The fact that politicians sometimes lie or that corporations occasionally cheat does not mean that every event is the result of a tortuous conspiracy. Most of the time stuff just happens, and our brains connect the dots into meaningful patterns.
*Erratum (12/6/10): In this quote the word "economy" should be "academy". Also, the [sic] annotation should be disregarded.
This article was originally published with the title The Conspiracy Theory Detector.
Subscribe
Buy This Issue
Already a Digital subscriber? Sign-in Now
If your institution has site license access, enter here.
Already a Digital subscriber? Sign-in Now
If your institution has site license access, enter here.
See what we're tweeting about
325 Comments
Add Comment"The fact that politicians sometimes lie or that corporations occasionally cheat does not mean that every event is the result of a tortuous conspiracy. Most of the time stuff just happens, and our brains connect the dots into meaningful patterns."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTHAT is EXACTLY what we want you to think.
Buwahahahaha!!
I agree. Americans tend to be a nation of Believers, not investigators. When two thirds of a country believe that Creationism should be taught alongside evolution ....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUS investigation has gone from bad to appalling. The 9/11 aftermath was a hysterically funny fiasco, as long as you are not American. Secret closed door hearings that exclude all the firefighters who were actually there on the day?
I reserve the right to say that I found the 9/11 investigations to be inadequate to the point that they did not cover the Official Conspiracy Theory sufficiently well for me. Nor have I been satisfied with the explanations regarding the disappearance of JFK's brain. Too many loose ends.
But I will not jump to the conclusions that these events were engineered by malign forces in the US Government.
Unfortunately, I cannot rule this possibility out.
Huge secrets have been successfully kept from the US public in the past. The Manhattan Project involved 130,000 people at its peak, and remained top secret.
When I look at the quality of investigative reporting by the US media, it is abysmal. The US press has had embedded reporters in the Middle East for years, but it has taken a tiny renegade organization, Wikileaks, to publish what thousands of US reporters on the ground have missed completely.
With the cooperation of the US press, and suppression of any real investigative effort, particularly with the White House running interference, it would be very possible for the truth about the hit on the WTC to be hidden from the US public, spun in a manner that convinces the majority.
When something happens, we could decide that it is due to purposeful intervention when it is actually random, or we could decide that it is the result of random forces when it is really due to purposeful action. If something is done purposefully and we assume that it is random, we might lose a substantial amount. If something is random and we decide it is purposeful, the losses will be smaller. Therefore we would, on average, do better if we assume that actions result from purposeful behavior. We have evolved to think in just this way, to believe that most actions affecting us are purpseful.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis response to 9/11 "truther" conspiracy concerns raised to the author is neither skeptical nor scientific. One might expect that an article from a skeptic in this magazine would question theories about the destruction of the World Trade Center that fly in the face of physics and probability. That did not happened here (nor in any other article published in Scientific American that I'm aware of). Three steel frame buildings designed to survive plane crash and fire fell symmetrically into their own footprints at free-fall speed on 9/11/2001. Free fall speed of the collapses means the falling debris from the upper floors met no resistance--none--as it fell to the ground. And what are the odds of having three symmetrical collapses? Building 7 was separated from buildings on either side by a space of perhaps 100 feet, but somehow the 47-story tall building did not significantly damage the buildings on either side when it came down? Perhaps the list of how to detect conspiracy should include an eleventh item along the lines of, "When a critical element in the theory flies in the face of physics and probability the theory should be rejected and new alternatives considered."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisConspiracy theoriests allege that NASA lies.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.scientificamerican.com/gallery_directory.cfm?photo_id=18026E78-B0A8-69A8-5363A6C02DB61EA9&posted=1#comments
I allege this photo is a complete fraud, and that the so-called asteroid is actually attached TO A WHOLE PLANET.
http://www.abidemiracles.com/images/science/ASHart2D.png
Duh. That's how deep the lies go. I speculate, with a civil center and masthead sculpture in view, this has to be a civil planet and the only one we're expecting lately is Nibiru, isn't it? Right?
This is how deep the Rabbit Hole goes, in so-called Space Science these days.
EEWC, BS, MA, webmaster, author, former Xerox digital image repro tech and trainer.
:P
Dear Mr Shermer:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you have not read it already, you might find Dr. David Ray Griffin's book-long critique (Cognitive Infiltration, 2010) of Cass Sunstein's essay, "Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures" (J. Pol. Phil. 17 (2):202-227), very relevant. Sunstein claimed that conspiracy theories are dangerous and harmful, and that the groups holding them are cognitively impaired, and should be infiltrated by anonymous government agents to break up the theories.
In the annals of democratic evolution, Professor Griffin's masterful analysis of this essay is sure to become a classic, for it illustrates the shocking degree to which even high-level American scholars have lost sight of constitutional principles in the wake of 9/11.
Sunstein was appointed Obama's Administrator of the Office of Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget in September, 2009. In his essay, co-authored with Adrian Vermuele, the running example "involves conspiracy theories relating to terrorism, especially theories that arise from and post-date the 9/11 attacks."
Griffin first distills the ten theses that Sunstein devised in an attempt to conclude that "9/11 conspiracy theorists, being extremists, are likely to become violent, "with terrifying consequences," and that because the purveyors are "resistant to correction" the government should "engage in cognitive infiltration of the groups that produce conspiracy theories."
Second, Griffin examines Sunstein's one-sided definition of "conspiracy theory" as pointing only towards powerful people as suspects. He analyses Sunstein's purpose in choosing this limited definition - and then turns the tables by citing one of Sunstein's own referenced authors, Charles Pigden, who wrote that "it is a common ploy on the part of politicians to dismiss critical allegations by describing them as conspiracy theories."
Third, Griffin analyses the ten theses by dissecting each thesis through the double lens of an exoteric (surface) meaning, and its opposite esoteric (hidden and intended) meaning, subtly intertwining them in a delightful dance of Sunsteinian contradictions.
For example, in a chapter dealing with the Sunstein thesis, "The 9/11 Conspiracy as Demonstrably False", this dual approach provides Griffin with a rolling opportunity to summarize the vast evidence he has presented against the official story through 8 scholarly books, and then to point to Sunstein's failure to refute any of this evidence as a means of realizing his deeper intent - to promote the evidence by showing it to be irrefutable.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that the evidence regarding building 7 was likely the result of a controlled demolition. Why was there molten iron in the rubble? Why were there traces of not only thermite, but nano thermite? Why did the first responders report a countdown? This could all be just hearsay, except when squared with the fact that fires have never brought down a steel skyscraper. We are just thinking scientifically by posing the questions fist and then forming the conclusions, as opposed to popular beliefs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd the lesson from all of this? DOUBLE!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this____________________________
What do you want, you little ****ers?
more of these idiots
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4C5yzFmC80
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prizes_for_evidence_of_the_paranormal
HOW N WON ALL THE PARANORMAL PRIZES!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostradamus
pz myers does not exist…
http://richarddawkins.net/discussions/543672-inhertitance-of-acquired-behaviour-adaptions-and-brain-gene-expression-in-chickens
atheists, we’re gonna cut off your heads…
THE HIGH PRICE OF REVOLUTION
http://www.youtube.com/user/xviolatex?feature=mhum
It's interesting to watch 9/11 "Truthers" in the comments section illustrate Dr. Shermer's points for us. Truthers do nothing but list the same things debunked long ago. Let me list a few:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. "Three steel frame buildings designed to survive plane crash and fire fell symmetrically into their own footprints at free-fall speed on 9/11/2001."
