably unsuccessful in defeating the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Perhaps, also, Nabakov would care to offer his/her own explanation to the unanswered question posed by the 9/11 Truth Movement:
For my own part, I reject the view that the US military and US spy agencies are bottomless wells of incompetence as Nabakov is attempting to imply. They have on many occasions proven themselves very capable of inflicting violence in order to further the goals of those they serve. Of course, they make mistakes and, of course, they sometimes fail to achieve their goals. The reasons they fail often have a lot to do with the courage and sacrifice of those resisting them as occurred at the Bay of Pigs and in the Vietnam War. (It should also be noted that another reason for the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion was that President Kennedy refused to back the invasion with US air power as requested. For that and many other principled and decent stances he took, he was murdered in 1963.)
I think should we should start to become wary of people who on the one hand profess to oppose the wars in which the US is now engaged, but on the other hand seize upon any feeble argument to perpetuate the principle excuse used to justify those wars.
Here’s yet another editorial from the Australian in support of the Afghan War:
I would be most interested to know how all those ostensibly progressive anti-war types, who, nevertheless, have attacked me on this forum, would respond to that editorial or to the earlier editorial mentioned above.
—
Adrien (@ 338),
Its hard to know whether or not that FBI agent’s expressed outrage at the needless loss of almost 3,000 American lives would have extended to the (soon to become) many more victims of the the US military outside the US, but, at least, he has grasped the fact that much of the culpability for those deaths lies with figures within the US administration, and was prepared to say so.
“7. How were the FBI and CIA able to release the names and photos of the alleged hijackers within hours, as well as to visit houses, restaurants and flight schools they were known to frequent?”
Once again, Dagster, I answered that back at #136.
crikey Paul Norton, I could have done without trotting off to visit that site…. I feel soiled.
I wrote (@ 339):
Then FDB wrote (@ 340)
At 136, FDB wrote:
How does that answer the question, FDB?
According to the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory, US intelligence agencies, law enforcement agencies, the whole US airport security system and the whole air defence system were caught copmpletely off guard. Yet within hours, the FBI and CIA were able to work out precisely who all the hijackers were and a good more, besides.
I would suggest that that was staggeringly brilliant detective work, that is, unless they already knew who the hijackers were.
In answer to your question, as someone put in another forum discussion:
If your sister worked for Time magazine, then it seems highly likely to me that she was part of the media cover-up, if not the conspiracy itself.[1] There were obvious glaring holes in the Official Story from the outset, some of which I have described above. and any critical minded investigative journalist should have been able to spot them. Whether she would have witheld the truth willingly or did so only to avoid adverse repercussions is beside the point.
Footnotes
1. One journalist who was clearly part of the conspiracy, by the way was the BBC’s Jane Standley, who reported the ‘collapse’ of World Trade Center Building 7 23 minutes before it occrred with the World Trade Center still standing in the background. See video here. Clearly she had been given a script, but the actual demolition had been delayed. There’s a hilarious discussion about this on James Randi’s web site. As James Randi along with fellow ’sceptic’, Michael Shermer are Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists, I would have thought that Jane Standley would have qualified for James Randi’s $1million prize offered to anyone who can prove that they have psychic abilities.
Sorry. The video of Jane Standley reporting that WTC 7 had ‘collapsed’ 23 minutes before it actually did, is here.
Apologies for yet another useless internal page link to Nabakov’s post (@ 337) above. (I made it mistakenly <a href=”/#comment-826851″>337</a> instead of <a href=”#comment-826851″>337</a>. Clicking on the former will cause your browser to try to retrieve LP’s home page instead of just going to the reference on the current page.)
Oh noes! Daggett’s logic has been blown up by nanothermite!
Proof positive of TEH conspiracy!
Katz (@ 344),
Firstly, I still haven’t learn what the point of your post at 325 is.
Katz, are you trying to tell me that you share FDB’s unlimited faith in Time magazine and the rest of the commercial media to tell us the truth and to fearlessly hold our political leaders to account, as they did over the Iraq WMD allegations and FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds‘ allegations of Senior US politicians selling nuclear secrets to Turkey, etc, etc?
FDB (@ 136),
I would be most interested to learn how your sister and the other Time journalists satisfied themselves of the veracity of the official explanation of 9/11. Would yo car to show me where they put to the US government those questions that I mentioned above that the 9/11 Truth Movement is trying to get answers for.
For more illuminatimg Time magazine reporting on 9/11, please see the article “9/11 Cover-Up” amongst a collection of articles “Conspiracy Theories” of July 2009.
It tells us all that anyone needs to know about the 9/11 controversy in all of 203 words.
And in a manner, with which those following this forum would not be altogether unfamiliar, by now, Time Magazine demonstrates conclusively how, because some people out there believe that the world is ruled by a Reptillian elite, that the Apollo moon landings were faked or take what is written in the da Vinci Code about Jesus and Mary Magdalene is literally true, that it necessarily follows that we can dismiss out of hand any notion that the US government has been less than forthright in its account of 9/11 or about the JFK asassination.
I won’t speak for FDB.
“Unlimited faith”?
Oh dear Daggett. I’m beginning to suspect that nuance isn’t your long suit.
It may come as a surprise to you therefore that there exists a very large grey area between fearless truth-telling and acting as a complicit mouthpiece of government power.
I was living in the US when that non-entity John Hinckley tried to shoot Reagan. I was amazed by the speed with which, in those pre-internet days, the major networks were able to piece together the outlines of Hinkley’s biography.
The mass media are very good at doing that sort of thing even without the help of the government.
Katz (@ 346),
Firstly, as with the point you made at 325 above, I don’t understand what bearing your point about the rporting of the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan has on 9/11 or the discussion of the media’s role in 9/11.
—
In spite of my occasional resort to the use of hyperbole and other debating devices, I have shown that I take this topic very seriously.
So, why won’t you?
Why won’t you either demonstrate to others that the arguments that I have put in support of the 9/11 Truth Movement are wrong, or, else, at least stop making contributions which appear to be designed to cloud the issue?
We have long ago established that the case in support of the Vietnam War was a lie.
Since then we have similarly established that the case put at the time overtly in support of the invasion of Iraq War, that is WMD’s, was a lie on more than one level (regardless of whether or not the implicit 9/11 argument that we now are arguing about has been shown up as such).
Furthermore, the commercial and government newsmedia peddled that lie, even though anyone, with critical capabilities and access to the facts that any journalist had at the time, should have been able to see it as such.
That is one of many examples that just about veryone here would agree about of the the commercial media, including Time magazine, and most current affairs journalists on its payroll, acting against the public interest.
For my part, if no-one here is prepared to deal with any of the substantive arguments I have put, I would dearly love to be able, as we have been able with the Iraq War WMD argument, to move beyond having to deal with the silly ‘black is white’ arguments, the non-sequiturs and straw-men demolition exercises, that are being employed here, and arrive at a consensus on 9/11.
—
Apologies for the grammatic and spelling errors above.
“… yo car …” should have been “… you care …” and “take what is written in the da Vinci Code about Jesus and Mary Magdalene is literally true” should have been “take what is written in The da Vinci Code about Jesus and Mary Magdalene to be literally true.”
This was posted just now onto a mailing list in which the article “Who’s Afraid of Sibel Edmonds?” is being discussed.
I would be curious to learn whether any of the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists on this forum dispute the existence of the the military industry complex that US President Eisenhower warned against and that it poses a threat to democracy and to world peace. (Personally, I don’t think it is too late, but I don’t think we have that much time, either.)
—
Apologies for having misspelt ‘everyone’ as ‘veryone’
I see no-one bothered to take on my #296. If I call that Scenario One (“Iraq did it, Clinton/Bush hid it”), orthodoxy Scenario Two (al Qaeda acted alone), and trutherdom Scenario Three (9/11 an inside job), I lean towards One, consider Two possible, but place Three out there with faked moon landings and Holocaust denial.
I agree with the clear majority view here that a lot of what daggett says is apriori absurd (e.g. suicide hijackings and a BBC conspiracy tool uniting to hide the fact that the WTC buildings were mined with explosives). Common sense has to be overwhelmed by some other factor in order to even consider such contorted scenarios. It all resembles the fundamentalist paranoia according to which angels and demons are messing with us at every step of our lives. Liam’s #311 is more like it.
Nonetheless I perceive the similarity between my situation and that of the Truthers. Like daggett, I can go on at great length with my “evidence”. (Old sample here. Yes, it’s a wingnut site. But for a long time it had the best discussions of the anthrax letters.) Like daggett, I suppose some secret management of public perception, which raises the problem of why word of the long-running conspiracy hasn’t leaked out. Like daggett, I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I am rather attached to a particular heterodoxy. Only in my case it’s the idea that intelligence agencies sometimes cover up *enemy action*, and that the invasion of Iraq under manufactured pretexts was the disastrous culmination of one such policy.
I would be a lot happier if the “9/11 truth movement” had time for *that* sort of perspective; but it doesn’t fit their dominant narrative, which is that the enemy is within. So instead I’ll ask the other diehards still reading this thread: would you regard *this* idea – the paternalistic coverup of enemy action by the intelligence services, compounding with time into an epic fiasco – to be apriori absurd as well?
Unlimited faith indeed.
I was merely telling you that someone dear and close to me was on the ground in Manhattan at the very time of the attacks, and along with everyone else in the whole city (and nation) she tried her arse off to coordinate and disseminate the best available information.
It was intended as a little vignette to offset your own, nearly a decade later, obsessive and furtive scrabbling through the remains to prove that your own favoured bogey men must have been responsible.
Frankly I share your concerns about these bogey-people and bogey-organisations, broadly speaking. They are doing way bogus stuff.
But you are wrong and foolish.
FDB (@ 350),
Are you trying to tell us that Time is not principally a magazine to dispense pro-US-government propaganda?
You have not responded to my specific questions, and you haven’t given us any other reason to believe that your sister acted any different from all the other Time journalists in their reporting of 9/11 and other events.
Mitchell Porter (@ 249),
The reason that I did not respond to your suggestion that Iraq may have been behind 9/11 is because:
1. It defies common sense to suggest that the US would not have seized on any evidence of Iraq sponsoring a terrorist attack on the US as a justification for invasion, and, instead, have covered it up. Have you forgotten the immense and ultimately unsuccessful effort that the US conducted to win support of the United Nations security Council and world public opinion for the invasion, based on the phony WMD allegations? Why wouldn’t they have, instead, presented to the UN factual evidence of Iraq having sponsored a terrorist attack on the US, if they had it?
2. You provided no evidence.
Mitchell Porter wrote:
Perhaps you think we should dispense with discussion and simply conduct polls on contentious issues?
Simply stating that my views are absurd does not make them thus. Don’t forget, we are discussing extraordinary events. Any explanation for these events requires that a large number people would have had to act out of the public view in manners that go way beyond what is commonplace.
I believe I have shown that the explanation I have offered for 9/11 accounts for the available evidence far better than does the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory that others are defending. No-one in this discussion has seriously attempted to demonstrate that the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory accounts for the known facts better than the conspiracy theory I am defending.
#351 (!): “It defies common sense to suggest…”
Oh, so now we’re on to common sense. Well, I guess that’s always a game-changer.
Please, somebody, say something to keep him going. Like that guy in the makeup said to that guy in the cape, “You’re just too much fun!”
I guess it’s just us, daggett!
@351: “It defies common sense to suggest that the US would not have seized on any evidence of Iraq sponsoring a terrorist attack on the US as a justification for invasion, and, instead, have covered it up… Why wouldn’t they have, instead, presented to the UN factual evidence of Iraq having sponsored a terrorist attack on the US, if they had it?”
You don’t understand my scenario yet. The sequence of events is as follows (hypothesized part in bold):
1991, Bush Sr’s coalition drives Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. 1992, Clinton defeats Bush to become US president. February 1993, one month after the new president’s inauguration, and two years (almost to the day) after the Iraqi retreat from Kuwait, jihadis in New York assisted by Iraqi intelligence truck-bomb the basement of the WTC in an attempt to bring it down. The Clinton administration sets out to discover the ultimate perpetrators. Mid-1993, the Clinton administration bombs Iraqi intelligence HQ in Baghdad in an attempt to deter further such acts. They fail.
–followed by eight years of escalating semi-secret warfare, culminating in 9/11 and the invasion, which saw increasingly egregious deception of the public, e.g. spinning the destruction of Flight TWA800 as mechanical failure.
Having actively prevented the public from discovering the truth on previous occasions, they were no longer free to turn around and present the evidence, lest eight previous years of deception be exposed.
Bear in mind that George W. Bush’s head of CIA was George Tenet, retained from Clinton. Clinton’s original CIA head was James Woolsey, who quit just days after Operation Bojinka, the successor to the 1993 WTC bombing, was exposed in the Philippines, and who went on in subsequent years to publicly promote the idea that maybe Iraq was working through al Qaeda. Tenet started out on Clinton’s national security staff, and through a series of promotions made it to the top of the CIA by mid-1997, and he stayed there until Bush Jr’s second term. That spans the period from 1998’s Operation Desert Fox, a US-UK attack on Iraq which was supposed to be about degrading WMD capabilities (but at the time Stratfor.com speculated that a coup within Iraq was also attempted), through to the 2003 invasion; Tenet is alleged to have said it was a “slam dunk” that some form of WMD would show up. So it’s the same policies, the same approach, the same people: use WMDs as the safe justification for any attack on Iraq, but don’t link specific terrorist attacks to Iraq. (Woolsey, meanwhile, joined the other camp, the Wolfowitz group, who were willing to talk about an Iraq connection with terrorism.)
I could write a book about this stuff, and maybe I’ll have to, if I truly do want to see this class of hypothesis enter into the public discourse. There are many ambiguities, many possibilities, but not only can you make the case that Iraq sponsored al Qaeda terrorism, you can make the case that this connection has been deliberately obfuscated by US federal agencies. And they – or rather, their political masters, assuming that it’s the politicians and not the spy chiefs who were the motive force here – have had multiple reasons to do so.
I am glad to have learnt that j_p_z (@ 352) finds this discussion about the murder of 3,000 Americans and probably well over a million from the Middle East and Central Asia that died as a result so entertaining.
Perhaps he should also put that to those Americans who lost loved ones on 9/11 and who are fighting to force New York City to hold a proper inquiry.
mitchell Porter (@ 353),
So, why didn’t those who went to so much trouble to destroy Clinton’s Presidency with the Monica Lewinsky and Whitewater affairs, get a whiff of this?
Until you produce some credible evidence for this, I see no reason to dismiss the mountains of evidence which implicates figures in the Bush administration in the crime of 9/11.
“I am glad… so entertaining.”
Well, think about it for a minute. Just because it is indeed all very serious business, doesn’t entail that anybody has got to include you as part of the set of grave and serious factors.
If we were having a discussion about the state of the modern novel, we wouldn’t be required to include (nor would we be majorly amiss if we somehow failed to take note of) “The Case of the Barking Clock” and “The Skull of the Waltzing Clown” by Harry Stephen Keeler.
Nevertheless I will happily admit that a history of literature that includes such masterpieces is perforce a much more ‘entertaining’ one. Being as I am also a fan of Kit Smart, maybe you and I have got more in common than we realize!
Daggett,
I hope my earlier comment did not give the impression that I was hostile to the points you were making about 9/11. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, I have a particular theory about which I would appreciate your opinion.
Back at about a million comments earlier, ‘Nana Levu’ linked to an interesting set of questions, including this one:
Why indeed?
Daggett, you realise that the 9/11 demolition, and all the related operations involving aircraft and air defences, would have taken a great deal of time to prepare? Surely longer than the 9 months Bush had been in office.
You also realise that a new US administration doesn’t instantly dispense with all of the senior officials who belonged to the old administration. It takes years to completely change over. Many of the senior national security bureaucrats in office on 9/11 would have been appointed by President Clinton.
So it seems undeniable that Bill was involved in this up to his eyeballs. Hillary too, obviously. (In fact, I bet she was the real mastermind.)
And you may wonder why has Obama not launched a genuine investigation into 9/11? Truthers have a vast amount of evidence at their fingertips. If Obama has deliberately chosen not to blow the conspiracy right open, it can only mean one thing, can’t it? Mmm-hmm.
Some people point to Bush’s adventures as the point of 9/11. But really, consider how meager these were to justify such a grand black operation. A pissant gas pipeline in Afghanistan (which still hasn’t been built). Toppling a tinpot dictator in Iraq (who was always more than willing to sell oil to the US if only the sanctions were lifted).
NO! The real purpose of 9/11, I put it to you, was to give Bush the opportunity to conduct his wars — which were always intended to fail. These failed Republican wars would then guarantee the election of Barack Obama in 2008. And that was the true purpose of 9/11.
Because, you see, Obama had to become President at this juncture. Rather than me going on any further, check out this explanation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDB5BFoSQLs
I report, you decide.
Thank you, Paulus. All is now clear. Surely, there is nothing more to be said.
OK, j_p_z (@ 355),
Where have you even once attempted to seriously discuss 9/11?
Have you?
I mean, apart from responding to counter-suggestion with innuendo and accusation that people like FDB’s sister must have been in on it? That’s a classically paranoid reaction to having a delusion challenged, daggett, and you should recognise it as such.