Reality: WTC 1 and 2 did survive the plane crashes. We all saw that. They were not designed to withstand unfought fires indefinitely. There is no mystery here.
2."Free fall speed of the collapses means the falling debris from the upper floors met no resistance--none--as it fell to the ground."
Reality: NONE of the three towers fell at "free-fall speed." Each tower took 13+ seconds to collapse, considerably slower than the 9.8 seconds it would take WTC 1 and 2 to collapse had they done so at free-fall acceleration. Debris and building sections falling free of the collapsing towers hit the ground first, proving the point. The evidence is available to everyone, but Truthers continue to assert these falsehoods. Why?
3. "And what are the odds of having three symmetrical collapses?"
Reality: They are independent events but all governed by the reality of physics, gravity, the nature of the construction, and the nature of the damage. WTC 7 did not fall symmetrically and both WTC 1 and 2 were off a little, too. But once collapse initiation started, and WTC 1 and 2 were structurally overwhelmed to stop the falling mass above them, there is no surprise they fell straight down. But Truthers insist they are smarter than physicists, architects, structural engineers, chemists, and forensic scientists.
4."...his dual approach provides Griffin with a rolling opportunity to summarize the vast evidence he has presented against the official story through 8 scholarly books,..."
Reality: This particular appeal to authority, (David Ray Griffin, a retired theologian), illustrates how strong confirmation bias is with conspiracy theorists. Griffin has now written 10 books on the 9/11 "conspiracy", a conspiracy not by Islamic Terrorists but by our own government. He has been roundly debunked online, refuses to engage in person on challenges, and shown to not only get his facts wrong but to contradict himself. He has no background in any relevant subject. But Griffin knows he has a ready audience willing to believe conspiracy theories. Ten books on 9/11 alone is some record.
How right Dr. Shermer is.
Michael Shermer must be the least skeptical "skeptic" in history. He not only buys the official account of the assassination of JFK but even the official account of 9/11! I await his announcement that Julius Caesar did not die as the result of a conspiracy. According to Shermer, after all, for a conspiracy to exist, it must involve superhuman powers and large numbers of persons who would all have to maintain their silence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo the best of my knowledge, there are no "conspiracies" of this kind.
He doesn't seem to realize that conspiracies only require two or more individuals collaborating in bringing about an illegal end, They are as American as apple pie. I earned my Ph.D. in the history and philosophy of science. I have published three books on the death of JFK. I am the Founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth. I organized its first conference, published its first book, and produced its first DVD.
I also debated Michael Shermer on the "Free Beer and Hot Wings" show 11 September 2007. Listen to Part I here: http://twilightpines.com/media/Shermer_Fetzer_Rd_1_09_11_07.mp3
and Part II here:
http://twilightpines.com/media/Shermer_Fetzer_Rd_2_09_11_07.mp3
Michael comes across as a very nice, soft spoken man, but most of his remarks about conspiracies are simply wrong. They are factually challenged and poorly reasoned. I say that as someone who spent 35 years teaching logic, critical thinking, and scientific reasoning. And I would be glad to debate Michael again about any of these things.
On the nature of conspiracy theories, consider:
"Thinking about 'Conspiracy Theories': 9/11 and JFK"
http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/fetzerexpandedx.htm
"Birds of a Feather: Subverting the Constitution at Harvard Law"
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Birds-of-a-Feather-Subver-by-Jim-Fetzer-100121-980.html
"Conspiracies and Conspiracism"
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_6047.shtml
For more about JFK and RFK:
"JFK and RFK: The Plots that Killed them, The Patsies that Didn't"
http://www.voltairenet.org/article165721.html
"RFK: Outing the CIA at the Pentagon"
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_6464.shtml
"JFK: What We Know Now"
http://www.opednews.com/articles/JFK-What-We-Know-Now-by-James-Fetzer-101122-863.html
For more about 9/11:
"Why doubt 9/11?"
http://twilightpines.com//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17&Itemid=46
"Was 9/11 an 'inside job'?"
http://twilightpines.com/JF-BuenosAires/Buenos-Aires.html
"Are Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan justified by 9/11?"
http://noliesradio.org/archives/21621/
I am concerned about the number of 'educated' people I have ran into who buy into the nonsense of homeopathy, conspiracy theories and other things that fly in the face of basic science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have special contempt for 'truthers', as this is a misnomer. There have been quite a few programs that have demonstrated how weakened steel could have failed under the conditions that existed in those buildings on that day. Whenever 'truthers' are placed side by side with people who actually have credentials in a given field of study, the theories simply grow more irrational.
Shadowy folks sneaking into the buildings at night to plant explosives, and not just any explosives, super explosives. Imagine the theories these folks would have come up with had their not been actual footage of the planes hitting the buildings.
For those who have received most of their education on fluoridation from watching the movie Dr. Strangelove it is easy to believe that people opposed to fluoridation are a bunch of half-baked “conspiracy theorists” as Michael Shermer asserts in his article of December 14, 2010 “The Conspiracy Theory Detector How to tell the difference between true and false conspiracy theories.” For those who have studied the science of the matter, like myself, first as a professor of environmental chemistry and then after retirement as director of the Fluoride Action Network, there is both a solid scientific and ethical case against the practice of using the public water supply to deliver medication. This should have become clear when Scientific American revisited this controversy in its January 2008 issue. With three colleagues I have recently co-authored a book on the subject that Michael Shermer, and others who dismiss opponents of fluoridation as unscientific nitwits, would do well to read before they continue this well-worn tactic used to keep the scientific and medical communities away from the science of this issue. The title of our book gives the gist of our thesis: “The Case Against Fluoride: How Hazardous Waste Ended Up in Our Drinking Water and the Bad Science and Powerful Politics That Keep it There” (Chelsea Green publisher, October 2010).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPaul Connett, PhD,
315-379-9200
pconnett@gmail.com
For those who have received most of their education on fluoridation from watching the movie Dr. Strangelove it is easy to believe that people opposed to fluoridation are a bunch of half-baked “conspiracy theorists” as Michael Shermer asserts in his article of December 14, 2010 “The Conspiracy Theory Detector How to tell the difference between true and false conspiracy theories.” For those who have studied the science of the matter, like myself, first as a professor of environmental chemistry and then after retirement as director of the Fluoride Action Network, there is both a solid scientific and ethical case against the practice of using the public water supply to deliver medication. This should have become clear when Scientific American revisited this controversy in its January 2008 issue. With three colleagues I have recently co-authored a book on the subject that Michael Shermer, and others who dismiss opponents of fluoridation as unscientific nitwits, would do well to read before they continue this well-worn tactic used to keep the scientific and medical communities away from the science of this issue. The title of our book gives the gist of our thesis: “The Case Against Fluoride: How Hazardous Waste Ended Up in Our Drinking Water and the Bad Science and Powerful Politics That Keep it There” (Chelsea Green publisher, October 2010).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPaul Connett, PhD,
315-379-9200
pconnett@gmail.com
Michael Shermer gives ten reasons to doubt conspiracy theories. In the interest of fairness and balance, here are some reasons to believe the 9/11 truthers:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. The debunkers refuse to engage the arguments advanced by the truthers. They call them names and ridicule them, but ignore the facts and reasons they present.