…
Paulus, masterwork as always. Though I hesitate to suggest a further elaboration: President Eisenhower, who warned the American electorate about the military-industrial complex just as he was leaving office, was in the perfect position as a retired, well-connected General to put into place such a system of economic dominance and control. How would he have been so articulate about something so otherwise abstract if he hadn’t planned it all along?
Liam (@ 359) wrote:
Why not let others see for themselves?
My posts on 9/11 in this forum are at: 28, 50, 72, 105, 126, 139, 142, 172, 186, 187, 193, 196, 227, 236, 237, 246, 251, 256, 265, 268, 271, 273, 280, 281, 282, 286, 287, 289, 291, 292, 294, 298, 309, 310, 315, 316, 319, 324, 328, 333, 335, 339, 342, 343, 345, 347, 348, 351, 354 and 358.
Anyone wishing to check the quality of Liam’s contributions can go to: 114, 144, 149, 153, 177, 180, 184, 198, 209, 232, 295, 299, 302, 311 and 359.
And j_p_z’s are at 119, 234, 259, 352 and 355.
I don’t think anyone can doubt though, that it must go back to FDR. And/or Keynes himself.
Liam,
Your mention of Eisenhower is making me nostalgic for the old days. The era when an Iowa farm boy working for The Company, armed with nothing more than quick wits, a can-do attitude, and a briefcase of gold sovereigns, could stage a brilliantly successful covert operation. Guatemala. Iran. Indonesia (well, they came close).
These days, it’s all so complicated and convoluted. Nano-thermite, remote-controlled airplanes, Men in Black. To make sense of a modern conspiracy, you have to be a combination civil engineer, quantum physicist, and forensic investigator. Daggett is all of that, but how can us simple folk hope to make head or tail of it?
Sigh. I pine for the 60s, in so many ways.
Indeed Generalfeldmarschall. It’s time the CIA and other American security agencies left alone the idea of orchestrating gigantic engineers’ conspiracies and got back to their core competency: dropping suitcases full of money out of the doors of small planes, and hoping that a bad guy somewhere below gets squashed under the weight.
Daggett, collecting large numbers of “facts” and repeating them does not make an argument. That goes for your comment #360 too.
Awesome song ref Paulus.
But not the only good song on that album.
Agreed.
Liam @ 363, you forgot to mention the use of Air America to deal in massive quantities of opiates to the list of CIA corps competencies.
Nice thread, btw – this could go on to challenge the Missy Higgins effort given enough time.
Get
A
Room
Thanks, Dept.
You know, the fate of Warren really cut me up. In his early 50s, still with so much potential and life ahead of him, the silly bugger gets cancer but refuses to see a doctor until there’s no hope.
I’m sure you’ve all seen this many times before, but it’s always worthy of another spin …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhRRWwH3Fro
dagget’s link to the James Randi site’s forum on the BBC blopper about the WTC7 has a final comment ( on page 28!)which reveals more reptile alien news.
They are from Zogarth.
.
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?s=def0ba26fb8636eae32af9ed0897bf96&t=75768&page=28
Liam wrote (@ 363):
I would have thought that that made a lot more of an argument than not presenting any facts at all.
Also, Liam if you mean to say that any claims I have made are not factual, then you should do so by referring to them directly, rather than attempting to imply that they are not by such sneaky and underhanded means as putting quote symbols around the word ‘facts’.
Liam continued:
Do you need to be reminded of the reason I listed both my comments?
At 359 you asked:
So, I felt it only fair that others be given the opportunity to look at my posts and be allowed to see for themselves.
I should have written “Do you need to be reminded of the reason I listed my comments?” in my previous post. The word ‘both’ was left in the sentence by mistake.
—
It seems as if even the majority of the 9/11 Commission now rejects its own report, because they were lied to by the Government. See “The 9/11 Commission Rejects own Report as Based on Government Lies” by Gordon Duff on Salem-News.com of 11 Sep 09.
The article is about the book “The Ground Truth: The Story Behind America’s Defense on 9/11.” It quotes the 9/11 Commission head, Thomas Kean, was the Republican governor of New Jersey:
Gordon Duff asks:
Graeme Bird is getting amongst it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WNrx2jq184
Good on you Daggett, how about everyone who disagrees that the three highrises that completely collapsed on 9/11 were controled demolitions take the time to have another, more critical, look at all three collapses.
There is plenty of archival footage on youtube.
The absolute proof that WTC 7 was a controlled demolition is the officially recognised 2.25s of freefall early in the collapse, freefall requires the instantanious removal of all the structural elements and this can only be achieved through precision use of explosives.
Have a look at asia’s tallest controlled demolition for those of you that don’t think that the Towers look like a CD, all tall buildings have to have an upper block created in order to eliminate the risk of toppling…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq4dWT-9DhE
Thanks for that, andrew (@ 375). It’s nice to finally, once again, see a link to a You Tube broadcast that actually adds to our knowledge of the topic at hand.
I have encountered the argument, that the twin towers ‘collapses’ could not possibly have been a controlled demolition because it was sequenced from the top down instead of bottom up a number of times. Even here that argument appears to have thrown one person somewhat off the track.
The example that you have provided should prove to be the last nail in the coffin of that particular ‘argument’.
—
The Hard Evidence tour featuring Richard Gage and Dr Steven Jones
I have neglected to mention, before now, the Hard Evidence Tour featuring Richard Gage of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth and Physicist Dr Steven Jones.
Dr Steven Jones produced the paper “Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe” which conclusively shows that all three World Trade Center building ‘collapses’ were controllled demolitions.
Recently, Richard Gage addressed a sell-out audience in the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco and was very well received.
You can see both of them at the following venues and dates:
Sydney
Date: Saturday, 14 November.
Venue:Tom Mann Theatre136 Chalmers St,
Surry Hills, Sydney NSW(Walking distance from Central Railway station)
Seating Capacity: 292
Melbourne
Date/Time: Tuesday, 17th of November, 7pm till 10pm (Please be a little early).
Venue:Victorian Trades Hall (New Council Chamber)
Brisbane
Date/Time: Thursday, 19th of November, 7pm till 10pm (Please be a little early).
Venue:Clayfield Bowling Club
For further information, please visit thehardevidence.com.
The organisers would particularly welcome the attendance and participation in the discussion of people who are prepared to defend the Official US Government explanation of the World Trade Center ‘collapses’.
Unfortunately, we don’t have much footage of buildings collapsing after being hit by planes.
What footage we do have though looks exactly like itself. That much I can say with certainty.
Firstly, it seems most interesting that none of those named by Graeme Bird have since attempted to defend their conduct, thus far, on this forum.
—
FDB (@ 377),
Obviously, in trying to understand what happened on 11 September 2001, we face enormous difficulties. The removal of almost all the evidence from the crime scene immediately afterwards, as discussed above, was the most obvious.
Just because no large passenger aircraft has before or since crashed into any large building doesn’t mean that we cant apply our knowledge of the laws of physics and structural engineering in order to work out what should have happened on that day after two aircraft each crashed into one of the two out of the three buildings that eventually ‘collapsed’.
That is what the 9/11 Commission and NIST should have done but failed to do.
And that is what groups like Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth have since made an impressive attempt at achieving even given their lack of resources, obstruction, the removal of evidence, etc.
andrew’s post and my posts before then were to rebut of the nonsense argument that the ‘collapses’ of the Twin Towers could not have been conrolled demolitions because all controlled demolitions occur from the ground up.
The example that andrew gave, as helpful as it was in disproving that claim, was, in fact, redudant, because we only need common sense to understand that if the structaral strength of a building is suddenly removed by explosives, the building will not remain suspeneded indefinitely in mid-air.
Whether the sequence of explosions that would have removed the strength was top-down, bottom up, middle-outwards or whatever, is irrelevant.
“Firstly, it seems most interesting that none of those named by Graeme Bird have since attempted to defend their conduct, thus far, on this forum.”
Daggett, sometimes people getting bored and wandering off is a sign of nothing more than that. Another possibility is that in any argument, being on the side that’s antagonistic to G Montgomery Bird is widely considered as an absolutely iron-clad guarantee that you are correct.
Another possibility can be deduced from reading this thread.
You’re not kidding FDB and Norto. You know who needs to head the investigation? Rumpole With A Gun.
You still around, daggett? I’m waiting for you to respond to my assertion that the Clintons were into 9/11 up to their eyeballs.
OK, maybe my detour into Obama being the anti-Christ was a little over the top. But still, how can you blame 9/11 solely on the Bush administration, when you haven’t answered the important question:
Paulus, whether or not Clinton was in any way complicit in 9/11 is somewhat beside the point.
The available evidence points overwhelmingly to complicity of figures in the administration of President George W Bush.
I asked earlier whether or not you or other Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists accepted the existence of the military industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned against.
If you do, then surely it is not inconceivable, given the lack of accountability and transparency within the US military and intelligence agencies for preparations for 9/11 to have begun while Clinton was still President without his knowledge.
However, even, if, for arguments’s sake, Clinton did know, why shouldn’t there be a proper inquiry into 9/11, all the same, where these sorts of issues can be sorted out as the New York City Coalition for Accountability Now (NYC CAN) is demanding?
Someone has very kindly posted to 911blogger.com a succinct outline of the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory , which I am posting below. Please tell me, FDB, Katz, Liam, murph the surf, mitchell porter, j_p_Z et al if it makes as much sense to you as it does to me.
Directed by a beardy-guy from a cave in Afghanistan, nineteen hard-drinking, coke-snorting, devout Muslims enjoy lap dances before their mission to meet Allah…
Using nothing more than craft knifes, they overpower cabin crew, passengers and pilots on four planes…
And hangover or not, they manage to give the world’s most sophisticated air defense system the slip…
Unphased by leaving their “How to Fly a Passenger Jet” guide in the car at the airport, they master the controls in no-time and score direct hits on two towers, causing THREE to collapse completely…
Our masterminds even manage to overpower the odd law of physics or two… and the world watches in awe as steel-framed buildings fall symmetrically – through their own mass – at free-fall speed, for the first time in history.
Despite all their dastardly cunning, they stupidly give their identity away by using explosion-proof passports, which survive the fireball undamaged and fall to the ground… only to be discovered by the incredible crime-fighting sleuths at the FBI…
…Meanwhile down in Washington…
Hani Hanjour, having previously flunked 2-man Cessna flying school, gets carried away with all the success of the day and suddenly finds incredible abilities behind the controls of a Boeing…
Instead of flying straight down into the large roof area of the Pentagon, he decides to show off a little…
Executing an incredible 270 degree downward spiral, he levels off to hit the low facade of the world’s most heavily defended building…
…all without a single shot being fired…. or ruining the nicely mowed lawn… and all at a speed just too fast to capture on video…
…Later, in the skies above Pennsylvania…
So desperate to talk to loved ones before their death, some passengers use sheer willpower to connect mobile calls that otherwise would not be possible until several years later…
And following a heroic attempt by some to retake control of Flight 93, it crashes into a Shankesville field leaving no trace of engines, fuselage or occupants… except for the standard issue Muslim terrorists bandana…
…Further south in Florida…
President Bush, our brave Commander-in-Chief continues to read “My Pet Goat” to a class full of primary school children… shrugging off the obvious possibility that his life could be in imminent danger…
…In New York…
World Trade Center leaseholder Larry Silverstein blesses his own foresight in insuring the buildings against terrorist attack only six weeks previously…
While back in Washington, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz shake their heads in disbelief at their own luck in getting the ‘New Pearl Harbor’ catalyzing event they so desired to pursue their agenda of world domination…
And finally, not to be disturbed too much by reports of their own deaths, at least seven of our nineteen suicide hijackers turn up alive and kicking in mainstream media reports…
I know you can’t see it Daggett, but by Zappa’s Ghost I swear that your deliberate effort to present a ridiculous sounding “official” account sounds WAY more likely than your best effort to plausibly describe an alternative explanation.
Honestly, hand on my heart.
Wow this thread is still going… every tiume my mithriltinfoil alloy hat wears out I have to go get another one made, and take some time off the internet.
“I read John Robb and I vote.”
Thats great Liam, I’m gonna steal that line. He loves his jargon and is good at self promotion, but he is well worth reading. Thats as far as I have got in catching up so far and I have to go out, but …
And a link to free republic here.
Holy motherfucking warrior jeezuz
BTW katz when Hinkley tried to shoot ronnie, wasn’t his old man or brother or something having dinner with the Bushes?
(I can’t remember the details, and don’t really care about conspiracies that don’t effect me when there are ones that do, like how the world rally championships ended up in my part of the world…
)
Still can’t understand how a passport could survive that inferno intact.
Anyone who supports the official version of events care to explain that?
From what I’ve seen here though, most of them do not appear to think that they have any explaining to do, having well known purveyors of truth and justice such as George W Bush and Dick Cheney on their side.
“Still can’t understand how a passport could survive that inferno intact.
Anyone who supports the official version of events care to explain that?”
The major logical problem in the conspiracist mindset is that it tends to treat as-yet-unanswered questions as positive evidence for something otherwise unsupported. Build enough of them up in a higgledy piggledy pile and it becomes easy to convince oneself it’s a fort.
But it’s fucking string and blankets all the way.
Daggert for what its worth, if you look carefully at the footage of the pentagon crash that was released you will see an outline of what appears to be a dark tailplane approximating the size of the plane that hit the pentagon.
(BTW There is no ultimate turtle, its turtles all the way down, for infinity. We are not living in XXXX.)
Jules, why can’t you see that 9/11 and similar ‘false flag’ attacks have been used as a pretext to subvert democracy in the US and here? Can’t you see how they resulted in all the supposedly ‘anti-terrorist’ legislation and strengthened the NSW police state and made possible the invasion of your region in September by riot police to suppress anti-Rally protestors?
Can’t you see how the deception over 9/11 was essentially the same in principle the acknowldedged lie that anti-Rally protestors through rocks at cars to discredit the protestors?
—
FDB, what I have posted is what happened on 11 September 2001, according to the 9/11 Commission, of course, not in so many words, but that is essentially what you will find in their report.
If you don’t agree that that is what happened (as I had thought I had made abundantly clear that I don’t), then, perhaps tell us what you think did happen.
Try re-reading my comment Daggett.
I do not believe I have a ‘conspracist mindset’, I just believe that there are some unanswered questions. What is it with people who can’t appreciate nuance for FFS. Just because I can’t believe that a passport could survive an inferno that destroyed a skyscraper, I’ve got a ‘conspiracist mindset’. I could just as easily claim, with as much justification that you’ve got a gullible mindset.
So your statement could read as follows:
The major logical problem in the conspiracist gullible mindset is that it tends to treat as-yet-unanswered questions as positive evidence for something otherwise unsupported. Build enough of them up in a higgledy piggledy pile and it becomes easy to convince oneself it’s a fort, particularly when it’s approved by officialdom.
Firstly, also, thanks Adrian. It’s nice to see that someone here is actually reading my posts.
—
Apologies for the grammatical error and the spelling error. I should have written:
—
Also, FDB as you have failed to demonstrate any comprehension of the case of the 9/11 Truth Movement, I am hardly surprised to learn that the explanation provided by the 9/11 Commission makes more sense to you.
When you do gain some grasp of our case, could you tell us what laws of Physics it violates and why you see its theories as less probable than those of the 9/11 Commission?
Gotta admit that was fancy flying. That Hanjour dude was a big game performer.
“The major logical problem in the conspiracist mindset is that it tends to treat as-yet-unanswered questions as positive evidence for something otherwise unsupported. Build enough of them up in a higgledy piggledy pile and it becomes easy to convince oneself it’s a fort.” – FDB
That may be true.
Anyone on either side care to explain the pasport story, and why it even exists…
I mean seriously. I heard that one Wednesday morning. It was one of the first things I heard about 9/11 and it is just ridiculous.
The only thing that particular question is really evidence of is a complete lack of critical thinking by anyone who reported it. (IE how the fuck did it get there and what person in their right mind could possibly think it got there via planes that hit a building then exploded.)
And wtf is a “conspiracist mindset” while we are on the subject?
Some form of mental illness maybe. Probably one thats a threat to national security, and the wholesomeness of society…
The problem with a huge pile of unanswered questions is that they are a huge pile of unanswered questions. The the huge pile of unanswered questions surrounding 9/11 should make people wonder. I don’t think the CD thesis of 911 answers many of those questions. In fact I think it distracts from them.
When the unanswered questions refer to an event that has been so powerful in directing the dominant narrative of our culture in the 21st century they really should be answered. Basing so much of our action in the world as western nations on an event with that many unanswered questions … I’d be a lot more comfortable with our actions (as Australians and as westerners) if those questions had been answered years ago.
As of now they still haven’t been.
“Jules, why can’t you see that 9/11 and similar ‘false flag’ attacks have been used as a pretext to subvert democracy in the US and here? Can’t you see how they resulted in all the supposedly ‘anti-terrorist’ legislation and strengthened the NSW police state and made possible the invasion of your region in September by riot police to suppress anti-Rally protestors?” – Daggett
They were not that surpressed. One of the riot cops even asked me to stop intimidating him. That was nice. The protests happened, most of the coppers were ok. The dickheads on the road were a pain tho. If the riot coppers had been replaced with traffic cops then NSW would not be broke right now. We always get the riot squad round here, its part of that other war on humans.