2. The debunkers have a personal stake in preventing the truthers from being believed. Shermer is Jewish and some of the truthers say Israel was involved in 9/11. See: “Jews did 9/11,” Nov. 1, 2010; http://jewishcrimenetworkdid911.blogspot.com/
3. The technical experts support the truthers, not the debunkers. There are over 1500 scientists, architects, engineers, pilots, and firemen, etc. who do not believe the official story, e.g., http://www.ae911truth.org/
4. People who have information about what really happened are murdered, "suicided," threatened, or paid to stay silent.
5. Follow the money. The people who made billions off 9/11 were the same people who had to be involved in the conspiracy.
6. The people who are accused of doing it, bin Laden's gang, lacked the means to do it. They were not technically competent and could not have pulled it off.
7. The people who are accused of doing it are the enemies of the people the evidence and the money trail suggests did it.
I couldn't agree more with all of Mr. Shermer's writings on these issues. But I have to say that I showed this particular piece to someone in my office who tends to believe whatever someone puts in front of her. While she tried to understand and agree, the part that she focused on was the following, "Nevertheless, we cannot just dismiss all such theories out of hand, because real conspiracies do sometimes happen." So in her mind, this just justifies that there are conspiracies, so she is right. I finally gave up.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm not a psychologist, but IMHO, people who subscribe to conspiracy theories suffer from both a solid background in logic and science and from not understanding their inability to control what happens to themselves or to others. They don't understand that "bad things happen to good people", even in the best of all possible worlds. As you said, "...stuff just happens...."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDr. Fetzer,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHad I not known who you are I would find it hard to believe that you actually have any degree related to philosophy, especially empiricism.
1. You present a strawman by contending that Shermer claims that "for a conspiracy to exist, it must involve superhuman powers and large numbers of persons who would all have to maintain their silence". He said not such thing. He is talking about "conspiracy theories", not conspiracies in themselves. Which leads me to your next fallacy.
2. Equivocation. While I know truthers like to pretend they are witty by regurgitating the equally fallacious rantings of Dr. Griffin in respect to "official conspiracy theory" vs "conspiracy theory", you and they only demonstrate the hollowness of the "movement"'s mentality. We know what a "conspiracy" is and we know what a "theory" is, however we know that "conspiracy theory" has an independent meaning outside of what those individual words mean in and of themselves.
3. Appeal to authority. Similar to your debate with Mark Roberts, instead of providing evidence to demonstrate your arguments are not lacking logic, or in this case criticize Shermer's arguments, you simply invoke your credentials.
Poor form Doctor, poor form indeed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. The debunkers refuse to engage the arguments advanced by the truthers. They call them names and ridicule them, but ignore the facts and reasons they present."
So we should believe truthers because of what some people allegedly do? That somehow makes truthers right? See "non sequitur". Secondly watch any debate involving Mark Roberts.
"2. The debunkers have a personal stake in preventing the truthers from being believed. Shermer is Jewish and some of the truthers say Israel was involved in 9/11. See: Jews did 9/11, Nov. 1, 2010; http://jewishcrimenetworkdid911.blogspot.com/"
So your argument is racism, ad hom, and a hasty generalization. Nice.
"3. The technical experts support the truthers, not the debunkers. There are over 1500 scientists, architects, engineers, pilots, and firemen, etc. who do not believe the official story, e.g., http://www.ae911truth.org/"
Appeal to authority and popularity, not to mention a lie. The ASCE and NFPA support the NIST hypothesis and a couple dozen journal articles have gone through a legitimate peer review process supporting the same. 9/11 Truth has people making youtube videos and "scholars" faking or avoiding real academic forums; and yes that includes the "Active Nano Thermite Paper".
"4. People who have information about what really happened are murdered, "suicided," threatened, or paid to stay silent."
A claim based on 0 evidence. Barry Jennings died after he claimed the Loose Change boys misquoted him. Cui Bono? Dylan Avery, that's who.
"5. Follow the money. The people who made billions off 9/11 were the same people who had to be involved in the conspiracy."
And Dylan Avery, Dr. Griffin, and Richard gage all benefited from 9/11 too. Guess they were in on it.
"6. The people who are accused of doing it, bin Laden's gang, lacked the means to do it. They were not technically competent and could not have pulled it off."
Aside from the fact that they were either licensed or trained pilots.
"7. The people who are accused of doing it are the enemies of the people the evidence and the money trail suggests did it."
Post hoc fallacy & bare assertion.
This is a reply to "grandmastershek":
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShermer's offers "signs that indicate a conspiracy theory is likely to be untrue." He does not offer logical proof. I offer reasons to doubt those who debunk the truthers, not logical proof.
1. Yes, someone who refuses to engage his opponent's position and resorts to name calling is unlikely to be able to refute it.
2. Jews are known for their ethnocentrism. They do try to help and protect other Jews. See works by Kevin MacDonald. Shermer would not want the public to believe that Jews were involved in 9/11. There are good reasons to believe that Jews "did" 9/11. See http://jewishcrimenetworkdid911.blogspot.com/
3. The website I gave has 1386 "architectural and engineering professionals" who doubt the government's version, and there are also many others, such as pilots and scientist who do.
Scientific American is supposed to present SCIENCE. Building 7 collapsed at nearly free fall acceleration without even being hit by a plane. That means that almost all of its potential energy was converted into kinetic energy, i.e., virtually no energy was lost to bending girders, one floor striking the floor below, etc. That is impossible. It had to be a controlled demolition.
4. I'll give you this one. I still think it raises suspicions, but it is hard to establish connections.
5. "And Dylan Avery, Dr. Griffin, and Richard gage all benefited from 9/11 too." Possibly true, but not billions. And they did not have the motive, means, and opportunity to pull it off. Ridicule, by the way, is another way of avoiding engagement.
6. If you accept that Building 7 was a controlled demolition, as seems pretty obvious even just looking at it, then the expertise required to wire it up so that the floors collapse in sequence and it falls into its footprint, is way beyond the troglodytes.
7. Again, it is not offered as logical proof, but as a fair suspicion. 9/11 was a false flag attack. It justified the wars for Israel, made tons of money for Jews, and got the pre-prepared Patriot Act passed to strip us of our Constitutional rights.
Someone said that you know it's an inside job when the security stands down - exactly what happened on 9/11.
"1. Yes, someone who refuses to engage his opponent's position and resorts to name calling is unlikely to be able to refute it."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYet you offer no evidence that such is the case.The Popular Mechanics book alone proves you are just generalizing. FYI I am engaging your argument and you are just repeating yourself. I get the feeling that your claim is just your inability to support your claims so you generalize all "debunkers" to poison the well.
"2. Jews are known for their ethnocentrism. They do try to help and protect other Jews. See works by Kevin MacDonald. Shermer would not want the public to believe that Jews were involved in 9/11. There are good reasons to believe that Jews "did" 9/11. See http://jewishcrimenetworkdid911.blogspot.com/"
I see, so you support baseless racist claims with more baseless racist claims. Thats always reliable.
" 3. The website I gave has 1386 "architectural and engineering professionals" who doubt the government's version, and there are also many others, such as pilots and scientist who do."
Which is a fallacious appeal to popularity and authority. You seem to be unable t grasp that.
"Scientific American is supposed to present SCIENCE. Building 7 collapsed at nearly free fall acceleration"
Part to whole fallacy and lying by omission. It fell for 15 secs 2.5 of which was FFA. No CD does that.
"without even being hit by a plane"
Red herring. No one said it was.
" That means that almost all of its potential energy was converted into kinetic energy, i.e., virtually no energy was lost to bending girders, one floor striking the floor below, etc. That is impossible."