One day the people here will really get jack of the bullshit. Then the army won’t be enough to contain the unrest.
Yes I know all about false flag attacks and how the subvert democracy. My former bushfire brigade captian reckons he shared a cell with Tim Anderson actually. Anderson taught him how to meditate. While we are on the subject of “”false flags”.
I can see how the 9/11 report and the lies about rock throwing are similar. Obviously. (And yes they were lies. No one through rocks at rally cars as part of any protst. Tho some people did put some boulders on the rally course the night before.)
What I don’t see is how acknowledging “… that 9/11 and similar ‘false flag’ attacks have been used as a pretext to subvert democracy in the US and here?” is dependant on accepting controlled demolition.
If there is anyone on the planet who thinks the 9/11 attacks weren’t used to subvert democracy they are a complete moron.
But they would have used to subvert democracy whether it was LIHOP, MIHOP or noHOP. And democracy is subverted in other ways all the time anyway.
I do see what you are saying, but it isn’t dependant on MIHOP. (God I hate that term, oh for those of you that don’t know MIHOP = Made it happen on purpose, LIHOP = let it happen…., and noHOP, well I just made it up but obviously it means no Happened on Purpose.)
How many more posts till we cath the Missy Higgins thread?
Just to reiterate…
If there is anyone on the planet who thinks the 9/11 attacks weren’t used to subvert democracy they are a complete moron.
Apparently an ATM card from one of the passengers on the planes that hit the WTC was recovered intact from the crash. I mean, what are the odds that an the inferno, the ATM card from this particular passenger survived? Something sinister was afoot.
Above, we have Daggett (speaking to Paulus) equating Daggettself with those Daggett disagrees with, as if Daggett really doesn’t understand what a conspiracy theorist is.
“I asked earlier whether or not you or other Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists…blah blah”
A conspiracy theorist is someone who theorises (stay with me…) that there is a conspiracy of some kind in operation.
Now, there was clearly a conspiracy to bring down the towers, and plenty of available evidence points to it being the work of Islamic extremists. I have not, and nor has Paulus, and nor has anyone but Truthers as far as I can remember, advanced any theories beyond what the evidence thus indicates.
You have.
This makes you, and not me, a conspiracy theorist.
Do you get it now?
[Adrian, I don't think you are one, but the snippetty shred of frankly non-argument you presented above happened to fit my rhetorical bill nicely - do you disagree?]
“If there is anyone on the planet who thinks the 9/11 attacks weren’t used to subvert democracy they are a complete moron.”
You need firstly to define your terms, and I expect even then you’ll need to go on and explain what their combination means in this case. I’ll happily respond in good faith when I know what you’re talking about.
“How many more posts till we catch the Missy Higgins thread?”
If it ever happens (and a rearguard action could be expected to prevent it) then the only possible explanation is… well… y’know…
No argument, FDB, just a question.
I would have thought that those who totally accept the official version would be able to explain such apparently unbelievable events, as the only reasonable explanation seems to be that the passport(s) were placed at the scene for some reason.
It’s just that you all seem so happy to deride the ‘alternative’ version of events without feeling the need to justify the anomalies that exist in the official version.
Maybe someone lipsnigered the passports there. Or you know, perhaps it’s quite common for paper and fabric based material to survive aircraft disasters.
I don’t think you really understand what ‘anomaly’ means.
Did the official version suggest some sequence of events to explain the survival of the passport, which was inconsistent with something else they said?
Or did they simply report finding a passport?
The “anomaly”, to labour the point way beyond what should be necessary, is no such thing. It’s merely a discrepancy between “a report of evidence gathered” on the one hand, and “what some people think must happen in the event of an aeroplane crashing into a building” on the other.
To once more labour a point already abundantly made, perhaps this event tells us more about what happens when a fully fuelled jet crashes into a building than we have ever been able to learn before. We have one (1) data point.
Why would anyone expect a coherent and comprehensively understood account from one data point?
Madness that way lies.
Yeah we all know what a conspiracy theory is, we all know what a conspiracy theorist is and we all know how that label is used in discourse to frame discussion on a topic.
I want to know what a “conspiracist mindset” is, cos at the moment that phrase has a signal to noise ratio of one less than infinty:zero
“…and plenty of available evidence points to it being the work of Islamic extremists.” – FDB
Just out of interest tho, what evidence is there that the hijackers actually were on the planes?
Anyone care to provide links?
(No I don’t actually think there were no hijackers on the plane, I’m just wondering how the people on either side of this argument come to their conclusions about what happened.)
FDB, are you suggesting that anti terror laws don’t subvert democracy?
Seriously how can you not understand that statement above.
I’ll try again. (moran will be a deliberate typo btw, its an imeme like pwned.)
Regardless of the cause, regardless of the involement or non involvement of US officials and people connected to the Bush admin and intel services of the US and other countries, such as Pakistan, 9/11 happened.
In response the Australian, US and UK governments used the 9/11 attacks as a pretext to subvert democracy. (Other countries did as well, I’m familiar with the 3 nations I mentioned.)
They did this by passing legislation under the banner of “protecting people”. That legislation actively subverts what we in Australia consider to be democracy, ie a state that practises democratic principles. The legislation didn’t subvert the state itself (cept in that it subverts its legitimacy) it did subvert the democratic principles that a state needs to remain democratic.
If you disagree with this you are a moran.
Was that any clearer? (It certainly wasn’t to me.)
FDB, FYI, I understand what anomaly means, but apparently you don’t. For your information, from Wikipedia:
“An anomaly is any occurrence or object that is strange, unusual, or unique. It can also mean a discrepancy or deviation from an established rule or trend.”
If you don’t think that finding an undamaged passport in the ruins at 9/11 is ’strange or unusual’ I have a used bridge to sell you.
OK, on the passport:
Hijacker probably in the cockpit as the plane hits the Tower. Footage shows windows (and other impact debris) shooting out of the floor(s) the plane hit. Plane flying close to horizontally as it hits the Tower. Enormous (forward, horizontal) momentum as it hits.
I would not be surprised if many kgs of material from inside the plane’s cockpit (and including the shattered cockpit window) went shooting out into the air on the far side of the Tower, during the fraction of a second the impact took.
The inferno may have begun less than a tenth of a second after impact. It matters not. Some debris could shoot out before the main fire began. [Analogy: driver's upper torso breaks through windscreen of motor vehicle that crashes at 100 km/hr, if the driver is not blocked completely by a seatbelt or the steering column.]
Yes it was an “inferno”. But if the passport wasn’t in the building any longer, as the inferno took hold, why should it burn?
The hypothesis above seems consistent with physics (momentum, energy, strength of materials) and chemistry (ignition, combustion).
**************
Skilful pilots? A friend who’s a pilot told me the footage of the second impact on a Tower shows the wings flexing tremendously, suggesting the plane was doing a late, sharp turn in order to hit the target. What if the pilot had missed? Would the plane have continued on, then turned around to return for a second attempt?
**************
Was that wise Liam?
Megrahi, as you well know, was framed!
(Dicuss till @500.)
There is a host of things the “official” series of events doesn’t explain.
No surprise when you consider how flawed the investigation was.
“Why would anyone expect a coherent and comprehensively understood account from one data point?
Madness that way lies.” – FDB
Thats a fair point, tho madness is cool fun. Its a big part of my scepticism regarding controlled demolition (or any sort, barring “by plane”).
But really trying to account for the presence of that passport in the wreckage by basically saying “sometimes shit happens that we can’t explain” in the context of this discussion…
And I quote:
“anomalies that exist in the official version”
To me, this implies “within the official version”. Sorry for the misunderstanding. You have correctly identified that the only conflict (whether of the anomalous kind or not) is as I have said. That is, between collected material evidence and “what some folks reckon must happen in a situation like this as-yet-unique one”.
Well, that’s quite an anomaly. Got me scratching my head.
FDB,
Where have you provided a shred of evidence on this forum that supports the Official 9/11 Conspiray Theory that you are peddling?
Do you recall how there was also “plenty of available evidence point[ing]” to Lindy Chamberlain’s guilt of having murdered her baby Azaria?
However, when knowledgeable and critical-minded people began to subject that ‘evidence’ to critical scrutiny, it very quickly unravelled.
Exactly the same has occurred with all the ‘evidence’ in support of the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory.
I have yet to see any evidence in support of the Official explanation of 9/11 that has not already been shot down in flames every bit as much as the whole prosecution case against Lindy Chamberlain.
When do you intend to prove me wrong by posting such evidence to this forum?
joe2 I guess we’ll never know now, seeing as he doesn’t have to go through the appeal. (Better start that rearguard action people.)
waftt Possibly…
Provided the stuff in the cockpit didn’t hit the steel core in the middle of the building after it left the cockpit, and something else managed to momentum its way through all the walls, partitions, desks, people, banks of of computer eqipment and whatever other stuff happened to be between the front of the plane and the far wall/window of the building, in front of the passport, enabling it to travel through the building and out the other side and all the way to the ground somewhere it wouldn’t be completely buried by dust and debris.
So why,assume the passport was even in the cockpit?
daggett
Lindy Chamberlain wasn’t actually freed cos people challenged the evidence.
Her conviction was unsafe, but an appeal against that conviction failed.
It was only new evidence that led to her aquittal.
In fact the Lindy Chamberlain case is quite instructive in light of this discussion we are having.
The original “official’ verdict in that case was based on a completely flawed interpretation of the available evidence, yet all sorts of biases were at play and these created huge resistance to an accurate reading of the events.
Tho I doubt anyone commenting on this thread would allow their bias to interfere in their assessment of what happened on 11/9/2001.
The dingo ate the Twin Towers?
“I have yet to see any evidence in support of the Official explanation of 9/11 that has not already been shot down in flames every bit as much as the whole prosecution case against Lindy Chamberlain”
So all the video footage of the twin towers and pentagon taken by many different people at various locations is all false and a fabrication?
Is this claim not a wee bit overextending concerns that odd discrepancies might prompt?
“The dingo ate the Twin Towers?”
Bingo.
More likely the passport would have been in the carry-on luggage stowed in the overhead lockers.
It is unlikely that a hijacker bent on taking control of a plane wielding his box cutter would also be carrying his carry on luggage.
Unless he was claiming there was a bomb in it, and using that to ensure compliance in the other passengers.
Or perhaps he had it in a special fireproof container to ensure that the passport would be found after his death, in order to provide evidence about Saudi complicity with the CIA so that a war against an Iraqi dictator could be justified. Wait
Many folks carry their passport on their person and NEVER put it in an overhead locker or in their luggage. Likely they showed it at the check-in desk.
jules @ 2.08 pm, you seem to be assuming most of those physical objects you list were between the (damaged, disintegrating) cockpit and the nearest windows. I don’t assume that. I reckon a whole lot of things & people inside that floor (or floors) were swept aside as an extremely heavy high-speed mass (the plane, its passengers, its fuel and luggage) swept into the building. Less than a second to sweep in, sweep stuff aside, crumple, eject any ejecta, and cause debris to go shooring out the other side of the Tower.
You’ve seen the footage. Possibly hundreds of kilos sprayed out. That would include Tower window glass, wood, metal, wall materials, bits of smashed furniture?… ?? who knows? some of it looks like timber to me; even if 95% of that debris was in the Tower before the collision, not inside the plane, it’s still not beyond the realms of possibility that stuff from inside the cockpit fell out of the building too.
NOT many folks intend to crash the plane on which they are travelling into a tall building.
The security of their travel documents would not be uppermost in their thoughts.
Yeah but …
Like I said possibly.
But I honestly can’t see the passport going through the steel core and out the other side, and both planes seemed to hit close enough to the centre of the building that I’d assumed they carried through and hit the core. Its just an assumption tho.
I’d also assume thats why the buildings seemed to topple as a block from the impact points when they finally fell too.
Given all that tho, the coincidence factor regarding finding that passport is just too high in my book. I heard about it on TV at about 10 am that morning after the attack, and my immediate gut response was “Bullshit!! No way. Dont believe you. I’ve seen all sorts of crazy flukey shit in my life and I still don’t believe you.”
But I do take your point, and to a fair degree agree with FDB about the unique nature of the event, and thats why I find it hard to find meaning in any statements about the collapse.
The story of the head of Pakistan’s ISI transferring $100,000 to Atta tho, thats interesting. It may all stem from Indian intel sources tho which may refute it, those sources having no cred on matters to do with terrorism. (For example Which high ranking Indian law enforcement official died during the Mumbai rampage in sus circumstances after exposing a connection between extreme right wing Hindus with govt connections and bombings that were originally attributed to Muslim terrorists?)
See its a complicated pointless web.
The revolutionary feature of the WTC buildings is that they didn’t have a core in the sense of a structure that bore the weight of the building.
Rather, the perimeter walls bore the weight of the building.
There was therefore nothing remarkably solid for the planes to hit in the centre of the buildings.
There was a steel core. It wasn’t the same as other structures but it was there.
“But I do take your point, and to a fair degree agree with FDB about the unique nature of the event, and thats why I find it hard to find meaning in any statements about the collapse.”
But you can at least admit the meaning in the following statement:
“What appeared to occur on 11/09/2001 was that two airplanes with near-full fuel tanks flew into two large buildings in New York, USA. Shortly afterwards, both buildings collapsed.”
Now, apply Occam’s Razor and PRESTO!!! Who’d a thunkit? The answer is…
THE FUCKING PLANES DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!
To elaborate, although the towers were built as Katz describes, they did have a steel and concrete core, and imo it was solid enough to stop a passport, even if it wasn’t designed to support the weight of the wtc.
I think you’ll also find it was strong enough to stop a plane.
The core provided stability to the structure (didn’t it?) even if it didn’t support the weight. That stability loss probably does have a lot to do with the collapse, but I don’t really know.
FDB, I’ve read a Corrolary to Occam’s Razor, which is, “Never ascribe to malevolence what can be explained by stupidity.”
That’s why I don’t take conspiracy theories seriously any more.
““What appeared to occur on 11/09/2001 was that two airplanes with near-full fuel tanks flew into two large buildings in New York, USA. Shortly afterwards, both buildings collapsed.”
Now, apply Occam’s Razor and PRESTO!!! Who’d a thunkit? The answer is…
THE FUCKING PLANES DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!” – FDB
If you read through this thread you won’t find me claiming the towers were demolished by anything other than planes. I might admit its a possibility but I’m agnostic about it.
My opinion is that the planes had help getting to the point where they could slam into the towers. Who from, how much help and why … I have no real idea, but plenty of suspicions. Ultimately there are more important things in the world BUT seeing as we are talking about it …
The passport … it sure seems sus. How did it survive, and then how come it was found so quick, and on top of all that – how come people thought it was credible in the first place?
The response by western govternments has effectively subverted democracy, and by democracy I mean the systems of government we use in English speaking nations but also in many many other nations. They involve things like free and fair elections, respect for and adherence to the rule of law, the seperation of powers, judicial principles of fairness and justice etc etc
Certainly its not the only subversion of democracy in the last 8 years, but none the less the overall response to 9/11 is the most significant attack on what we understand to be democracy and freedom.
And whats a conspiracist mindset?
“The response by western govternments has effectively subverted democracy.”
Indeed, Jules, and the question you must then ask is: cui bono?
And the answer is: he’s the lead singer of U2.
No, no, actually the answer is, the individual who has benefited the most by the shenanigans of the part 8 years is Mr Nobel Fucking Peace Laureate. Or, to call him by the title that his infernal minions use, His Satanic Majesty Barry I.
Ask yourself, have you ever heard President Obama, at a press conference or other public gathering, specifically deny that he is the Anti-Christ? You haven’t, have you? Think about it.
‘Obama-nation’, that’s what the US is these days. It sounds just like ‘abomination’, doesn’t it? Do you seriously think that’s just a coincidence?
Daggett seemed dismissive of my theory. If he wants to believe the official version, like a trusting sheep, that’s his choice. But I challenge him, or any of the other government dupes on this thread, to provide one piece of positive evidence that Obama is not the Great Beast of the Book of Revelation. I’ll bet they can’t.
Be careful Paulus. Be careful who you impersonate.
I’d love to know how you do that Devil Drink.
The answer to how is contained in the answer to who, Casey. As it is with all proper conspiracies.
Yes, yes. You’ve said that before. all powerful fallen angel blah blah blah. If no one believes in God on this site, you reckon you stand a chance?
But it is rather spectacular I must say, the way you do it. Like that time your we conjured you by mentioning your name three times in a no. of languages and you appeared. I’d say respect, but, you know, like, no.
Say, you didn’t have to happen to have anything to do with little satanic altar in Canberra did you? Naughty naughty…now look what you’ve done. One million Catch on Fire christians are descending. Holy Crap I wouldn’t want to be in Canberra right now.
Yes, yes. You’ve said that before. all powerful fallen angel blah blah blah. If no one believes in God on this site, you reckon you stand a chance?
But it is rather spectacular I must say, the way you do it. Like that time your we conjured you by mentioning your name three times in a no. of languages and you appeared. I’d say respect, but, you know, like, no.
Say, you didn’t have to happen to have anything to do with little satanic altar in Canberra did you? Naughty naughty…now look what you’ve done. One million Catch on Fire christians are descending. Holy Crap I wouldn’t want to be in Canberra right now.
I’m glad someone finally realised bono is the antichrist.
Ahh, the devilish magic of RSS.
Really Satanic Stuff
How do you do that, Casey?
You’ve summoned yourSELF up twice. Do you carry a passport on that nifty
broomstick? Anyone noticed that ‘piracy’ is part of ‘consPIRACY’?
Thed Long John Silver, ‘e be behind thut nasty business.
Pieces of six, pieces of six squawked the damn parrot. Ghostly thread veers from the piratical to the parrotical as the sea mists sweep in.
Yeah Katz, I know, but he is so method. How long has he been in character now? He is the
Brando of LP.
Jules @ 401,
“I want to know what a “conspiracist mindset” is, cos at the moment that phrase has a signal to noise ratio of one less than infinty:zero”
I thought FDB nailed that @ 388 (and 391, of course):
“The major logical problem in the conspiracist mindset is that it tends to treat as-yet-unanswered questions as positive evidence for something otherwise unsupported.[...]”
Which defines the conspiracist mindset by the most common problem it has in expressing itself and its theories.
Daggett went on to write @ 390:
“Jules, why can’t you see that 9/11 and similar ‘false flag’ attacks have been used as a pretext to subvert democracy in the US and here? Can’t you see how they resulted in all the supposedly ‘anti-terrorist’ legislation and strengthened the NSW police state and made possible the invasion of your region in September by riot police to suppress anti-Rally protestors?”
Daggett, I have no problem with any of the above. Except, “and similar ‘false flag’ attacks”.
You can suspect this (questions), but you can’t prove it (answers). Yet, you chose right there to state it as rhetorically conclusive. As something you’ve concluded. You’re simultaneously trying to convince people to ‘keep an open mind’ or what have you, but you’ve already shot yourself below the shin.
Just worth being aware of in your discussions, maybe.
Good points Nick.
Especially wrt language. In all probability ASIO planted the bomb outside the Hilton in Sydney 31 years ago. I think the conspiracy theory that they meant to find the bomb and justify their existance is probably right. Calling it a false flag, or similar to 9/11 is a poor use of language. Thats a problem with “9/11 Truth”, poor use of language, especially since 2004, but probably always.
Anyway ASIO was probably responsible for the Hilton Hotel bombing in Sydney, maybe not, either way it wasn’t technically a false flag attack. But do we have a term for that sort of event?
I didn’t know the term “conspiracist mindset” was actually defined by its major problems.
Are there other problems?
Do they also define the mindset?
I mean treating as yet unanswered questions as evidence for something unsupported is one thing.
There’s a dynamic at play tho. People often ask the questions, repeatedly, without a satisfactory answer. After a while those questions and other anomolies, rightly or wrongly, begin to look like proof cos no one answers them to their satisfaction.
Thats how confirmation bias begins. Sometimes. And everyone here has confirmation bias. (cept me, obviously.)
On their own unanswered questions are just that, in the context of 9/11 many are strongly suggestive of something. What that is, who can say, without them being answered properly.
As I have said before, the best that can be said about the Bush admin wrt 9/11 is that they were incompetent and negligent. Yet it happened and everyone promtly forgot that the day before Donald Rumsfeld had come out and said that over 3 TRILLION dollars had gone missing from the Pentagon budget in two years.
And proceded to give the Bush admin carte blanche to waste even more money. Who knows how much went to their cronies via billions wasted on private contractors in various pointless wars. Not to mention the torture, renditions etc etc, tho really thats nothing new.
Anyway thats not evidence either, cept of human stupidity. I’d love to know how they got away with it tho.
I do have my suspicions.
(That probably isn’t safe for kids or the squeamish btw.)
And we’ve seen it before but it’s worth re-posting.
the Hilton Hotel bomb was placed in a rubbish bin on the footpath outside the hotel. Victims? Rubbish men emptying the bin, not politicians. A callous and murderous act, presumably with political motives.
“On their own unanswered questions are just that, in the context of 9/11 many are strongly suggestive of something. What that is, who can say, without them being answered properly.”
Well said, jules. That just about sums it up for me, but surely we can get to 500.
On 11 September 2001 the crime of the murder of almost 3,000 US citizens was committed.
As noted @ 308 within hours, the FBI had claimed to have completely solved that crime even though we were expected to believe that they, the US military, all the US intelligence agencies, the US aviatian authorities and the US government had claimed to have been taken completely by surprise by the terrorists.
As I have pointed out, to accept that the 19 hijackers directed by people from sanctuaries within Afghanistan were responsible for the crimes one has to accept the bizarre account of events provided by the 9/11 Commission, a summary of which that I have posted @ 308.
Clearly the US Government, the Australian Government and the newsmedia wholely accept that story (although they avoid presenting in its totality as I have done, evidently fearing that merely to do so, would make its absurdity too obvious to deny).
It seems as if most of those arguing against me would have us accept that version of events, although they have avoided saying so openly.
Others appear to have rejected that version, but seem happy to let the crime remain unsolved.
It’s as if, having concluded that Andrew Pennington was not guilty of the murders of Linnet Doyle and Salome Otterbourne, that Inspector Poirot allowed those crimes to remain unsolved.
What has happened since 2001 is as if Andrew Pennington has been pronounced guilty of those crimes.
Some here would evidently be happy to let Andrew Pennington go to the gallows for a crime he did not commit, whilst allowing Simon Doyle and Jacqueline de Bellefort to profit from their crime.
Those, who are so hysterically attacking me for pointing to the overwhelming evidence implicating senior figures within the Bush administration in the crime of 9/11 seem not to be troubled by the fact that the prevalance of the views, they, our politicians and our newsmedia are pushing, has allowed the US Government to get away with murdering hundreds of thousands of Afghans and Pakistanis and Iraqis for a crime that figures, within the US Government, themselves almost certainly committed.
I note how this thread has been filled with even more irrelevant fluff, such as discussion of the “[unofficial] conspiracist mindset”[1].
What the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists (as well as those who would have us believe that they think that the crime of 9/11 should remain unsolved) have done by filling this thread with so much more irrelevant fluff[1] is avoided responding to my many simple and direct points.
One point is why shouldn’t there be a proper inquiry into 9/11?
Why, in a democracy, where Governments are supposed to serve and protect the people shouldn’t the victims of 9/11 be allowed to have those, whose gross negligence, if not complicity in the 9/11 attacks, casused the deaths of spouses, siblings, parents, sons and daughters, held to account?
FDB wrote,
Either FDB is completely stupid or he is deliberately wasting the time of those who are genuinely trying to understand this very important issue.
A theory should not only be simple, but it should also account for all the observations. If nothing else, FDB should have at least understand by now, that a third building, WTC 7,that wasn’t even hit by any plane ‘collapsed’ completely into dust exactly in the manner of a controlled demolition.
As I already wrote, the Twin Towers were built with such enormous redundant strength as to easily withstand a direct head on impact from a Boeing 707. One of the orignal engineers said they should have been able to with repeared impacts from 707’s.
If the buildings failed to perform as their designers intended, then Building Engineeers are entitled to know why. This is what the NIST inquiries failed to do for even one of the three buildings.
Even if they were to have somehow failed, they should not have collapsed so quickly. Therefore the theory has to also explain how all that enormous structural strength, many times what was necessary to support the weight of the towers failed in as little as 12 second, barely more than free-fall speed or 16 seconds at the very most.
The only theory offered so far that makes any sense to any engineer is the controlled demolition theory, yet that was not even considered by NIST.
Clearly NIST, the US Government, the Australian Government, the newsmedia, and, it would seem, quite a few who who are participating in this forum desperately want to prevent that fact from becoming more widely known.
Footnotes
1. Such as pontification about the “[unofficial] conspiracist mindset”. What is not explained is that if I have such a mindset why I also (most unfortunately) did not even begin to seriously question the US Government version of events until around 2 years ago, that is 6 years after 9/11.
Rinse, repeat.
I need a haircut.
Well, if we are going for 500…
Anyone seen this sort of thing?
The 9/11 stargate mega ritual. (I kid you not, thats what he calls it.)
This article will connect Kubrick’s Monolith with the events of 9/11. To do so we will look at a certain actor, one Dan O’Herlihy, and his roles in the movies, Fail Safe, Robocop, and The Big Cube.
Yeah …. ok.
I can’t see any hysteria in the arguments mounted against you Mr daggett. I can see patient attempts to point out SOME of the flaws in your extensive writings. Not every point has received a response. There are only 24 hours in each day, and sadsly there are only 7 days in each week.
jules, that characteristic of the ‘conspiracist mindset’ is not a definition. It is an observable characteristic that appears very often in the writings of those whose mindset is conspiracist.
Just as you would find citation of experimental results in the writings of a research chemist; or appeals to logical principles in the writings of a mathematician or logician or a research chemist; or citation of laws and court rulings in the writings of a barrister or judge.
The Enlightenment attempted to bring more reason into public discourse, and reduce superstition. The project continues…..
“What is not explained is that if I have such a mindset why I also (most unfortunately) did not even begin to seriously question the US Government version of events until around 2 years ago, that is 6 years after 9/11.”
A lot of troofers, sorry truthers say that sort of thing. What took you so long to wake up? And why do you expect other people to suddenly share your revelation? (Not trying to be offensive, but you know bolting horses and shutting gates… especially stargates.)
Years ago i wrote an essay for a uni course about conspiracy theory as a process of self initiation that is usually incomplete. that was in the 90s, but it might be worth a revisit in light of 9/11.
The basic idea was that something akin to religious conversion happens when someone suddenly “sees the truth” about a conspiracy. Usually the people involved have a previous belief system which is overturned by the revelation. Thus the incompleteness. Replacing one BS with another isn’t really much of a leap.
Usually a series of initiations replaces on false truth with another till the initiate gets jack of the bullshit and starts thinking for themselves. Since this probably takes several lifetimes, and most people seem to have only one…. anyway…
The Pentagon was obviously a huge version of one of Solomons Jars. The US military captured the Cuthulu spawned servant of the Ogdru Jahad that was working with Nazis in germany. (Mike Mignola was wrong when he wrote hellboy, the Anung Un Rama is not a dude with a cool haircut but it has a red right hand. (Cos of all the blood.) )
Jack Parsons and L Ron Hubbard performed the babalon working in march 46, and as a result the cleft in spacetime allowed something through. This critter was born to that well known hellspawn Barbara Bush on July 6 1946, and rose to power in the US through the 90s. Not being fully human it only needed a gestation period of about 4 months.
This creature had come to earth with a mission, to free the servant of Ogdru Jahad that was trapped in the pentagon. hence 9/11. The towers were just a distraction, and a conveinient source of blood and pain for the servant, which is either Negral or Irra Jahad most probably.
I really thought all this was obvious.
Ah, but what was NASA really doing when allegedly it set off explosions on the moon that we couldn’t actually see when it was supposed to happen? Something sinister no doubt as the planning began in the GWB years. But why did Obama go along with it? What are they not telling us?
Guess I better add this, just in case ASIO and the CIA take me seriously –
They didn’t consider the possibility of Gojira-attack, either. Probably because they thought it dashed unlikely.
Daggy, have you even read the NIST reports? They make it very clear that fires (started by the aircraft impacts) caused the structural failure resulting in all three (1, 2 and 7) collapses.
Personally, I think you’re both stupid AND wasting everyone’s time. However, if it’s in the cause of Thread-Doom, I say: shine on, you crazy nano-diamond.
“The Enlightenment attempted to bring more reason into public discourse, and reduce superstition.” – My socks and undies (where angels really do fear to tread.)
well it utterly failed.
Then again it was hardly Enlightenment.
Enlightenment occurs after a successful integration of the experience of identifying your consciousness with the totality of existence, (instead of the meat bag we usually associate it with), madness usually follows a failed attempt at integration.
A fundamental part of Enlightenment is the realisation of compassion for all life, all of reality in fact. Its based in empathy. Another fundamental part is that it doesn’t actually change anything except the way you view the world. Once you understand the nature of existance compassion is the only logical response.
Perhaps if “teh enlightenment” had understood the nature of compassion it might not have failed. perhaps it will, one day, suck seed. and eggs.
“The Red Triangle is the descending tongue of grace;
the Blue Triangle is the ascending tongue of prayer”
Has anyone ever read the NIST reports?
I mean every bit of all of them?
“The purple tongue should not eat inkweed berries.”
“where angels fear to tread” wrote:
Like “THE FUCKING PLANES DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!”?
Or FDB’s other inspired contributions @ 240 and 250.
To point out the ‘flaws’ in my arguments, you have to at least acknowledge those arguments.
All I have seen so far are your own ludicrous attempts to explain away how that passport was so conveniently and miraculously found the very next day in the rubble of the Twin Towers.
Where else have my arguments been acknowledged, let alone rebutted?
Please just provide links to the the posts or the numbers.
All I have seen are personal attacks, endless attempts to riducule me, straw man demolitions, the dragging of red herrings across the trail and other debaters’ tricks.
I haven’t even got one of my detractors to explicitly defend the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory, a summary of which I posted above.
And if they reject that version of events, I am still waiting to know whether they think that the crime of 9/11 should be properly investigated or whether it should remain unsolved.
I have yet, after 444 posts, to find out from my detractors whether or not they believe that those who allowed almost 3,000 US citizens to be murdered on 11 September 2001 (whether by omission or commission) be held to account.
—
No, FDB, it’s not ‘rinse, repeat’.
You advanced “Occam’s Razor” as a reason why we should unquestioningly accept that two planes were able to cause three buildings to collapse.
For the first time in this thread I have rebutted that spurious argument and, I believe, have demonstrated that you don’t understand basic scientific principles or that you are intentionally misleading this discussion.
What? You mean you haven’t? Personally, I thought Structural Fire Response and Probable Collapse Sequence of the World Trade Center Towers, NCSTAR 1-6 for short, was very racy bed-time reading, though the bisexual gypsy twins were a bit much at times.
I thought everyone commenting here had read the reports?
OK, people: everyone here who HASN’T read the NIST reports please raise your paw.
NCSTAR 1-6 has some pretty interesting issues tho. No doubt you are aware of them.
The gypsy twins were a nice distraction tho, especially that think they did with the somersault and … er I’ll shut up now.
Sorry about the incorrect link to FDB’s memorable, helpful and informative post:
The third last paragraph in my previous post should have ended, “shouldbe held to account.”
—
Sideshow Bob asks if I have read the NIST reports. In fact US Physics Teacher David Chandler has and caught the authors out lying about the critical detail of over 2 seconds of collapse at free-fall speed that their original reports attempted to conceal. His confrontation with the authors of that report on YouTube is well worth watching.
Jules asks:
At least three reasons:
1. Because I trusted the word of precisely the kind of people that are working overtime her on this thread to conceal the truth about 9/11, that is, people who would have us believe that they are left-wing, against the wealthy elites and on the side of the poor and oppressed. If I had not placed such undeserved trust in such people I would have have woken up long before I did.
2. I avoided studying the question properly because it seemed to me that it would be enormously difficult and time consuming for me to sort through the claims and counter-claims surrounding the 9/11 controversy. Giving that (wrong) impression to others who are attempting to learn the truth is clearly one of the intentions of those who are adding so much clutter to this this discussion. (I still have to find the time to work out what I think of controversies such as that surrounding the swine flu, and the Port Arthur massacre, BTW)
3. I had other concerns: the Howard Government, privatisation, the environment, overpopulation, work, life, etc.
Look I don’t want to judge you or tell you how to live your life Daggett, and I have a soft spot for Truthers, cos I’m a bit of one myself, or would be if it wasn’t for fucking controlled demolition, which I think is an energy sink. For people with activist zeal.
“Because I trusted the word of precisely the kind of people that are working overtime her on this thread to conceal the truth about 9/11″
I don’t they are working, let alone putting in overtime. Nor do I think their goal is to conceal the truth about 9/11. They may well be useful idiots, but can you (or me) honestly say with any confidence that we are not? (I’d like to think I could but thats the point of being a useful idiot isn’t it, you don’t know you are one.)
See since 9/11 happened (and I was sus on it from day one) the 9/11 truth movement has attracted quite a few nuts who scream loudly about all sorts of garbage, from “evil Zionazis Jews for Obama done it”to “holograms and HAARP not planes”. Yet the consistant questions about connectons and corruption have never gone away, just disappeared under the weight of increasing amounts of noise. The signal to noise ratio of the 9/11 truth movement increased significantly especially since garbage like loose change and in plane sight came out.
And in that entire time nothing the truth movement has done has actually undone the damage Bush, Cheney and the other bloodthirsty warmongers in the last US admin unleashed on the world. No truther has helped overturn the Patriot act, they were far less concerned about FISA than about nano thermate or thermite or whatever the fuck Steve Jones calls it, and none of them (to my knowledge) are actively pressuring Obama to reinstate habeas Corpus (which he should have done on day one, just another of the long list of failures Obama will end up being remembered for.)