First inaccurate. The FFA only occurs for 2.5 secs. Secondly your last statement is an argument from personal incredulity. AKA- not science.
"It had to be a controlled demolition."
Unestablished in any empirical sense.
"4. I'll give you this one. I still think it raises suspicions, but it is har- d to establish connections."
Suspicions =/= evidence.
5. Possibly true, but not billions. And they did not have the motive, means, and opportunity to pull it off. Ridicule, by the way, is another way of avoiding engagement."
What ridicule? Your argument is Cui Bono. You're just presenting a non sequitur and a baseless standard. A person benefiting does not infer guilt, just opportunism...maybe.
Surely no one misses the point of Shermer's piece, which is to debunk conspiracy theories in general. Since conspiracies only require two or more individual collaborating to bring about an illegal end, when a couple of guys knock off a 7/11, they are engaged in a conspiracy, even if they are prosecuted under, say, an armed robbery statute instead.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAccording to the official account of 9/11, 19 Islamic fundamentalists hijacked for commercial carriers, outfoxed the most sophisticated air defense system in the world, and perpetrated those atrocities under the control of a guy in a case in Afghanistan. If we are going to study the events of 9/11, therefore, we are going to have to deal with conspiracy theories, where the problem is sorting out the true from the false.
There are fallacious and non-fallacious appeals to authority. When you cite Einstein on physics, for example, that is a non-fallacious appeal. He may not always have been right right (about the deterministic character of the physical world) , but the weight of his opinion counts. Similarly my qualifications for dealing with conspiracies based upon my past and current research lends its weight to my views.
Those who want a better understanding should read any of the three articles about conspiracy theories that I cite. I previously debated Mark Roberts on "Hardfire", by the way, which is accessible via YouTube or google videos. It has proven to be a popular program and has been rebroadcast many times. Juste enter "Mark Roberts, Jim Fetzer, Hardfire" and it turns right up.
6. If you accept that Building 7 was a controlled demolition, as seems pretty obvious even just looking at it, then the expertise required to wire it up so that the floors collapse in sequence and it falls into its footprint, is way beyond the troglodytes. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt also looks like the Earth goes around the Sun. What something looks like isn't science. Secondly it didn't fall in its own footprint as it damaged surrounding buildings.
"7. Again, it is not offered as logical proof, but as a fair suspicion."
Fair suspicion is based in logic. Reasonable suspicions arises out of evidence and rationality. 9/11 Truth has neither.
" 9/11 was a false flag attack. It justified the wars for Israel, made tons of money for Jews, and got the pre-prepared Patriot Act passed to strip us of our Constitutional rights."
Another post hoc fallacy.
"Someone said that you know it's an inside job when the security stands down - exactly what happened on 9/11. "
Maybe if you provide evidence you might have a case.
"There are fallacious and non-fallacious appeals to authority. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSelf appeal to authority is fallacious.
Especially when your argument has been challenged on specific grounds and you fail to address it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt would be nice if grandmastershek knew what he was talking about. I have given several links to findings and presentations about 9/11. He, alas!, has blithely ignored them, while inconsistently claiming that I am the one who has ignored him! That's a bit much. And this idea of "self-appeal to authority" is completely off-base. If I taught logic, critical thinking, and scientific reasoning for 35 years, that means something in terms of my expertise, even though every argument has to be evaluated on its own merits--such as those that I have advanced regarding 9/11. I presume that now we can stand by for more of his pronouncements, which I expect to be non-responsive to my points.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJim Fetzer is kind enough to illustrate for us the true nature of denialism in action. He shows that even in the face of having been debunked repeatedly on every claim he has made since 9/11, it is the nature of denialists to always repeat debunked nonsense forever. It is why there are still moon-landing deniers, round-earth deniers, Creationists, climate science deniers, and Holocaust deniers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne will also note that Jim Fetzer, like every other denialist, will never concede they have been shown to be wrong. He can't. He knows that his own 9/11 denial is built as a house of cards on quicksand.
One could repeat ad infinitum the severe debunking his claims have had but they are available all over the web. But I will take one generalized statement he makes above:
<i>"According to the official account of 9/11, 19 Islamic fundamentalists hijacked for [sic] commercial carriers, outfoxed the most sophisticated air defense system in the world, and perpetrated those atrocities under the control of a guy in a case [sic] in Afghanistan."</i>
How often have we heard this same canard since it first appeared on Usenet several days after 9/11? Why does Fetzer repeat it, knowing full well that it is incorrect and only designed to mislead anyone reading it?
Fetzer knows full well that no such "sophisticated air defense" existed designed to deal with this kind of attack from <i>within</i> the borders of the USA. He also knows that the time to react and prevent any of the attacks once it was understood what was actually happening was virtually nonexistent.
Fetzer also knows that the image of bin Laden as being "...under the control of a guy in a case [sic] in Afghanistan" is designed to imply that he had no intellectual or financial ability to make the attacks happen. Why does Fetzer want you to believe what he knows is patently false?
The 9/11 Denial Movement of which Fetzer plays a part is no different than any other denialist movement in history. The methodology, tactics, and political motivation behind them are identical; only the subject matter is different. Fundamentally, they are based on rejecting and ignoring inconvenient evidence to one's cause. They appeal to those who may be gullible and to those who don't know enough on the subject matter to object or question. And there are plenty of snake oil salesmen to fill the demand.
Ultimately, the 9/11 "Truth" Movement is destined to the trash bin of history with all the other failed "conspiracy theories."
This is pretty bizarre stuff. That the alleged hijackers were under the control of a guy in a cave in Afghanistan is part of the official account. Maybe bjebje slept through the rest of the propaganda onslaught that was promulgated by the Bush/Cheney administration about 9/11. For his part, Osama denied that he had anything to do with it, that there was a "government within a government" in the United States, and that it is contrary to the tenets of Islam to murder innocent women and children.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisObama recently claimed that he was sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan to track down Osama and because that is the region from which we were attacked, both of which are nonsense. When we asked the Taliban to turn him over the the US for prosecution, they said they would be willing to do that if we produced evidence that implicated him in the crime. We never did, of course, for the obvious reason. But we extracted false confessions using torture to prop it up!
I guess bjebje missed that, too. And even Bush eventually admitted that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. Inquiries by the Senate and the Pentagon established that there was no collusion between Iraq and al Qaeda. And the FBI--that's OUR FBI!--has acknowledged that is has "no hard evidence" that ties Osama, who apparently died on or about 15 December 2001, to 9/11. So what are we doing occupying Iraq and Afghanistan?
One of the most telling indications that there was governmental complicity in 9/11 is the remarkable "stand down" of the US Air Force, which was conducting as many as 17 "anti-terrorist drills" on 9/11. A nice discussion can be found in Webster Tarpley's 9/11: SYNTHETIC TERROR: MADE IN THE USA, if anyone other there wants to check it. Guys like this are long on rhetoric, especially ad hominems, and short on facts, which is unsurprising, since the "official account" is a myth.
I recommend going back to the links I gave regarding 9/11. They include a summary of twenty (20) key findings that refute the official account. They also include a Powerpoint presentation I made in Buenos Aires in 2009 at The National Library and another I gave during the symposium on "Debunking the War on Terror" in London this summer. It might be a good idea to try considering the evidence in this case.
As Fetzer continues to illustrate my points for me, another thing about denialism is that the actual truth of the matter is not the point. Trying to get attention and engage others in endless "debates" is the way to propagate the misinformation as Fetzer has done in every comment above and for his career as a 9/11 Denier.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOf course, Fetzer knows he's been thoroughly debunked repeatedly. (I had the pleasure of doing so myself many years ago myself - and on the same points.) Fetzer has attempted unsuccessfully to invent new "evidence" each time his "theories" are walloped.