Yet whenever I mention this to them they say “When we prove they did 9/11 all that stuff will have to go, by definition.” Or words to that effect. There is no stated mechanism for this, just some blind faith. And in case you missed it, proving 9/11 as defined by Dylan Avery style truthers will result in what exactly? Nothing unless its accompanied by an overthrow of the current US admin, cos there are plenty of officials in that who would have to be compromised if the truthers are right. Not to mention Congress, etc etc
So we are looking at the overthrow of the last, and some of the current US government. And their public trial and execution. It has to be that way cos much of what caused 9/11 according to truthers is structural, and the individuals are effectively interchangeable.
Personally I think my theory with Hubbard and parsons invoking something dodgy that settled in barbara Bushes womb and caused the attacks to release a force that was held in the pentagon makes more sense (on a mythological level) than any other theory that tries to explain the event in physical terms, and I was actually half joking about it, maybe completely joking, I’m not sure. But I would say that wouldn’t I.
On reflection I think it needs modification. Parsons and Hubbard were trying to invoke something beautiful into the world and its just a perverse twist of fate that it ended up in Barbs womb. That experience warped it so much that it came out looking for revenge. It also extended the life of the universe by several trillion years cos thats how much therapy the poor critter will need to recover from the experience.
Sorry for wandering off into the absurd, but I kind of have to.
Otherwise I end up shouting and banging my head against a brick wall.
“I had other concerns: the Howard Government, privatisation, the environment, overpopulation, work, life, etc.”
“I still have to find the time to work out what I think of controversies …”
How much time have you used on 911 truth that could have served you and your community in a more effective way, especially in regard to those other concerns you listed, after the Howard Government. Do you still find the time to be as effective in those other areas and have a good (ie meaningful and worthwhile) life?
You don’t have to answer me on this thread. Those questions are for you to think about over time.
In other news, it looks like the Higgs boson is actually c’thulu.
Well, I had my haircut.
Sorry, gravatar no longer accurate.
I won’t let it stop me working overtime here on this thread to conceal the truth about 9/11 though.
No siree B.O.B.
This is well on target to become LP’s fourth 500 comment thread.
‘Well, I had my haircut.’
Yeah it’s always about you FDB. Here’s 50c – tell someone who cares, or maybe build a bridge and get over it. (sorry it’s been a while since I’ve actually talked to a 13 year old so the lingo might be just a little bit out of date.)
This’ll get to 500 yet.
It will if I have anything to do with it.
Mr daggett,
you say my explanation of a possible way for the passport to descend from the Tower to the ground is “ludicrous”.
I disagree.
I believe my hypothesis is consistent with physics and chemistry. I prefer hypotheses and explanations that are consistent with the physical sciences (and with arithmetic, causality, etc.) There was a poster who picked you up on a simple error (feet vs metres) in your “free fall” calculations.
I don’t have the time to follow you down large numbers of rabbit holes.
You seem to assume that those who don’t reply to you have not “thought about” the events in question and their antecednts. I suggest to you they have thought long anbd hard about those events, and disagree with your “world view”; they have “acknowledged” your writings (I hesitate to call them “arguments”) by responding to some, but are not duty bound to accept the vailidity of your assertions or your reasoning.
Neither are they obliged to answer every point you raise.
For the record the others are Missy Higgins: Lipsniger?, The Trotskyist Meta-Ethics of the Atom Bomb, and Chicks With Guns.
What if Al-Queda tried to blow up the moon?
Comment in spaminator, to precede this one:
…and another that should have made it but didn’t was Tim and Jeremy’s Sylvia Plathitude.
Well, I asked…and you didn’t answer.
Oh yeah! YouTube! The source of all knowledge! Yairs, let’s play Duelling YouTube.
In fact, high-school teacher David Chandler does no such thing.
“Where angels fear to tread”,
It’s almost inconceivable that the passport not attached to a part of the hijacker’s body or clothing would have flown out of either of the Twin Towers at the time of the crash.
And if it had, it would have most likely been found on the day by somebody in the streets below. If it had not, I can’t imagine it being found the very next day under so much rubble.
And if the passport had remained inside the tower, the chances of it being found at all, let alone found the next day, would be practically nil.
Common sense would surely tell us that it is almost infinitely more likely that the passport found so coveniently for the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory the next day would have been planted.
I’ve e-mailed Torchwood but they really aren’t much use because they can NEVER find The Doctor. Maybe The Doctor put the Paspor… Oh … Would have have to have been a Dalek or a Cyberman …
Now that is ridiculous Paul.
Doctor is allergic to Passports. And Torchwood … we all know who they really work for.
NCSTAR 1-6 somewhere round page 300 if anyone’s really interested.
jules @ 437,
I did think of one more observable characteristic, courtesy WAFTT @ 444, though I’ll venture that observable characteristics might be the only way by which you could arrive at a definition of a particular mindset?
Conspiracists actively seek to proselytise.
Base structural errors in language, and proselytising = predicatoriness?
Its a bit of a born again thing isn’t it Nick. Well it certainly seems that way to me.
Its one thing to say, “This sure looks sus.”
Its another to say that you know what happened. Then expect other people to react like you have just saved their life.
Dogma is dogma and it always sucks.
Dogma, dogmatist, dogmatic, DogMan
doggone, ain’t that the truth, jules…..
I dunno.
What is truth?
” ‘What is truth?’ said Pontius Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.”
– Francis Bacon
This guy knows
Didn’t he write shakespeare?
Think a seagull once told me the truth is ‘in here’.
But that don’t seem right either.
I wasn’t one of those giant seaguls with the big teeth was it?
Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare, Bacon wrote Bacon.
Simple really: do try to keep up, jules.
It wasn’t …
I had no idea you were a seagull, Jules!
Oops, bit late…I also had no idea what tgc was referring to.
That looks interesting. Cheers.
Of course criticising something you haven’t read is always fun so i’ll have a go.
Typical of western imperialist academics to try and frame truth in their own way, everyone else does, but claiming that primative societies rely on emotional truth, which is non sensory and non rational is utter garbage. So called primative societies are wholly dependant on sensory truth for survival, on deductive truth for survival and he would know that if he ever actually tried to get himself a meal from scratch.
And he possibly doesn’t understand BC Chinese philosophy, but then who does.
I looked him up on lazipedia too, apparantly he got beat up by coppers for jaywalking.
Thats a bit rough.
Some truths are not meant to be known.
Just for the record:
I think it is silly to add contrived posts just for the purpose of making this forum reach 500 posts (although I guess it is no worse than adding contrived posts to make it harder for others to understand the 9/11 controversy).
—
Sideshow Bob (@ 462),
To answer your question: No, I have not. David Chandler has and has shown those reports not to be worth the paper they are printed on. Have you read them?
Sideshow Bob wrote, “let’s play Duelling YouTube.”
If we must, Sideshow Bob, at least provide links to videos which are in response to the videos I have linked to.
The Youtube video you linked to does not even address the content of the one I linked to, “‘WTC7: NIST Admits Freefall’ …The Movie”, (which I also linked to earlier @ 172 BTW). If you had bothered to look at that video, you would know that.
In fact, it is a response to an earlier video “WTC7 in Freefall” by David Chandler.
The video “‘WTC7: NIST Admits Freefall’ …The Movie” shows Dr. Shyam Sunder and Dr. John Gross (the same guy who insisted that there was no molten steel under the ground on which the WTC towers previously stood and that no eyewitnesses had seen any, BTW) waffling on incoherently in response to questions put to them by David Chandler and Dr. Steven Jones.
It would appear that as a result of their embarassment, NIST published a new report which conceded what they had previously attempted to deny, that is, that WTC 7 fell at free fall acceleration for approximately 2.5 seconds after the ‘collapse’ initiated, thereby also making utter nonsense of the video you linked me to.
Not much you can do about spurious, vapid or entirely lighthearted posts, daggett.
David Chandler has not proven what you claim, he has asserted several things. Big difference.
Given the sensationalising character of the press and TV, do you really think someone like Mr Chandler would not get a worldwide splash, if reasonable journalists thought there was ANYTHING substantial to his claims? They’d be all over him like a rash. Before you could say “flight school!!”
Speaking of truth, since when has the media been concerned with substance when it comes anything of a ’sensationalising’ nature?
And you may have noticed that they keep their ’sensationalising’ within very narrow boundaries these days. Anything that threatens the status quo is clearly off limits.
Not that I’m suggesting that this is part of a conspiracy or anything…
Are you fucking kidding me? You haven’t read the official accounts and yet you believe some twonk on YouTube has disproved them? That’s utterly ridiculous.
Yes, and I’m utterly shocked and awed that you don’t even pretend to have read them, yet presume to lecture others on this alleged conspiracy of yours. I salute your chutzpah, sir.
Rubbish. At #453 you linked to “WTC7 in Freefall –No Longer Controversial”. Don’t attempt to deny it – the link is right there for anyone to check. Not that it makes any difference, as the link I provided at #462 shows exactly where Chandler went wrong with his pathetic “gotcha”. It’s a classic case of cherrypicked data by a delusional nitwit.
Again, rubbish. I’m curious, though: HOW do you know NIST “conceded” anything given you admit you haven’t even read the report?
Here’s a bit of homework for you: prove it.
P.S. you mention Dr. Steven Jones. Isn’t he that mormon bloke ditched by Brigham Young University, you know, the one who also believes that Jesus Christ visited Ancient Mesoamerica centuries before Columbus? Do you believe Christ visited the Mayans, Daggy? If not, why not?
If an admission by NIST itself that WTC 7 fell at free fall speed on top of the clear physical evidence that has been on YouTube for the whole world to see for years, is not sufficient proof for “where angels tread lightly”, then it is impossible for me to imagine what would be.
Unlike “where angels tread lightly”, millions of people around the world who have carefully studied the evidence know that there is a great deal that is both ’substantial’ and ’sensational’ about the ‘collapse’ of WTC 7 and the cover-up by NIST.
The fact that the major newsmedia has chosen not to report this and, as well as a good many other equally substantial and equally sensational aspects of the 9/11 story should serve as a clear warning that it would be most unwise to place any trust in it.
Let’s also pray that “where angels tread lightly” is never selected as a juror on a major criminal trial.
Given the “admission” you link to is actually your comment, Daggy, I imagine “sufficient proof” would be a statement from NIST stating what you think they stated.
Argggh
I hate that. I just stoopidly wiped 3 paragraphs on jesus’ alleged visit to Australia, pre European invasion. (No shit – at least according to one fella I know.)
Plus it was actually very funny.
Anyway daggett, what do you think of the claims made by Indira Singh re Ptech?
Okay, daggett.
The following is a serious comment. by their very nature conspiracy theories cannot be proved to be either true or false. The whole point of a successful conspiracy is that it leaves no evidence behind, so it cannot be proven either way. Consequently all unproven conspiracies should be considered fabrications. 9/11 is one such conspiracy. And I do hope we reach 500.
“by their very nature conspiracy theories cannot be proved to be either true or false.” – Paul Burns
Was watergate a conspiracy theory before some knob published an article about it? If you said in early 1986 that the US had supplied missiles to Iran in exchange for the release of hostages you would have been accused of being a conspiracy theorist. Should those claims have been considered fabrications?
Are Terry Griffiths questions regarding the Hilton bombing in ‘78 fabrications? What about Wahid’s claims on sbs years ago about Indonesian police or military involvement with the Bali bombings and the islamic terror in that part of the world? He’s not just any schmuck, he was Indonesian president.
Everything he said was a fabrication?
Come on.
Jesus, PB, have you had an aneurysm?
Sideshow Bob wrote:
It does nothing of the sort as you should well know.
All it did was restate what Chandler had already rebutted. What it restated was NIST’s basis for claiming that the initial acceleration of WTC 7 was less than free-fall. It did so by repeating NIST’s fraudulent claim that the collapse was initiated when some of the inside of WTC 7 was observed collapsing as the outside structure remained stationary.
After the outside structure as a whole commenced to collapse as a whole, it did collapse at free-fall speed as David Chandler demonstrated. The video doesn’t even attempt to address this key point.
Sideshow Bob wrote:
Why don’t you look at the report that you claim to have read?
The following is stated on the displayed page of the report 9 minutes 36 seconds into “‘WTC7: NIST Admits Freefall’ …The Movie”:
Sideshow Bob wrote:
Why don’t you pull the other one, Sideshow Bob?
Sideshow Bob continued:
There are are only 24 hours in the day, Sideshow Bob. I trust the judgement of people like David Chandler and Steven Jones, as even NIST has now been forced to.
I think it is fair to say that I have just demonstrated that, even though you claim to have read through all of NIST’s fraudulent tomes and I have not, I am able to convey more accurate information about their content than you.
Actually, daggett and Rodeo Sideshow, the NIST did investigate the possibility of controlled demolition and rejected it. See section 3.3, page 26, and the appendices referenced. Anyone who claims that NIST did not investigate the idea that the collapse of WTC7 was deliberately caused by explosives is simply lying.
Italics mine. Further retreat behind questions and innuendo… over to the comments field.
Maybe it’s the shock of Phillip Ruddock rising from the dead.
Jules,
I’m afraid, having looked at the link, I still don’t know what ‘Ptech’ is. Could you enlighten me?
As for Steven Jones’ views that Christ may have visited Meso-America, I can’t comment. Plenty of people can be right on one issue and wrong on others. I am not personally a Mormon, nor even a Christian, nor even ’spiritual’.
On 9/11 no-one has proven Jones to be wrong and, certainly, Sideshow Bob has not proven him wrong on this forum.
Comment above @ 493 relates to comment #490 questioning PB’s health.
Just thought that needed clarification under the circumstances.
Na. Once the evidence surfaces conspiracy theories become reality, rather than fabrications. There is a difference between a conspiracy theory and a conspiracy for which there is irrefutable evidence.
Liam @ 492
Easily refuted. Obviously NIST did not consider the correct scenarios.
“I’m afraid, having looked at the link, I still don’t know what ‘Ptech’ is. Could you enlighten me?”
see thats the trouble with all the noise a controlled demolition makes…
I’ll try and chase up an good accounting of Ptech for you but it may take a while. The quick summary is that Ptech was a company involved in software development and had supplied software to among other groups the US air Force. Indira Singh was asked to investigate Ptech while working for Chase or JP Morgan I think, basically it was a business investigation. She made a connection between their software and the software Cheney was using the morning of the attacks to run C&C during the attacks. Ptech is known to have been financed by and started by people suspected of funding Al Quada.
Whislteblowers apparantly contacted the FBI re an investigation, but the investigation was blocked by Michael Chertoff (I think, don’t quote me yet) who went on to head Homeland security and IIRC help fuck up the response to hurricane Katrina.
Thats a quick summary, and it may not be entirely accurate but I think the gist of it is enough for now. I honestly don’t know about the veracity of all this either. Its just another in a long series of unanswered questions.
Meanwhile enjoy:
Yet another “9/11 was an inside job” song
No, it directly rebuts Chandler’s assertions. Also, Chandler’s own, flawed, work shows that initial acceleration was less than free-fall. Take another look at his dodgy graph if you don’t believe me.
It does not. The starting point for tracking collapse was observation of the outside structure. Chandler deliberately chose to focus on the top of the building that moved last. Why? Cherrypicking.
WTC 7 did NOT collapse at free-fall speed. The video demonstrates that the tracked floors of WTC 7 took 5.4 seconds to collapse, much longer than free-fall would require, at 3.9 seconds, AS NIST STATED.
I have, Daggy, I have. You haven’t, remember?
FFS, that’s your source? The same discredited YouTube video? Why not take your own advice and read the actual report? Oh, that’s right, you’re too busy to get your facts straight. Let me quote the whole of the relevant text from page 45:
Cherrypicking, yet again. The building did NOT collapse at free fall speed. Your bloke and his credulists fail yet again.
What you’ve demonstrated, Daggy, is naive credulity and an inability – whether due to laziness or stupidity – to get your facts straight. Yet again, you’ve shown a willingness to waste your time and others’ propagating lies, but no willingness to actually get to grips with the actual facts yourself.
You keep saying you trust the judgement of Chandler and Jones, and yet you won’t back Jones’ judgement on Jesus and the Mayans. Why not?
I’m having trouble following your logic Paul. (No doubt that comes as no surprise to many here.)
A conspiracy theory is by definition unprovable?
That means that while events like … I dunno the Roswell bullshit are a conspiracy theory, but say JFKs assassination isn’t a conspiracy theory is a reality? (I honestly don’t know or care about JFKs assassination, really Camelot was a crock of shit.)
How does something go from being a fabrication to being a reality just on the arrival of actual evidence?
Wooo Hooo on to 1000
really successful conspiracies are not found out.
even a conspiracy that achieves its aim is unsuccesful, if after the event they get caught. Get it?
What Sideshow Bob is attempting to do, with his spurious allegations of ‘cherry picking’, personal attacks and other red herrings, is explain away 2.5 seconds of free-fall acceleration practically uniformly across the whole of the observed north face that the NIST has been forced to concede occured. The only known way that a building can fall uniformly through 8 stories at free fall speed is for all the strength of the supporting structure to have suddenly been removed uniformly, floor by floor, by explosives all within those 2.5 seconds.
Nothing like that has ever occurred before or since by fire alone as NIST itelf admits.
What we have observed is wholely consistent with any clasic bottom-up demolition, many examples of which are to be found on YouTube, yet NIST insists that it is a bizarre one-off occurrence, whilst refusing to seriously investigate the most obvious explanation, and that would appear to be all perfectly fine by Sideshow Bob.
—
Liam, if you had read through Appendix D, you would see that it has not even considered the evidence or any of the many arguments in support of the Controlled Demolition hypothesis that has long been made known by the 9/11 Truth Movement, some of which I posted to this page. It would have at least acknowledged that the ‘collapse’ of WTC 7, including the observed initial 2.5 seconds of free-fall was wholely consistent with almost countless other demolitions that have occured before and since.
If it was serious about considering about investigating this hypothesis, it would have for a start asked Larry Sliverstein, what he meant when he said in an interview:
Also, it would have interviewed the late Barry Jennings, who gaive detailed accounts of explosions occurring insided WTC 7 beginning hours before the collapse, it would have interviewed BBC reporter Jane Standley to ask why she reported the WTC 7 ‘collapse’ 23 minutes before it actually did ‘collapse’, and it would have set out to find out from other former employess who workde in WTC 7 wheterh or not they had noticed anything suspicious in the weeks prior to Spetember 11, 2001.
Instead, it attempts to dismiss the cast body of evidence, in support of controlled demolition, by asserting that preparations could not have been made without anyone noticing. (The ‘pdf’ document is, in fact, a stupid JPEG image, so I can’t easily copy and paste from it.) Yet no attempt was maded my NIST to interview former employees who worked in WTC 7 to see whether or not suspicious acitivity was noticed. No consideration was given to the fact that much of the preparations could easily have been made after hours and out of sight of most vistors and employees.
But PB, an unsuccessful conspiracy is still a conspiracy.
Ok daggett, I’ve got to admire your persistence, along with jules of course.
But please answer me the following questions(I have neither the time nor inclination to go through the ‘evidence’).
1. What was the point of a ‘controlled demolition’ since the planes were going to destroy the buildings anyway?
2. How could the explosives etc. be placed in the building without anyone noticing? The fact that the NIST didn’t interview anyone about this is hardly proof that it could have happened.
Apart from admiring your persistence, I also admire the touching faith that others have in the official version of events, eminating as it did from an administration choc full of liars, cheats and scoundrels.
PB #502,
Wouldn’t you say the Bolshevik insurrection in 1917 was an example of a successful conspiracy by Trotsky, Lenin and their associates?
And the Zinoviev Letter, though eventually exposed as a fraud concocted by a conspiracy, was wildly successful in achieving its immediate objectives.
With a ouija board, I presume.
To add to adrian;
3. How could the explosives sufficient to cause the collapse, that you claim to have been placed there, have exploded without being heard?
Oh, I see, you’ve answered that one as Shaun at #497 predicted you would. Silent explosive. That was in a Get Smart episode you know.
Yeah I do get that, but where does that leave talking (or typing) about alleged conspiracies that havn’t been brought to justice.
If conspiracy theory = fabrication by definition then every time someone uses the term conspiracy theory in the media to refer to an allegation they are accusing the person making the allegation of fabrication.
Then when someone like me says “Yeah but what about this…” does that mean what i say should be ignored cos obviously a conspiracy theory or any allegation resembling one is a fabrication. Not that I really care in the context of this thread … but …
What about this then, I claim that someone I worked for was involved in importing heroin into Australia. I know this cos while I was working for them I walked in on them discussing their operations with a bunch of judges, lawyers, cops and pollies or businessmen over a game of cards. Thats a conspiracy theory, but its not a fabrication. And no I’m not gonna name names on that one, and especially not here where you guys could cop the legal shit for it. I’m not even going into any more detail than that cos I don’t want any chance of IDing them.
I am a member of a conspiracy website, (bet that was a surprise) well its more than that but “conspiracies” always come up.
One of the members of the same site just managed to get someone charged with the murder of her father, after 30 years.
Here’s her site.
Her story is tied to the Inslaw affair and the death of Danny Casolaro, which is a well known “conspiracy theory”. At what point did her journey morph from fabrication to reality? The other day when the guy she was hunting got busted?
Is the damn cat(pavlov’s) dead or alive? to quote some recently dead smartarse/genius.
Do you see what i’m saying?
BTW wrt to Rachel Begley, she has one very sus character (at least) helping her out on this case so i wouldn’t be surprised to see it all end in tears. If Hughes doesn’t end up convicted of the triple murder does that mean her entire story returns to fabrication?
There’s a fair level of uncertainty with all this sort of thing, and that is never addressed with statements like “conspiracy theories are fabrications.”
Mind you given the zeal, and fundamentalist fervour of some advocates of many conspiracy theories I can understand your caution. And I accept there are downright lies designed to provoke a response in people with no critical thinking skills. (Did you know Obama was born in kenya and is an evil muslim terrorist who works for the elders of Zion, and George Soros, and Satan? And he wants to take away your guns.)
I wish he’d take away our Gunns.
I would agree the Bolshevik Revolution was a successful conspiracy and the Zinoviev letter was a successful conspiratorial fraud. But they were real conspiracies not conspiracy theories that left no hard evidence.
My allegations of cherrypicking aren’t spurious, they’re evidently substantiated. The personal attacks I’ll cop to, but they’re likewise substantiated by your conduct on this thread. As for red herrings, where?
I don’t have to “explain away” any observed acceleration in the fall of WTC 7, as NIST has already done so in its explanation. And they weren’t “forced” to “concede” anything, as you’ve failed to produce any evidence of said “concession”.
For starters, it didn’t fall uniformly. For another, the building was ALREADY FALLING before those 2.5s that concern you so much. And, finally: says who? Cranks on YouTube. LOL.
No, Daggy, the obvious and most logical conclusion is the one that emerged: planes > fires > collapse. Your alternative theory is unsubstantiated fiction.
Daggy, why won’t you comment on Jesus and the Mayans? Why is Jones credible on structural engineering and not “Archaeometry”? He only claims one of the two as an area of personal expertise – can you guess which one?
Conspiracy theorists claimed that the Zinoviev Letter was a conspiracy for decades until the definitive evidence turned up.
These theorists were dismissed as cranks or deliberate liars until the evidence proved their suspicions to be correct.
Every piece of historical research begins with questions that can be said to refer to a theory until that theory is either confirmed or disconfirmed.
Your archetypal conspiracy theorist is the person who doggedly clings to relatively unconvincing evidence or who claims that the lack of evidence is itself proof of a conspiracy.
(I’m not thinking about any person with a rodentine gravatar here, despite appearances.)
Adrian,
Demolition was necessary precisely because the impact of a plane alone and consequent fires could not have brought down either of the Twin Towers. As I wrote they were built to withstand a head-on impact from a 707.
Without a controlled demolition, the psychological impact would not have been anywhere near as great. Around a few dozen from the towers themselves would have died in addition to those on the flights, totalling around 200 in all, instead of almost 3,000, and there would have been ugly scars in each of the twin towers. Investigators would have been able to search through the wreckage and establish whether or not, handfuls of hijackers had indeed been able to subdue the whole crew and passengers of each of the two aircraft with only box cutter knives.
If, for example, firearms had been found, then this could have led to embarassing questions being asked of those in control of airport security.
In fact suspicious activity was observed in the weeks prior to 9/11 as I mentioned above. As I wrote above:
Don’t forget that George Bush’s youger brother, Marvin, from 1993 until 2000 was on the board of directors of Securacom which was resposible for the securirty in the World Trade Center as well as Washington Dulles International Airport from which flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagonm left.
This fact was initially concealed by the White House and Marvin Bush has repeatedly refused to answer reporters’ questions about this.
“Without a controlled demolition, the psychological impact would not have been anywhere near as great.”
Maybe, maybe not.
The primary focus of the event was the collapse of the towers, which is a momentus spectacle with a imprinting power on a par with DMT or Salvinorum.
Once the buildings collapsed the event became a one off. No one is ever gonna hijack a plane and crash it into the twin towers again…
However if they were still standing the focus of the event is the hijacking and crashing of the planes into buildings.
Thats essentially a repeatable event.
So everyone that gets onto a plane and has seen those images of the other planes crashing into the twin towers will wonder if that could be them on this flight. Maybe.
Katz @ 512,
Yeah, but thats a hypothesis that has to be proved or disproved, not a conspiracy theory. Nevertheless I accept your point. Though i don’t think an historical hypothesis or an historical assumption are the same as a full blown conspiracy theory, which is what, I think has been implicit in my comments.
Sideshow Bob, you are clearly and dishonestly attempting to conflate two clearly separate aspects of the WTC 7 collapse and imply they are one:
1. the demoloution of some of the supporting structures holding up the inside of WTC; and
2. the demolition of the visible outside of WTC 7;
As we can observe from the collapse of the penthouse, the first began a few seconds before the collpase of the outer wall. At no point during all that did any of the outer wall move.
During those additional seconds, until the point at which the collapse of the outer structure was observed the whole weight of the outer wall was fully supported. (BTW, I take back what I said about some of the outer wall at the eastern end moving slighlty before the western end. I had mistaken my memory of movement in the Penthouse for that. I couldn’t detect any movement at the east face until the west face upon which Chandler made his measurements began to collapse.)
So, of course it is appropriate to ‘cherry pick’, as Sideshow Bob puts it.
Clearly what was happening on the inside had no effect on the outside wall. To pretend that it did is to attempt to confuse the issue and conceal the fact that for the initial 2.5 seconds of the collapse of the outer wall it fell at free fall speed (possibly barring a tiny fraction of a second at the very outset).
Sideshow Bob, stated
“For starters, it didn’t fall uniformly. …”
The fact remains the ‘collapse’ was, to all practical intents and purposes, uniform. If not, then show me any other controlled demolition that satisfies your own requirement of ‘uniformity’, presumably, to a precision of at least 6 decimal places.
And while you are at it, show me any other ‘collapse’ that is even remotely similar to the WTC 7 collapse, caused by fire alone.
The collapse of the WTC 7, as we have observed, simply could not have occurred unless:
1. all the structural strength in at least 8 of the floors had been destroyed by explosives within those initial 2.5 seconds after the first movement of the outer wall was observed;
2. the timing of the detonations had been such that the structural strength of holding up each floor would have to have been totally removed before it could have in any way slowed the fall of any part of the building falling from above.
If the first condition had not been met, then it would have taken longer than 2.5 seconds to fall through those eight floors. If the second had not been met then a good deal less uniformity would have been observed and a good deal more of the debris would have ended up outside the footprint of WTC 7.
—
Sideshow Bob said, “… the obvious and most logical conclusion is the one that emerged: planes > fires > collapse. …”
Sure, Bob. Two planes knock down three buildings.
Very logical and very obvious.
There is no conflation. Refer back to my original link at #462. The VISIBLE OUTSIDE of the building falls from the North East top FIRST. Chandler selectively – and misleadingly – times the collapse from the LATER collapse of the North-West corner. Why he does this is obvious: he’s cherrypicking to bolster his non-existent case.
No, it isn’t.
WTF? A building collapses and you argue “the inside had no effect on the outside wall”?
Oh, FFS. It did not fall at free fall speed at the outset. Go back to YOUR video link at #453. Do you remember that one? It’s the one you subsequently lied about at #481. Look at Chandler’s graph at 1:52. Notice that for the first second acceleration is well beneath gravity. Even your own, debunked, source disagrees with your assertion.
As I’ve noted above, the North East top of the building VISIBLY started to collapse before the North-West corner. Moreover, the building did not fall at a uniform speed or acceleration, as shown in the NIST report I quoted at #499 above. The collapse was NOT uniform.
Why? Oh, yeah, that’s right: buildings don’t collapse due to fire. But, of course, I have to concede that we’ve only had one 9/11, so that does make your over-specified sample a little tricky to replicate.
These are unsubstantiated assertions from non-authoritative sources, based on premises that have been discredited. Garbage.
Did two planes fly into two of the buildings? Yes.
Did they cause extensive fires, in both of those buildings and WTC 7? Yes.
Did the fires cause the collapse of the buildings? Yes.
Yes, Daggy: logical and obvious.
Your theory? Illogical, unsubstantiated and delusional tosh.
Is very much to liking of your posting Matvei. You got the physics, the mathematics, morever best of all you got logicals too.
daggett, in addition to the video Fyodor linked to @ 462, which I don’t think states its case clearly enough, and his comments above, please watch:
Internet Archive: WTC7 collapse
Produced by the same person.
The point is that Chandler used *one single* video, shot from *one single* perspective (square to the North Face of WTC 7) to construct his theory.
The video he used was *not* the video NIST used.
(I’ll repeat that for emphasis.)
The video he used was *not* the video NIST used.
His theory is that NIST chose an arbitrary point in time to begin their 5.4 second countdown, to fit with their computer modelling. Chandler says:
“Since their model predicted 5.4 seconds for the 18 story collapse, they dutifully conjured up a 5.4 second measurement to match. They had to stretch themselves to do it, but they did it. They found the disappearance time, then they went out of their way to pick an artificially early start time, exactly 5.4 seconds earlier. This they compared with freefall time.”
Wrong! Chandler clearly knows nothing about computer modelling. The way to construct the most accurate computer model you can, naturally enough, is by feeding *known data* into it. They had *already* calculated the 5.4 seconds from the video evidence. This was *subsequently* used in their computer modelling, not the other way around. He is way wrong here. (Or, I’m wrong – go prove that.)
His reasoning (explained here from 1:45 onwards), is that when he steps frame by frame through *his* video, he/you cannot see any visual change to the outward shape of WTC 7 at the point NIST ‘chose’ to begin their 5.4 second countdown.
This is not surprising as the North face of the building in *his* video is completely underexposed/obscured by shadow. You don’t see the North East corner drop (as he puts it, “there’s no measurable difference in the height of the roofline”), because there was, quite simply, more building completely underexposed/obscured by shadow, behind it.
Did Chandler even consider attempting to correct the contrast before proceeding with this?
However, I’ll add that I can see movement in Chandler’s video at the point NIST determined was the start of the collapse (in fact, I see it begin a few frames earlier, and that’s because it was Chandler who chose an “arbitrary” start point, not NIST), even if he couldn’t. As the original video Fyodor linked to @ 462 correctly points out (far from it being complete nonsense, as you claim), to step through frame by frame is incredibly deceptive – because it renders minute visual changes unnoticeable.
Scrub back and forth, and it’s a different story.
View the video NIST used, and it’s a whole different book that we’re reading from.
Nevertheless, Chandler decided his “conclusions” worthy enough to *rhetorically accuse*, and announce to the world, that a criminal coverup *must have* taken place at NIST.
I’m open to being convinced differently, as always, but Chandler’s flimsiness simply didn’t cut it.
And, BTW, I’m interested to learn how your ‘bottom up’ theory accounts for the windows below the East penthouse breaking progressively downwards after it collapsed?
Sideshow Bob wrote:
I see a few partial collapse but no total collapses in that (pdf) survey.
Again I ask:
Sideshow Bob wrote:
No, why he does this is because it is the best place to make the measurements. Any measurements taken from the North-East corner with all that smoke could not have been as accurate.
If the person who made the ‘debunking’ video had attached such importance to the differences between the North-East Corners and North West corners then he should have made his own measurements.
In any case, Chandler used around 20 data points, whilst the ‘debunking’ video only used two, one being an artificially designated starting point at a time he claimed to have first observed ‘compression’ of the outer wall at the North Eastern Corner. This allowed him to arrive at the same single average acceleration figure that NIST has already calculated and that David Chandler had already shown to be meaningless.
Sideshow Bob further wrote:
This is splitting hairs.
If it had been possible to take measurements, accurate enough to be useful, at the North Eastern corner I expect that, as a result of the initial ‘compression’, differences would have been:
1. A slightly shorter period of free-fall;
2. Acceleration only slightly less than the free fall acceleration at the North Western end; or
3. A combination of (1) and (2).
The practical implications of such a difference would be insigificant. Even to achieve such a supposedly non-uniform collapse — and again, I ask Sideshow Bob to show me any other controlled demolition which meets his requirement of ‘uniformity’ — all the structural strength would have to be removed in a period very close to 2.5 seconds right along the whole length of the North face and, within that 2.5 seconds, the strength wouuld have had to have been removed floor by floor and timed so as to prevent any resistance to the fall of the building above.
I wrote:
Then Sideshow Bob responded:
Well, I would have thought that that was a reasonable explanation of how acontrolled demolition works as well as the only way I can conceive of how the outer wall ‘collapsed’ in the way it did.
Why don’t you provide a better explanation?
Yet again you have proved to be too lazy even to read the report, short as it was. Let me quote from it for you, from page 7, Table 1:
- Apartment block in St Petersburg, Russia, 2002: TOTAL COLLAPSE
- Nightclub in Lanarkshire, UK, 2001: TOTAL COLLAPSE
- Textile Factory in Alexandria, Egypt, 2000: TOTAL COLLAPSE
Ha! Absolute rubbish. There’s no problem with smoke in identifying the beginning of the collapse – it’s clearly visible. That’s a pathetic argument. You should also take note of Nick’s arguments above.
Wow, you really are getting desperate. The number of additional “data points” is irrelevant. The starting point was not “artificially designated” – it’s the moment that collapse begins, and it’s not just the debunker’s observation; it’s also the observation of the experts who reviewed all the footage, and not just the footage used by Chandler, in his cack-handed bunk.