What Fetzer knows is that ALL of the 9/11 "Truther" conspiracy theories - including his - fall apart on the very thing he has to vociferously deny: that fundamentally for the government to have been behind the attacks, many hundreds, if not thousands, of people would have had to be involved before, during, and AFTER the attacks to make it work. The actual attacks pulled off by bin Laden's hijackers did not need to meet any such requirement and for fundamentally obvious reasons.
This is the kind of vacuous post for which shills are known. It has no argumentative content whatsoever. An ad hominem or two, which is par for the course, but nothing more. The claim to have debunked someone without any proof simply doesn't cut it. Empty, pointless, and vain--rather like calling out, "Don't trust him! Don't read him!" It's silly. So here are a few points to consider for those who want to think things through for themselves:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this#1: The impact of planes cannot have caused enough damage to bring the buildings down, since the buildings were designed to withstand them (as Frank DeMartini, the project manager, has observed), the planes alleged to have hit were similar to those they were designed to withstand, and the buildings continued to stand after those impacts with negligible effects.
#2: Most of the jet fuel, principally kerosene, burned up in those fireballs in the first fifteen seconds or so. Below the 96th floor in the North Tower and the 80th in the South, those buildings were stone cold steel, unaffected by any fires at all other than some very modest office fires that burned around 500 degrees F, which functioned as a massive heat sink dissipating the heat from building up on the steel.
#3: The melting point of steel at 2,800 degrees F is about 1,000 degrees higher than the maximum burning temperature of jet-fuel-based fires, which do not exceed 1,800 degrees under optimal conditions; but the NIST examined 236 samples of steel and found that 233 had not been exposed to temperatures above 500 degrees F and the others not above 1200.
#4: Underwriters Laboratory certified the steel in the buildings up to 2,000 degrees F for three or four hours without any significant effects, where these fires burned neither long enough or hot enough—at an average temperature of around 500 degrees for about one hour in the South Tower and one and a half in the North—to weaken, much less melt.
#5: If the steel had melted or weakened, then the affected floors would have displayed completely different behavior, with some degree of asymmetrical sagging and tilting, which would have been gradual and slow, not the complete, abrupt and total demolition that was observed. Which means the NIST cannot even explain the initiation of any “collapse” sequence.
It's perfectly alright for you to illustrate my points for me, Jim. You're performing exactly as I said you would.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo one needs to re-debunk your conspiracy theories, much less in the comment's section of Dr. Shermer's article. To claim you haven't been debunked only makes a greater fool of yourself than you already have.
That neither you nor anyone of your fellow 9/11 Deniers can make your :inside job" conspiracy theories work without the knowledge and/or participation of hundreds and perhaps thousands of people does not escape anyone.
But, do go ahead, Jim, stick your foot in your mouth again. You've only had nine years of practice so far.
This guy must be a complete idiot. He hasn't offered a single rebuttal yet. His "big" argument was that thousands of persons must have known what was going on, which is an argument advanced by Ollie North when I engaged him on "Hannity & Colmes" in June 2006. Here's a link to the video on YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08va1i6LYPc If these "debunkers" had anything to say, they would have said it. Instead, they hope you won't notice that they are not dealing with the evidence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this#6. The top 30 floors of the South Tower pivoted and began to fall to the side, when the floors beneath gave way. So it was not even in the position to exert downward pressure on the lower 80 floors. A high-school physics teacher, Charles Boldwyn, moreover, has calculated that, if you take the top 16 floors of the North Tower as one unit of downward force, there were 199 units of upward force to counteract it.
#7. William Rodriguez, who was the senior custodian in the North Tower and the last man to leave the building, has reported massive explosions in the sub-basements that effected extensive destruction, including the demolition of a fifty-ton hydraulic press and the ripping of the skin off a fellow worker, where they filled with water that drained the sprinkler system.
#8. Rodriguez observed that the explosion occurred prior to reverberations from upper floors, a claim that has now been substantiated in a new study by Craig Furlong and Gordon Ross, “Seismic Proof: 9/11 Was an Inside Job,” demonstrating that these explosions actually took place as much as 14 and 17 seconds before the presumptive airplane impacts.
#9. Heavy-steel-construction buildings like the Twin Towers are not generally capable of “pancake collapse,” which normally occurs only with concrete structures of “lift slab” construction and could not occur in redundant welded-steel buildings, such as the towers, unless every supporting column were removed at the same time, floor by floor, as Charles Pegelow, a structural engineer, has observed.
#10. The demolition of the two towers in about 10 seconds apiece is very close to the speed of free fall with only air resistance, which Judy Wood, Ph.D., formerly a professor of mechanical engineering, has observed is an astounding result that would be impossible without extremely powerful sources of energy. If they were collapsing, they would have had to fall through their points of greatest resistance.
Jim, everything "argument" you have made before has been discussed and examined thoroughly by sites such as 911myths.com, Mark Robert's website and conspiracyscience.com (which I occasionally write for). If you want to be taken seriously by the skeptical community, why don't you address any of the counterarguments? You've already employed the proof by verbosity logical fallacy, so I am in no way going to be able to give a meaningful response to every claim you've made. Just repeating the same old factoids again and again does not make them true. A case in point. You have continually brought up the claim made by David Ray Griffin that there were no terrorists on the passenger manifests. This is simply false. If you look at Griffin's source, it links to a 9/11 victim's list. Not a passenger manifest! The passenger manifests are available online and were published in a Boston Globe article back in 01. A final thought. Since you must be aware of Mark Robert's site, why haven't you written a critique of it? I understand that you have taught critical thinking for 35 years, but the factoids/claims you use to support your arguments stem from internet rumors and the opinions of scientists who are clearly not critically thinking.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this911myths.com
http://sites.google.com/site/wtc7lies/
conspiracyscience.com
Actually, I was wrong to suggest that you are an idiot. It is actually something like the other way around: you seem to think the rest of us are! I don't know how long you think you can play this audience for saps. Take your claim about the passenger manifests. I have the print-out from CNN in my possession. There is not only no name of any of the purported "terrorists" but not Arabic name. Not one!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMark Roberts tried to pull that stunt on "Hardfire" and, when he pulled out his "passenger manifest", I observed that the names of the "terrorists" had been added at the top and the bottom the list. How obvious can you get? He is not the vaunted truth-teller and champion that you and others might like to promote. He is an apologist for the government on 9/11, pure and simple. Check out the videos of our exchange. I think that one is on it.
In a more interesting context, I have always believed that OJ murdered Nicole and Ron. I squandered an entire sabbatical on the case and even taped the court sessions and Geraldo's brillian discussions that followed each day. But Jack White recently induced me to watch a new study of the evidence, "OJ guilty, but not of murder", by William Dean, who spent 12 years on the case, and I am now convinced I was wrong and the wrong party was charged. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7905933759946122795#
The fact of the matter is that I care more about the truth of 9/11 than whether I have discovered it. As a philosopher, I care about truth. As a former Marine Corps officer, I am dedicated to my country. And as a philosopher of science, I know that scientific inquiry is the most effective, dependable, and reliable means at our disposal for discovering truth. Citing rubbish sites that are designed to conceal the truth does not impress me.