Ha! You’d know, with your eagle-eye for detail.
If, Daggy? It was possible, Daggy. It was done Daggy.
You expect, Daggy? Why don’t you know? Oh, that’s right: you haven’t a fucking clue on the subject.
Your hypothetical musings are pointless and irrelevant.
Says who, Daggy? YOU are the one who first raised “uniformity”, at #506. Do me the courtesy, at least, of getting your own story straight. As the building was ALREADY COLLAPSING before this 2.5 second period you’re obsessed about, i.e. the “structural strength” had already been compromised, that last sentence is irrelevant and illogical speculation from a self-confessed ignoramus.
But you say you want to see an “other controlled demolition”? Okeydokes, knock yourself out. Make sure you stay for 1:26.
You would have thought, Daggy? It’s the only way you can conceive of how WTC 7 collapsed? And who the fuck are you, Daggy? Are you a structural engineer? Are you a demolitions expert? Did you have access to the evidence or the technical details of the collapse? Have you even read the official accounts?
Why should we care what you would have thought? Spare us your uninformed and illogical opinions and stick to facts and logic.
Already have. Read it and get a clue.
I would hesitate to blame fire alone for the collapse of wtc 7 simply because there is video showing it being hammered by debris from one of the collapses.
We don’t know the extent of that damage, but daggett can you state with certainty that it didn’t cause the sort of damage you attribute to explosives, and can you state with certainty that it couldn’t account for what seems like an anomolous collapse to you?
Well, WTC 7’s south side did take substantial damage. That alone was likely bad enough.
Oh don’t be such a spoilsport Shaun!!! Mr/Ms daggett knows what happened, he/she knows the how and the why.
He/she has no reason to concern himself/herself with such inconsequential data as
* eyewitness accounts from firefighters well-experienced in assessing whether it’s safe to enter a damaged (or partly burning) building
* eyewitness accounts from persons who had a much closer-up view of WTC7 at the relevant time, than provided by the videos, including those who were close enough to hear “creaking” noises before it fell
* clear photos of a damaged facade, taken at various times and taken from so close that a wealth of detail (of damage, of smoke, etc) is clearly depicted.
None of this interests daggett because daggett has a theory and in the hands of such a champion debater, a theory is the only thing he/she requires.
QED
Shaun (@ 527),
Interesting photo of the North Tower ‘collapsing’ on the second of the two links you provided. Does anyone else here, that is, other than Sideshow Bob, have trouble envisioning that vast cloud of debris having been caused just by the gravitational energy within the North Tower?
How all that gravitational energy got transformed into what we can see in that photo, without massive amounts of explosives having been planted, would surely be most interesting to know. Unfortunately, as I have rrpeatedly pointed out, NIST has not even attempted to explain that.
If what we see in that photo was not the result of massive quantities of explosives, then we had have to conclude that the Twin Towers were, in effect, themselves, massive bombs planted in the heart of New York City.
Clearly some damage was suffered at one corner, but if that damage were to have in any way contributed to the subsequent ‘collapse’, intuition would surely tell us to expect WTC 7 to have collapsed outwards at that point, instead of straight down. Where is that explained in the report, Sideshow Bob?
Also, other buildings closer to the Twin Towers — WTC 3, WTC 4, WTC 5 and WTC 6 — all suffered far greater damage as a result of the collapses, and extensive fires, but none underwent total collapse as did WTC 7.
Care to explain, Sideshow Bob?
—p>
Sideshow Bob (@ 525) wrote:
I have got a fair idea what is contained in the NIST report, Sideshow Bob. As you say you have read the report, why don’t you explain to others here how WTC 7 collapsed exactly in the manner we would expect from a controlled demolotion through fire alone (or, according to Shaun, one damaged corner as well) and see how much sense it makes to anybody else but you?
Let’s see how much more sense it makes than the explanation I have offered.
Sideshow Bob wrote:
No, it’s you who has been lazy, as well as evasive for not putting that information on this page and expecting others to wade through that report looking for the examples I asked for that clearly aren’t there.
Obviously, I meant to ask for examples steel framed buildings that had undergone total collapse as result of fire alone — and you should have well understood that that is what I meant to say — and the only such examples in that list, as I have said all along are the Twin Towers and WTC 7.
The examples you gave are not steel framed. In any case, I did glance at the photo of the burnt and collapsed six story high reinforced concrete textile factory that lacked a sprinkler system, BTW, and noticed some siginficant differences to the ‘collapsed’ WTC 7:
1. A part of the building is, in fact still standing; and
2. the debris is far less neat and tidy than the debris from WTC 7.
This confirms my point, even conceded by NIST that what occurred on 11 September 2001 was unique, that is, if we are to accept their ‘explanation’.
More relevant to this discussion are six other “Examples of Skyscraper Fires” where steel framed buildings have endured longer and more extensive fires. In spite of this, most suffered no structural failure and only two suffered even partial collapse.
The Windsor Building, which suffered partial collapse was, in fact, a Steel-Reinforced Concrete building and not a steel framed building like the three ‘collapsed’ WTC towers.
Sideshow Bob wrote:
No, you did, by clutching at the earlier slight ‘compression’ of the outer wall at North Eastern end as somehow refuting David Chandler’s observation that the visible Northern wall as a whole ‘collapsed’ uniformly at free fall speed for 2.5 seconds.
That example you gave was also not of a perfectly uniform collapse. The tower did tip over towards the end of the demolition. Perhaps, at the start it may have appeared more uniform, but, given that the building was square, smaller, and, hence, more rigid than the more elongated WTC 7, that should be no surprise.
Surely, after all this time, you cannot be unfamiliar with the Video “WTC7 controlled demolition, side-by-side video”. That shows second demolition side by side with WTC 7. Although the second demolished building is smaller and less elongated, and, hence likely to be more rigid, the corner on the right appears to drop before the rest at the outset.
Hence, to conclude from the earlier slight movement of the North Eastern end, that we are not witnessing 2.5 seconds of effectively uniform free fall, which can only be explained by the controlled demolition hypothesis, would be wrong.
And, of course, it provides yet more striking visual confirmation that WTC 7, to all intents and purposes, collapsed exactly as a classic bottom-up controlled demolition.
Sideshow Bob wrote:
And who the fuck are you, Daggy? Are you a structural engineer? Are you a demolitions expert?
I am simply someone who is applying his knowledge to understand the 9/11 controversy, including the ‘collapses’ and explain my knowledge as best I can to others. I will leave it to others to decide who, out of you and me, is contributing more honestly and helpfully to this discussion.
(I am afraid I may not be able to find the time to deconstruct every other piece of nonsense that Sideshow Bob has posted to this forum. Others may have to do it for themselves.)
“How all that gravitational energy got transformed into what we can see in that photo, without massive amounts of explosives having been planted, would surely be most interesting to know.” – Daggett
So how much potential energy did the top 10 and 20 stories of the two towers have before the plane hit?
How much momentum did that generate, how much needed to be transferred for the results you see in that photo?
An answer to this requires actual, accurate numbers btw.
daggett, I infer your non-response to be a complete concession to all arguments I put forward @ 522.
Summarily:
- Chandler did not use the video NIST used.
- Chandler does not understand computer modelling.
- Chandler relied on his own eyesight, and his own compressed video footage shot from hundred of metres further away, to “prove” NIST had bent over backwards to “choose” an arbitrary starting point of the collapse, that would result in a 5.4 second timeframe for WTC 7 to drop to the initial height of the 29th floor.
- The *actual* starting point of the collapse, which then resulted in the recorded 5.4 second timeframe, is easily determined from the actual footage NIST used.
- Chandler nevertheless deemed this sufficient “proof” to categorically accuse NIST of fraudulent behaviour to the world.
- Chandler has misled you and many others into believing as he does.
Do you? Why?
Why would that be interesting to know, Daggy, given we know explosives weren’t used?
Why do we have to conclude that, Daggy?
Why would “intuition…surely tell us to expect WTC 7 to have collapsed outwards”?
Different buildings, different circumstances. Not all buildings that catch fire collapse, you know. Or don’t you?
How? You’ve admitted that you haven’t read it.
As it didn’t collapse in the manner of a controlled demolition, your request is nonsensical. We know why it collapsed: the answers are in the report you refuse to read.
Huh? It’s a 10 page report in a link – what’s to wade through? Do you have trouble reading, Daggy? Or is it clicking a mouse button that exhausts your thirst for the truth?
Yairs, Daggy, it’s a conspiracy that other people can’t read your mind. Save your faux indignation – you can’t fault me for following your lead, misguided as you admit to have been.
Hang on. Back up a second here. Are you saying that 9/11 was “unique”? Wow, Daggy, that’s quite a revelation. You mean there haven’t been other airliner crashes into skyscrapers? Why not? Is it *sideways glances* [whispers] a conspiracy?
I’m sorry, I’m not following you here: in which comment did I bring up the issue of “uniformity”, before you at #506? Name the comment.
Non-sequitur.
No, it doesn’t.
Very generous of you, Daggy. There’s plenty of evidence here on the extent of your knowledge, your honesty and helpfulness. Well done.
C’mon, dude! Don’t sell yourself short! You’ve been posting on this thread for, what, more than a month now on this issue. Of course you can find the time. There’s no rush, BTW. I’m very patient and I take thread-count very seriously – just ask my tailor.
P.S. why so formal? You can just call me “Bob” if you like. I hate to think of you wasting your precious time typing out “Sideshow” every time you want to quote me. Please understand that you don’t need to do it for my sake. I won’t be offended. Promise.
Since we are talking conspiracies here.
If there was nefarious action on the part of members of the US admin or anyone else outside the set of socially acceptable culprits, then obviously it would be in their best interests to badjacket the idea that anyone outside the set of socially acceptable culprits had anything to do with 9/11.
One really effective way to do this would be to saturate the discourse with poorly reasoned and obviously incorrect arguments about how the non set actors accomplished their nefarious actions.
Not that it would ever happen of course ….
Indeed, Mr. Terwilliger. Skyscraper disasters sound very distinctive indeed.
I note that Sideshow Bob has failed to respond to to my question:
I asked as much for others’ benefit as my own.
I know that it that was the view I held I would have made the effort to explain it to others.
Evidently Bob wants this knowledge to remain a secret to everyone who has not find the time and energy to read the NIST report.
Could anyone imagine why?
Could it be that Bob realises that if he spelt it out in black and white, people would see it to be every bit as silly as the overall Official 9/11 Conspiracy that I posted above which neither Bob nor any other Official Conspiracy Theorist on this forum has attempted to defend?
Anyway, here is my understanding:
The fire somehow caused a single supporting beam to fail simultaneously across the whole length of the Northern face. It didn’t just fail in one or two spots initially and progressively fail across the whole length. It failed everywhere simultaneously.
Let me know if I am wrong, Bob.
Even if that could possibly happen, I still fail to see how that could have, within the next 2.5 seconds caused the strength in at least 7 other floors to have been completely removed in time to prevent it in any part of any one of those floors impeding the uniform collapse of the (observed) northern face above.
Bob would have us believe that that is all explained in the NIST report.
I will believe it when I see it.
If you can tell me on what pages it is to be found, then I will check it out, Bob.
—
As for the rest of Bob’s most recent effort at obfuscation, as I said above, I am afraid others trying to understand the truth will, for the time being, have to deconstruct it for themselves.
“As for the rest of Bob’s most recent effort at obfuscation, as I said above, I am afraid others trying to understand the truth will, for the time being, have to deconstruct it for themselves.”
Actually, it reads as a pretty well constructed rebuttal of everything you’ve said Daggett. A “controlled demolition”, if you will.
He goes through and discusses a bunch of things you’ve said point by point in a manner that leaves numerous convenient jumping-off points helpfully provided for you (in the form of “questions”) to assist you in making a counter-rebuttal.
But you’re ignoring them, aren’t you?
Daggett, you’ve read more of Terwilliger’s words here on this thread than are contained in the entire NIST report.
I’m not sure why you insist on not reading it. Are you afraid of catching something?
A clue perhaps?
This thread could reach 1000 at this rate. A new LP record! (haha)
I particularly liked jules’ reverse conspiracy with 3 and a quarter turn, degree of difficult 8.5.
I’ve already provided the link, Daggy. I have to agree with Efdeebee here: what’s the big deal about reading a report?
C-O-N-S-P-I-R-A-C-Y! Well, I like the “piracy” bit, but “con”? Not so much.
Erm…no, that’s not it.
You’re wrong, Daggy.
If you don’t believe me, read it. Oh, hang on…
Okayeee…what’s stopping you?
Well, Dean, I’m glad you asked: pages xxxvi and xxxvii have the summary. Why don’t you start there with some baby steps towards enlightenment?
Can one deconstruct obfuscation? Seriously, I want to know.
I find it a little hard to believe, daggett, but (via some speedy regex-ing) you’ve personally contributed (written/pasted) 18,369 words to this thread so far.
Won’t work on the final report for some reason, but, if my PDF software’s word count function is correct, the NIST WTC 7 draft report comes in at 36,860.
The WTC7 building seems to have most of one of its bottom corners missing before it falls. Surely that must be a relevant factor? Why does a tall building “creak”? Thanks again Shaun: those photos are much more helpful than grainy videos.
I might start on moon conspiracy theories soon. (just for paul.)
They might not be what you expect.
It does so exist, jules!
daggett, a little more than just a hole in one side. The evidence suggests a lot more damage to the south side.
Oh that.
Nick I never thought they’d get to you too. Oh noez….
(I was just gonna hang shit on a Korean cult leader who’ll hopefully be dead soon.)
Seriously tho I’d love to have a discussion about 9/11 that specifically didn’t involve conspiracies, but had a slight tolerence for them if they contained a high signal density, didn’t talk about the specific politics but about the whole thing as a cultural phenomonen how we responded. Are we a culture in ptsd from a television event? Were we?
Does anyone remember the Micheal Franti song “Oh my God”, it was out in the first first half of 2001 (ie before 9/11)?
The potency of the image, the effect of the spectacle all that crap, and a fair degree of tolerence for weirdness. Or “pseudoscience”. Cos there are a few weird things about it.
I just cut a huge chunk of weirdness about 9/11 I want to talk about.
I’ll might mention it depending on the reaction to this.
Cos I want criticism of some odd ideas that comes from people not wedded to my way of seeing people. Seeing as this thread has got to this point…
“I just cut a huge chunk of weirdness about 9/11 I want to talk about.
I’ll might mention it depending on the reaction to this.
Cos I want criticism of some odd ideas that comes from people not wedded to my way of seeing people. Seeing as this thread has got to this point…”
GOOD LORD MAN!!!!
SPILL YOUR GUTS POST HASTE!!!
Enquiring minds wanna show themselves to be more enquiring than other ones.
This is struggling to get through so I’ll try again, its what I cut from above after a wee edit:
I know three or four who had distinctly odd dreams to do with planes depending on whether I count myself. The three others had dreams that had something to do with planes and were significantly out of their normal experience or them to notice and then wonder about it. I have spoken to ten people who I trust enough in real life to treat the idea fairly but critically and examine their own memories.
There’s no in between ground yet. people are either positively yes that happened or no. Online theres a few people, more than ten, dunno them well enough to make honest assessments tho. My own experience … well it was different. I hit puberty in the very early 80s and grew up seriously wondering if I was gonna see 50 or 20 or the world was gonna be a pile of smoking nuclear waste next week.
I used to have nigtmares about nuclear war. These don’t seem uncommon in my anecdotal experience. 75% of people, may two thirds of people i’ve talked to about it have had them. Over the years thats probably about … well at least 50 people. They (the nightmares) stopped once I started getting laid regularly.
One that stood out was on reflection, well it was exactly as if I was there when the building collapsed, and took shelter when the dustcloud/shockwave spewed down the street. I was on the street or in a kerbside cafe when a plane hit the building but I didn’t see it. At the time I thought it was the usual end of the world fare. If I had that dream last night my reaction would be “I had an uncannily realistic dream about 9/11 last night.” I wouldn’t have thought WW3 had broken out in my dream and attributed it to fear of what seemed a likely fate.
There is one other experience I’d like to relate that is on the same level. I had a friend who asked me if they come to my place to get clean of heroin. I said OK. I obviously wouldn’t do this for just anyone.
This was over ten years ago. That episode could make a movie, and possibly a hooror thriller if she wan’t completely nuts.
She went crazy. Full blown psychotic episode. We did what we could as she went downhill, but it got to a point where we couldn’t cope. Lots of stuff happened .. very complex situation, compounded by her growing insanity.
In hard to tell this story without going into unecessary detail and I don’t want to do that. Its a wild tale tho.
She has an identical twin. Her Twin was in New York, in the full bohemian dream art world of uber cool, seriously 30 years earlier she’d be hanging with Warhol. I’m not into art so I don’t give a fuck and don’t remember the nmames of the people she was having brunch with while she wrote the postcards she sent us.
First time these two had been that far apart for that long. It was a close but volatile relationship with identity issues. But really clever and on to it sisters, two of the smartest people i’ve ever met.
In the midst one of her attacks she started going on about contacting her sister, to make sure she was ok, after the attacks. After assuring her no attacks were happening in NY she s then became obsessed with warning her about them, – the attacks – about planes flying into buildings, building fallings and ww3 starting.
I know this is slightly out there for a forum like this but you know … this thread is not bounded by sanity and I’d appreciate some feedback on what I have just gone on about. You can be snarky if you want.
It still spins me out cos its uncanny. Thk day had many levels of shock value.
I’m not making this up, an it isn’t part of some ARG or juvenille channite mindfuck.
I don’t mind critical feedback on my far out ideas. Especially from people who wouldn’t normally touch them with a bargepole.
Oh fuck thats the incoherent version… duh.
Its a bit late and i should be in bed.
It coveys the general idea, but its sloppy.
I want to talk about some outlandish ideas in relation to all this, and I also want to talk about.
I also missed a minor error.
There is one eception to the unequivocal nature of peoples reaction. My wife’s (typically) she has trouble seperating the event from some of its cultural precursors, like the final scene in Fight Club or (particularly for her) songs like Ma Laeo by a Sydney band Scary Mother (from Tao Laeo 1994).
One of these days I’ll try and track down whoever wrote that song and ask them …
It very evocaticve.
And that whole record is actually. We drove through Kinglake to visit a friend in april and that record was the only one that seemed appropriate. It seemed to have been made to fit that moment. Music can be good like that. It was more fitting even than silence.
My wife and I have always wondered about that particular song and the way it seems to suggest 9/11, after the event of course. I know art is one of those things … I can see the potential for confirmation bias there.
I still think the idea is worth fleshing out, if only to seperate the total crap from the useless crap. (The idea being the potential for that event to resonate through our culture … I know “magical thinking” and all that crap, thats just a cop out.)
This was (lets hope) a one off event. Its become a pretty full on marker tho, cultural landmark or something. Its a kind of singularity with a gravity that has changed the way we as a culture view the world or to kind of stick with the metaphor, that changed the direction we travelled as a culture.
I wrote:
Then Jules asked:
No, it doesn’t, Jules, I was asking for people’s gut feeling about that extraordinary image. Are you trying to tell me that nothing about that image strikes you as odd? Since when does gravity allow such emormous volumes of material to travel so far upwards and so far outwards?
Then Sideshow Bob asked:
If your own eyes don’t tell you that that image is improbable, Sideshow Bob, I don’t see how I can hope to persuade you otherwise with words.
Sideshow Bob, then asks how I conclude that if explosives, weren’t use, the Twin Towers were, in effect, themselves, massive bombs planted in the heart of New York City.
I guess, what Sideshow Bob is telling us is that, to him, that image looks nothing like an explosion.
Well, to me, it does.
Then sideshow Bob asks:
Once again, Sideshow Bob is pretending to be stupid so that he can demand that I spoon feed him. As it turns out, Sideshow Bob, page xxxvii of the report states (take note >Shaun(@ 527, 544) and “angels almost invisible” (@ 542)):
It’s intuitive to me, Sideshow Bob, because we expect collapses to take the path of least resistance. If the end of the building had fallen straight down, but remained laterally attached to the uncollapsed rest of the building the fall would have been arrested by what was underneath. The only way it could have fallen furhter woudl be if its sideways connections to the rest of the building had broken causing it to fall outwards.
I note Sideshow Bob and a number of hypocrites, who have, themselves, neither read the NIST report, nor properly read my posts, are demanding that I read the NIST report before they give serious consideration to any of my arguments.
Sideshow Bob asks:
There’s no big deal, Sideshow Bob, except that I think it would be a waste of my time. Reading pages xxxvi and xxxvii has only further confirmed that impression. If you can demonstrate here, by showing where it addresses my questions, I might reconsider.
FDB wrote:
FDB, I don’t see where you have responded to my demolition of your nonsense “Occam’s Razor” argument.
It’s an unfortunate feature of discussions such as these, that they often become filled with posts of people, with no capacity to argue the issue at hand, sniping, from behind the skirts of others, that they see as having that capacity, at those they want to attack.
Rumbling. Gaseous. But that might just be last night’s dinner.
Since, I don’t know, the effect of heat from fires? Explaining convection currents sounds like a job for… a high school physics teacher.
Ask Dorian. He most likely wrote the music. Though Andrew who may have wrote the lyrics, was the most ethereal one.
I welcome your stream of consciousness meanderings on the issue of premonition. Cause god knows Dagget has been given way too much space and so, this has become the most boring thread of doom I have ever encountered. It promised to get interesting when it turned the corner towards Jesus and the Mayans and chocolate, but that failed. The peanut gallery is over the minutae of shooting flames that don’t shoot out right and walls which don’t collapse good. Though I liked Paul Burns’ comment that 9/11, itself, is a conspiracy. Well done Paul.
Your premonitory experiences both in dreamscape and in psychotic utterance are a welcome diversion to the engineering discussions. Yes of course. People predict stuff all the time. Not Mystic Medusa people, but people, anonymous ones who don’t make a living out of it – all the time. Not just Australia, but everywhere! And people take substances and utter premonitions in hallucinatory states all the time too. In the Amazon jungle for instance. Indigenous Americans have a long history of it. Your experiences would not at all be surprising to most of the most of the people in the world. It is part of many cosmologies. Excluding, of course, that portion of the planet’s inhabitants – mostly in first world places – that has rejected such epistemologies and now chooses to proselytise, yet again, on what to believe to the rest of the world – because it’s all primitive. Christopher Hitchens, the Paris Hilton of Athiesm, is case in point. Apparently he smokes in the shower did you know? This proselytization conducts itself in an unconscious manner, as if it exists in a rarified space beyond politics. But what to believe and what not to believe is a political issue in case you all haven’t noticed and its platform is most often a racial one. It’s something you all need to think about when you speak of the oppressiveness of western religious discourse. You cannot negate Christianity without negating every other religious belief system. And because of colonisation, those other religious belief systems have also incorporated the aspects of Christianity you discredit. Nobel prize winning author Toni Morrison believes this:
http://exagminations.tripod.com/id34.html
Think about it next time you bang on about fairytales.
daggett, I do concede to NIST that the debris impact on the building did not cause the collapse. But of course, the debris started the fires that lead to the collapse so a minor point.
Well yes, as an atheist I’m cool with that.
jules, I still like your quote from way back:
“The event obviously had a huge effect on the people who use electronic media to structure their world [...]”
And don’t see why this effect would necessarily only be felt post-9/11.
Terrorism and War were in the air a long time before the event took place.
I am sorry that Casey is disappointed in me for not going off on a tangent to discuss Dr Steven Lewis’s theory about Christ visiting Meso-America (which I concede, I think, seems unlikley) and, instead, focussed, instead on something as mundane as the principle justification for our ongoing war in Afghanistan and the removal of many of our guarantees of human rights an democratic freedoms.
If Casey wants to understand some of the reason for the length of this discusion, I suggest she read on. (BTW, I don’t mind at all if the discussion were to continue elsewhere. Personally I have no emotional need to see this thread reach the 1,000 mark, and I am happy to see this discussion end as soon as what I consider are attempts to misinform have been conclusively dealt with.)
—
I wrote:
Then Sideshow Bob wrote:
I would have thought the meaning of my words were perfectly clear, but evidently Sideshow Bob’s concentration span did not even last long enough to comprehend the meaning of the qualifying clause> at the end of the sentence.
Of course, I am not saying that the collapse of WTC 7 was “unique”. I have been arguing all along that it was a controlled demolition and, therefore, obviously, not unique.
The reason for Sideshow Bob’s and Nick’s long-winded meanderings is to justify NIST’s original, but long since abandoned, attempt to crudely arrive at an overall meaningless acceleration figure for the initiation of the ‘collapse’ that is substantially less than the acceleration of gravity.
If anything, the slight complexity in the nature of the collapse, because of the observed initial compression at the North Eastern end would have justified taking further set of measurements at that end.
To say that the Northern face collapsed as a whole at the point from which David Chandler took measurements is a simplification, but far less a simplification than what Nick and Sideshow Bob are attempting to depict it as.
Yes, Nick, looking closely at that second, more detailed film of the ‘collapse’, taken from that difficult angle, it appears that the demolition charges destroying the inside of the building somehow also caused a slight early fall at the North Eastern end.
It should also be pointed out that that video only begins just before the point that that Nick and Sideshow Bob would have us believe is the start of the ‘collapse’ of the Northern wall. The film footage showing the earlier initial collapse of the penthouse, at the far eastern end, has been omitted. I suspect that if it had been included, then even earlier movement in the outer wall would also have been detected. If so, that would have destroyed the rationale for picking the point in time that Nick maintains is the start of the collapse.
Whatever, the facts remain:
1. The North Western end remained perfectly stationary right up to the point that David Chandler (correctly, in my view) maintains the total collapse commenced; and
2. The whole of the Northern face remained intact up to that point, even if parts of it were coming under strain as the broken windows demonstrate.
So, even, in spite of the early initial movement,the observed Northern face could only have ‘collapsed’ in the way it did, if the conditions I described above had been met:
1. all the structural strength in at least 8 of the floors had been destroyed by explosives within those initial 2.5 seconds after the first movement of the outer wall was observed;
2. the timing of the detonations had been such that the structural strength of holding up each floor would have to have been totally removed before it could have in any way slowed the fall of any part of the building falling from above.
I have no problem with that Shaun. But my point was about the hegemonic mode some proponents of atheism adopt to impose their beliefs upon others as quite simply – the rational as opposed to the irrational. And to present that as somehow apolitical. In doing so, they ironically fall straight back into that discourse of primitivism that colonising nations used to impose Christianity upon the colonised. And how weird it is, that this this return to high modernism appears in place of what what was deconstructed. Not that this grand narrative appeals to everyone – hence a turn, in the Australian context, to other cosmologies and the revisioning of Indigenous cosmology. This being the Australian landscape itself as the new post colonial sacred in Australia (see Gelder and Jacobs for that and Bill Ashcroft I think). As the Morrison quote suggests, it’s just another epistemology and it is political, and racialised.
And, in as much as you are prepared to discount all other epistemologies apart from your own, not many on this site would be prepared to publicly deride Indigenous cosmology in the way they do, say, Christian cosmology, for instance. It’s just not the Leftist way.
Nor are they prepared to look at how the postcolonial world has incorporated aspects of Christianity into their own cosmologies and how christianity, that tool of oppression used by colonisers, became for some oppressed peoples a site of resistance, a place of consolidation and consolation. When African American slaves gathered beneath their masters noses to sing “Swing Low Sweet Chariot”, they were not talking about heavenly reward for suffering, they were talking about the coming retribution to be meted out to white people who oppressed them. From those beliefs sprung the civil rights platform of Martin Luther King. There are other examples. Liberation theology in Latin America.
But I guess all that would take some kind of nuance, like Anna said on the other thread recently. To see religion as something that has been at times both good and bad, both oppressive and liberating, or to see religion (whichever one) and atheism as just different epistemologies in a deconstructed world.
Dagget I have read it, I promise. And I can’t deconstruct obfuscation. I tried. But I can’t.
Thank you, Nick for conceding that point.
I think it would help this discussion to move along more quickly if this were to occur more often.
No, I don’t think it is a minor point.
What we had immediately after the collapse was a steel framed building fully supported by its structural support.
NIST would have us believe that that changed in the 14 seconds at the very most by fire alone. Whether the fire was initiated by the initial structural damage, arsonists, lightning or whatever, is beside the point.
The fact that this has never occurred befor and never since makes NIST’s explanation extremely unlikely.
The fact that NIST refused to consider the far more likely controlled demolition hypothesis, in order to either prove it or disprove it, confirms, as David Chandler and hundreds of quaified architects and engineering provessionals have alleged, that NIST did not conduct a scientific investigation, rather a politically motivated pretence at investigating in order to conceal a crime.
Oh great, I get accused of long-winded meanderings.
Got to run, but just quickly, daggett:
“[..] it appears that the demolition charges destroying the inside of the building somehow also caused a slight early fall at the North Eastern end.”
Thankyou, so Chandler was dead wrong in this video.
“taken from that difficult angle”
Why is it a difficult angle?
October 24 is the 350.org International Day of Climate Action.
More immediately, today is Blog Action Day!
Ive done a post over at BmL.
Sorry, I meant Shaun and not Nick, but the link was still correct.
—
Nick wrote:
No, not unless you are trying to say that scientists are not permitted to ever make any simplifying assumptions in order to study a scientific phenomenum.
As I have shown, Chandler’s simplifying assumptions made to demonstrate 2.5 seconds of free-fall are vastly less than those made by NIST (initially), you and Sideshow Bob in order to conceal that period of free-fall.
I, and possibly others, aren’t always able to view YouTube. I can’t from the computer I am now using. So, assuming that anything in the video ”
WTC7: NIST Finally Admits Freefall (Part II)” is essentially different from anything else David Chandler has said in the other videos, then how about telling us what it is, some time?
That’s right, Jules: in conspiracy-land, “gut feeling” counts as evidence – all that quantifiable measurement stuff is for dissemblers and other brain-washed slaves of The Man. I’ll tell you what, though, Daggy, that image sure looks odd, all right. You know what makes it odd? It looks like a ruddy great building collapsing in the middle of Manhattan! How odd is that?!
Not only, but also: in your last sentence there you seem to be suggesting – please correct me if I’m wrong – that gravity prevents material from travelling “upwards” and “outwards”. Is that right? Have you told NASA about this? I mean, it’s pretty important stuff for them to know, and someone should tell them before they attempt to put satellites and stuff in orbit.
Maybe you could beam the image into my brain telepathically, so I can see what you see, because I don’t see why the image is improbable and you haven’t explained WHY, either. “Because I said so”, isn’t an acceptable argument, BTW.
Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you? Doesn’t make you right, though, does it?
Come now, Daggy. It’s not “spoon feeding” if I ask you to explain your statement. And, no, “we” don’t “expect” any such thing. “If the end of the building had fallen straight down…”? What are we talking about here? It’s not WTC 7. Yet again you’ve floated another hypothetical and attached your ignorant and illogical opinions to it. Yet again I have to remind you to deal with the FACTS and argue LOGICALLY. Your hypothetical pontifications on the subject of structural engineering are worthless garbage.
I’m sorry, Daggy. I think there’s been a miscommunication here. I’m not giving serious consideration to any of your arguments because they’re ignorant, misinformed, illogical bunk. Whether you read the NIST report or not won’t change those comments. What WILL change is that you may start to know what you’re talking about.
You see, Daggy, it’s not hypocritical to expect an interlocutor to take the trouble to inform themselves on the subject being discussed. What IS hypocritical, Daggy, is proclaiming oneself to be interested in The Truth and slandering others for lacking zeal in the same pursuit WITHOUT DOING SOME BASIC FUCKING HOMEWORK. As I suggested earlier: get a clue.
You really don’t see the irony here, do you? But we’ll come back to this.
Awww, YSTLIABT. It’s called an audience, Daggy. Do you remember, back at #529 when you said you’d let others decide who was “contributing more honestly and helpfully to this discussion”? And now you’re telling off the audience? Tssk, tssk.
*It’s back to formality, is it? OK, if you insist, but you should address me as Mr. Terwilliger if you’re going to stand on ceremony.
**See? Now, was that so hard?
For context, the RCIIF. This one’s rollinger.
“the Twin Towers were, in effect, themselves, massive bombs planted in the heart of New York City.”
There’s a lot to like here, but what I like best is that this matches the joke from j_p_z who claimed that the buildings were entirely constructed of thermite.
greetings, funsters all !!
As we’ve seen several times already, Daggy, you’re not clear at the best of times – you don’t express yourself well and have a tendency to change your meaning retrospectively. All that aside, of course 9/11 was unique: terrorists flew aeroplanes into NY skyscrapers, causing their destruction. When has that happened before or since, Daggy? Please provide a couple of examples for us to ponder.
Blimey, that’s rich. You’re accusing others of “long-winded meanderings”?! I’m beginning to think you really have no idea of the meaning of “hypocrisy”.
As for the substantive point you are trying to make, you’re dead wrong again.
Would they? Why?
What demolition charges, Daggy? There’s no evidence of any demolition charges.
Interesting to note that you concede the North Eastern end had a “slight early fall”. Did that COLLAPSE occur before or after Chandler started his clock, Daggy?
Jaysus. No, Daggy. The conclusion from that video is that Chandler used the wrong video AND started his clock way too LATE. His work is consequently garbage.
No, not “whatever”. The facts are that:
1. the building began to collapse before Chandler started his clock;
2. he consequently measured the falling speed of the building incorrectly;
3. his argument is consequently bunk.
Your first assertion is both factually and logically wrong – the building was already collapsing BEFORE those “initial 2.5 seconds” that obviously weren’t “initial” – and represents the opinion of an unqualified speculator on a subject in which he has no expertise. Likewise, the second assertion is more clueless speculation from the ignorant.
[I hope you’ll forgive me for combining comments here – I want to avoid imitating your “long-winded meandering”]
Heh. There’s that irony again.
No, I think what we had after the collapse was a pile of rubble.
Really? Who says? Given the very small sample of similar events, i.e. “one”, you’re not in a position – and this is leaving your lack of expertise and poor