Jim doesn't need to be reminded why we don't "debate" moon-landing deniers, nor round-earth deniers, nor Holocaust deniers. He also knows that the burden of proof is on his shoulders and that of the 9/11 Denial Movement to refute all the evidence and all of the investigations. He also knows that no one has been able to do that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is just as laughable as his complete inability to construct any scenario of an "inside job" without involving many hundreds of people and unknown eyewitnesses.
<i>Mark Roberts tried to pull that stunt on "Hardfire" and, when he pulled out his "passenger manifest", I observed that the names of the "terrorists" had been added at the top and the bottom the list. How obvious can you get? He is not the vaunted truth-teller and champion that you and others might like to promote. He is an apologist for the government on 9/11, pure and simple. Check out the videos of our exchange. I think that one is on it.</i>
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFetzer, you are a liar. The passenger manifests for the four flights contained the 19 hijackers' names. What did NOT contain their names were the lists of passenger names published by the media in the days following the attacks, for the simple reason that in America there is a taboo against listing criminals and their victims together without making the distinction between them. That you are still trying to milk that little issue 9 years after the attack shows how readily you are willing to continue peddling the same lie over and over long after it has been refuted.
<i>
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this#10. The demolition of the two towers in about 10 seconds apiece is very close to the speed of free fall with only air resistance, which Judy Wood, Ph.D., formerly a professor of mechanical engineering, has observed is an astounding result that would be impossible without extremely powerful sources of energy. If they were collapsing, they would have had to fall through their points of greatest resistance.</i>
Except that a simple foray to Youtube will show you that the collapse of both buildings took longer than 10 seconds. A simple glance at the seismograph readings taken that day will show the same thing. Or just look at still pictures of the collapse, where debris falling down the sides clearly outpaces the collapse front.
You've had 10 years to stop peddling the 10 seconds lie. You won't. Because you are a pathological liar.
This is very interesting. THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT states that the South Tower came down in 10 seconds, if you check it. So it's rather difficult so see how using the figure provided by the government makes me a "pathological liar", which, of course, begs the question by taking for granted that I am wrong and you are right. Since Scholars has no axe to grind, I can't see any good reason to impugn the integrity of our research and repeatedly asserting we are wrong doesn't cut it--not remotely.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI just ran across a piece of mine from a few years back, which might be of interest to some who are following this thread. I offer a critique of one of the many disinformation programs that are being presented to the public, where some of the links I provide are especially relevant: http://www.opednews.com/articles/2/More-9-11-Rubbish-This-ti-by-Jim-Fetzer-090906-636.html In particular, go to YouTube and enter "This is an Orange" and "9/11: The Towers of Dust" for some very effective presentations about key aspects of the case.
ocschwar seems to be caught up in his own propaganda. The list of passengers that I have in hand does not include the names of any of the alleged hijackers or even any Arabic names. I have no idea why this guy thinks that "in America there is a taboo against listing criminals and their victims together without making the distinction between them." That's just rubbish. There is no such restraint and no one would have known who was a victim and who was not. If they were all passengers, they should have all been on the "passenger manifests".
This liberal use of the word "lie" and "liar" indicates the poverty of the intellects of these defenders of the faith. Telling a lie requires (a) making an assertion (b) that you know to be false, where (c) you do so anyway (d) with the intention of misleading your audience. Since I have the passenger manifests in my hands and they do not include the names of the hijackers or of any Arabic person, I obviously do not know that what I am saying is false. Indeed, what I am saying is true, so I cannot possibly be telling lies, much less be a "pathological liar".
But the fact that these claims are being made about me is very telling. Unless these posters are cognitively impaired, they have to know that I believe what I am saying. The fact that I have made these points many times is further evidence of my sincerity. But that means they actually already know that I believe what I am saying and not trying to mislead my audience in any way but rather attempting to inform them. So one of us may be lying here, but it ain't me. And whenever I discover we have something not quite right, I revised it, as I have done with "Why doubt 9/11?" on several occasions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust to reinforce the point, neither Mark Roberts nor any of these (un)worthies can sustain their case unless their audience is unfamiliar with even the gross aspects of the destruction of the Twin Towers. Here is a nice illustration. According to the official account, some kind of collapse took place, where several versions have been advanced. But take a look at "New 9/11 Photos Released" and ask yourself if this looks like any kind of collapse: http://jamesfetzer.blogspot.com/2010/02/new-911-photos-released.html
The evidence is so massively against them that telling lies may be the best that they can do. The melting point of steel, the temperature of kerosene-based fires, the length of time these fires were burning, the intricate lattice structure of the buildings (which created enormous heat sinks drawning heat away from specific locations), the way in which the buildings would have behaved if they had collapsed, and all of that makes their task not merely difficult but actually impossible unless you are willing to believe impossible things.
"This is very interesting. THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT states that the South Tower came down in 10 seconds, if you check it. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSpeecifically, they say "about" 10 seconds. Which is a casual comment. You, however mine that quote to claim things you know full well are not true.
Again: the Naudet video clearly shows it took more than 10 seconds. The seismograph shows it took more than 10 seconds. And photos of the collapse prove it also. And you keep peddling this lie, because you are a pathological liar.
Fetzer knows full well that all three towers, WTC 1, 2, and 7, took 13+ seconds to collapse. See, for example, WTC 2:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYHPGdIzueA&feature=related
At this stage, one has to wonder if the poster is actually Jim Fetzer - the inanity the poster displays is beyond attributable to an honest person.
"It would be nice if grandmastershek knew what he was talking about..." (ad hominem)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKeep dancing "doctor". Your inability to address even the most elementary fallacies in your arguments only confirms what we all now: That 9/11 Truth has many educated people who have abandoned rationality.
"This is pretty bizarre stuff. That the alleged hijackers were under the control of a guy in a cave"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe the good "doctor" could be kind enough to present evidence that Bin Laden was in a cave on or leading up to 9/11?
Probably is. If you watch any interview or debate with Fetzer he is just as incompetent as the person here is.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Dr. Fetzer" has Judy would evr presented the calculations for the death star? And if so when will she be submitting it to a real peer review?
Where do these people come from? THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT states, "At 9:58:59, the South Tower collapsed in ten seconds, killing all civilian and emergency personnel inside, as well as a number of individuals--both first responders and civilians--in the concourse, in the Marriott, and on neighboring streets" (page 305). The word "about" does not occur. So here you have these fakers and phonies who are attacking for lies, when I have it right and they have it wrong.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTHE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT also states, "The North Tower collapsed at 10:28:25 A.M., killing all civilians alive on upperfloors, an undermined number below, and scores of first responders" (page 311). So the official account is that both buildings "collapsed". But their destruction does not look remotely like any kind of collapse. Take a look at "New 9/11 Photos Released" and ask yourself if this looks like any kind of collapse: http://jamesfetzer.blogspot.com/2010/02/new-911-photos-released.html
So the official account is not even consistent with the gross observable evidence. It is hardly surprising that shills for the government are here in force to try to convince you that you should believe them and not your lying-eyes! There is much more about 9/11 that strains credulity, as I have been attempting to explain, while these frauds are doing their best to snow me under a raft of baseless and ad hominem attacks.
If you want to have an understanding of 9/11, you can't rely upon them. So much of the evidence is visual that I strongly recommend either studying my Buenos Aires Powerpoint, where you can view each slide and read the text that accompanies it, taking as much time as you like to appreciate the points that I am making,
"Was 9/11 an 'inside job'?"
http://twilightpines.com/JF-BuenosAires/Buenos-Aires.html
or you can watch my presentation in London on 14 July 2010, which runs less than an hour (slightly more with the introduction by Ken O'Keefe, the hero of the Mavi Marmara, in which he participated in defending the ship and disarming two Israeli Commandos during their raid on the Gaza flotilla), who was our Master of Ceremonies:
"Are Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan justified by 9/11?"
http://noliesradio.org/archives/21621/
As Jim well knows, the 9/11 Commission was not responsible for the investigation of the collapses of the WTC Towers - NIST was.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs Jim well knows, all of the video evidence demonstrates the towers fell in 13+ seconds and the videos and photos show that actual free-falling debris hit the ground before the collpase fronts of WTC 1 and 2.
I have to believe that the person posting is a poseur. Not even the real Jim Fetzer would be so stupid.
Here I am quoting from THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT, where I have been providing accurate information and these shills have been attacking me. Notice--and I consider this to be very telling!--they don't even use their real names. Who knows who they are are? They could be working for the CIA or the NSA for all we can tell. That they won't even use their real names tells us they have something to hide, including their own identities!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs for NIST, indeed, the NIST has been making strenuous efforts to dodge the bullets that have come from critics of THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT. As I observed in point 3,
#3. The melting point of steel at 2,800 degrees F is about 1,000 degrees higher than the maximum burning temperature of jet-fuel-based fires, which do not exceed 1,800 degrees under optimal conditions; but the NIST examined 236 samples of steel and found that 233 had not been exposed to temperatures above 500 degrees F and the others not above 1200.
even NIST's own evidence contradicts its conclusions. If 233 samples of steel it selected out of 236 had not been exposed to temperatures above 500 degree F, which is the temperature of an ordinary office fire, then they did not burn hot enough--much less long enough!--to cause the steel to weaken, much less melt.
How much nonsense are we going to hear from these charlatans, who are not even reading the arguments I have presented? I have offered point after point and resource after resource, where you can examine the evidence for yourselves. I suggest going through
"Why doubt 9/11?"
http://twilightpines.com//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17&Itemid=46
and then viewing either of my presentations, where you can see the evidence and evaluate it for yourselves. No steel-structured high-rise even collapsed from fire before 9/11 and none has collapsed after. And if our research is well-founded, that did not happen on 9/11, either. You are being sold an enormous bill of goods that has been repeatedly refuted by objective and scientific research, as, indeed, you can tell from what has transpired on this thread already.
Jim Fetzer confirmed to me by e-mail that he is the poster above. Even I didn't think he had gone that far off the deep end as he displays in his comments.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEarlier, Fetzer wrote:
"Unless these posters are cognitively impaired, they have to know that I believe what I am saying. The fact that I have made these points many times is further evidence of my sincerity."
If that is so then you have only gone further down the road of conspiracist thinking of which Michael Shermer wrote above. Fortunately, the real world doesn't operate on your "beliefs" but on objective reality.
The 9/11 Denial Movement never made it off square one. Nine years later, it "believes" it is growing despite the evidence exactly to the contrary. It has accomplished nothing because it has nothing and never did.
Ultimately, one can only fill sorry for you for turning your back on reason, Jim. You only make a fool of yourself for all to see.
"The list of passengers that I have in hand does not include the names of any of the alleged hijackers or even any Arabic names."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJim, this is because the CNN list you have in your possession is a VICTIM's list. I've already pointed this out to you and frankly don't believe you are this incompetent of a researcher. http://web.archive.org/web/20080516104740/http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims/AA11.victims.html
If you can't read the highlighted tab on that webpage, it clearly says victims. I invite anyone else to check this out for themselves as it is very telling about the quality of the truth movement's scholarship.
"I observed that the names of the "terrorists" had been added at the top and the bottom the list. How obvious can you get?"
Since your initial claim about the manifests holds no water, you now make the claim that the manifests have been altered. Images of the manifest can be seen here. http://911myths.com/html/official_manifest_images.html
One may observe that the manifests list its passengers in alphabetical order. This explains the "anomaly" Jim has pointed out as evidence of a conspiracy.
"He is an apologist for the government on 9/11, pure and simple."(referring to Mark Roberts)
That is just an ad hominem attack. Why not attack his arguments. I love how you just sit there typing away about how none of the debunkers are willing to talk about the evidence, when I send you links to websites where they do exactly that.
You then dismiss them out of hand as rubbish without any further argumentation. That would be like me saying "All of Jim Fetzer's arguments are rubbish, end of story." I can refute each one of your arguments just like I've already done with the passenger manifest claim. Many people have done this and its been online for years now. I have to ask myself why don't you respond to any of the criticisms of your "theories"? Your talking points haven't changed over the years despite being shown wrong by the very evidence you claim proves you right.
I'm not here to have a full blown debate with you in the comments section of a website. If you'd like to continue you this discussion, you can email me. (riptowtan@gmail.com)As for anyone reading this, I invite them to check out the following websites for an understanding of how the truth movement's claim stand up to careful scrutiny.
911myths.com
http://sites.google.com/site/wtc7lies/home
http://sites.google.com/site/wtc7lies/Mackey_drg_nist_review_2_1.pdf
(Nasa scientist Ryan Mackey's critique of Griffin's work)
conspiracyscience.com
A passenger list is a list of all the passengers. They do not discriminate between the rich and the poor, the tall and the short, the victims and the terrorists -- and if, indeed, there were any, how could the airlines possibly know? This is more pap from disinfo specialists.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNotice they are not dealing with any of the evidence. Not one of my 10 points is discussed nor the links I have offered that demonstrate that these buildings did not collapse! Once again, they show that they are playing you, our readers, for saps. Go here to see even Lee Hamilton thinks they were "set up to fail": http://www.patriotsquestion911.com/#Hamilton
Part 1:
Lee Hamilton, Vice Chairman, 9/11 Commission / Former
17-term Congressman from Indiana. Former Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Currently President and Director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and serves as a member of the President's Homeland Security Advisory Council.
Stonewalled by the CIA by Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton New York Times article 1/2/08:
"More than five years ago, Congress and President Bush created the 9/11 commission. The goal was to provide the American people with the fullest possible account of the "facts and circumstances relating to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001" and to offer recommendations to prevent future attacks. Soon after its creation, the president's chief of staff directed all executive branch agencies to cooperate with the commission.
The commission's mandate was sweeping and it explicitly included the intelligence agencies. But the recent revelations that the C.I.A. destroyed videotaped interrogations of Qaeda operatives leads us to conclude that the agency failed to respond to our lawful requests for information about the 9/11 plot. Those who knew about those videotapes -- and did not tell us about them -- obstructed our investigation.
There could have been absolutely no doubt in the mind of anyone at the C.I.A. -- or the White House -- of the commission's interest in any and all information related to Qaeda detainees involved in the 9/11 plot. Yet no one in the administration ever told the commission of the existence of videotapes of detainee interrogations. ...
Go here to see even Lee Hamilton thinks they were "set up to fail": http://www.patriotsquestion911.com/#Hamilton (continued)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPart 2:
As a legal matter, it is not up to us to examine the C.I.A.'s failure to disclose the existence of these tapes. That is for others. What we do know is that government officials decided not to inform a lawfully constituted body, created by Congress and the president, to investigate one the greatest tragedies to confront this country. We call that obstruction." http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02
International Herald Tribune article 12/8/07: "The Central Intelligence Agency faced the threat of obstruction-of-justice investigations on Friday from both the Justice Department and congressional committees over the destruction of videotapes of interrogations of Qaeda operatives. ...
Meanwhile, the former chairmen of the Sept. 11 commission, who said the CIA assured them repeatedly during their inquiry that no original material existed from its interrogations of Qaeda figures, said they were furious to learn about the tapes.
The CIA indicated that the Sept. 11 commission never specifically asked for any tape recordings of prisoner interrogations.
But in separate interviews on Friday, the co-chairmen, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, said they had made clear in hours of negotiations and discussions with the CIA, as well as in written requests, that they wanted all material connected to the interrogations of Qaeda
operatives in the agency's custody in order to get a complete understanding of the events leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks for their 2004 report.
Go here to see even Lee Hamilton thinks they were "set up to fail": http://www.patriotsquestion911.com/#Hamilton (continued)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPart 3:
The commission ended up getting summaries of interrogation reports and was able to forward questions of its own for CIA officers to ask the prisoners.
"The CIA certainly knew of our interest in getting all the information we could on the detainees, and they never indicated to us there were any videotapes," Hamilton said. "Did they obstruct our inquiry? The answer is clearly yes. Whether that amounts to a crime, others will have to judge."
Kean said, "I'm upset that they didn't tell us the truth."
CBC video interview transcript regarding Without Precedent a book about the 9/11 Commission authored by Chairman Thomas Kean and Vice-Chairman Lee Hamilton 8/21/06:
Lee Hamilton: I don't believe for a minute that we got everything right. We wrote a first draft of history. ... People will be investigating 9/11 for the next hundred years in this country, and they're going to find out some things that we missed here.
Evan Solomon: The first chapter of the book is 'the Commission was set up to fail.' ... Why do you think you were set up to fail?
Hamilton: Well, for a number of reasons: ... we got started late; we had a very short time frame - indeed, we had to get it extended; we did not have enough money - 3 million dollars to conduct an extensive investigation. We needed more, we got more, but it took us a while to get it. ...
We had a lot of people strongly opposed to what we did. We had a lot of trouble getting access to documents and to people. ... So there were all kinds of reasons we thought we were set up to fail. ...
Go here to see even Lee Hamilton thinks they were "set up to fail": http://www.patriotsquestion911.com/#Hamilton (continued)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPart 4:
Solomon: I guess the question is, you know, if forty odd million dollars were spent investigating President Bill Clinton?s sexual infidelities, why did the American people and the world have to wait 441 days for a commission [to begin its work] that was originally budgeted for 3 million dollars and given barely a year [to complete the investigation]?
Hamilton: I think basically it's because they were afraid we were going to hang somebody, that we would point the finger, right in the middle of a presidential campaign - 'Mr. Bush, this was your fault' ..." http://www.cbc.ca/sunday/911hamilton.html
Editor's note: Ultimately, the budget for the 9/11 Commission was increased to $12 million and they were given 18 months to complete the investigation and issue their report. In comparison, $20 million was spent on the independent Columbia Accident Investigation Board's investigation of the 2003 Columbia space shuttle disaster, in which 7 astronauts were killed. This amount does not include an estimated $300 million spent on debris recovery of the space shuttle, nor tens of millions spent by NASA in support of the investigation. http://www.ksc.nasa.gov
Bio: http://www.9-11commission.gov
As I have already observed, I debated Mark Roberts on "Hardfire" where anyone can track it down and decide for themselves whether he or I prevailed. Here are some of the additional key points we have discovered that refute the official account of 9/11. And there are many more.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this#11. Indeed, the towers are exploding from the top, not collapsing to the ground, where their floors do not move, a phenomenon Wood has likened to two gigantic trees turning to sawdust from the top down, which, like the pulverization of the buildings, the government’s account cannot possibly explain. There were no pancakes.
#12. WTC-7 came down in a classic controlled demolition at 5:20 PM after Larry Silverstein suggested the best thing to do might be to “pull it,” displaying all the characteristics of classic controlled demolitions: a complete, abrupt and total collapse into its own footprint, where the floors are all falling at the same time, yielding a stack of pancakes about 5 floors high.
#13. Had the Twin Towers collapsed like WTC-7, there would have been two stacks of "pancakes" equal to about 12% the height of the buildings or around 15 floors high. But they were actually reduced to below ground level. Since there were no "pancakes", there cannot have been any "pancake collapse" of either building, where the buildings were destoryed by different modes of demolition.
#14. The hit point at the Pentagon was too small to accommodate a 100-ton airliner with a 125-foot wingspan and a tail that stands 44-feet above the ground; the debris was wrong for a Boeing 757: no wings, no fuselage, no seats, no bodies, no luggage, no tail! Not even the engines were recovered, which means that the official account is not true.
#15. The Pentagon’s own videotapes do not show a Boeing 757 hitting the building, as even Bill O’Reilly admitted when one was shown on “The O’Reilly Factor”; at 155 feet, the plane was more than twice as long as the 77-foot Pentagon is high and should have been present and easily visible; it was not, which means that the video evidence also contradicts the official account.
You are still skirting the issue, Fetzer. You keep peddling the lie that the towers collapsed in 10 seconds.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Naudet video clearly shows it took 13+ seconds.
The seismo readings clearly show it took 13+ seconds.
Still photos taken of the collapse clearly show it too 13+ seconds.
And yet you are still peddling the lie that it took 10 seconds. The only thing you have is a casual comment from the 9/11 commission, when it was NIST, not the 9/11 commission, that investigated the collapse.
Fetzer, you are a pathological liar.
For more on the Pengaton, which is extremely revealing, please visit my study, "What Didn't Happen at the Pentagon?", which you can find here: http://jamesfetzer.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-didnt-happen-at-pentagon.html Notice, in particular, that special effects were being used to intimidate the members of Congress, including billowing black smoke that was coming from a series of enormous dumpsters in front of the building.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this#16. The aerodynamics of flight would have made the official trajectory—flying at high speed barely above ground level—physically impossible, because a Boeing 757 flying over 500 mph could not have come closer than about 60 feet of the ground, which means that the official account is not even aerodynamically possible.
#17. Data from a flight recorder provided to Pilots for 9/11 Truth by the National Transportation Safety Board corresponds to a plane with a different approach and altitude, which would have precluded its hitting lampposts or even the building itself, which means that, if this data corresponds to a Boeing 757, it would have flown over the Pentagon rather than hit it.
#18. If Flight 93 crashed into an abandoned mine shaft, as the government maintains, then they should have brought out the heavy equipment and the bright lights and dug and dug, 24/7, in the hope that, by some miracle, someone might possibly have survived. But nothing like that was done. Even the singed trees and shrubs were trimmed, apparently to make it impossible to subject them to chemical analysis.
#19. There is more, especially about the alleged hijackers, including that they were not competent to fly these planes and their names are not on any original, authenticated passenger manifest. Several have turned up alive and well and living in the Middle East. The government has not even produced their tickets as evidence that they were even aboard the aircraft they are alleged to have hijacked.
#20. President Bush recently acknowledged that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. The Senate Intelligence Committee has reported that Saddam was not in cahoots with Al Qaeda. And the FBI has acknowledged that it has “no hard evidence” to tie Osama to 9/11. If Saddam did not do it and Osama did not do it, then who is responsible for the death of 3,000 citizens that day?
"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this#19. There is more, especially about the alleged hijackers, including that they were not competent to fly these planes and their names are not on any original, authenticated passenger manifest"
You are a lying sonofabitch. Their names were on the manifests.
When the statement of THE 9/11 COMMISSION, which I have quoted, specifies the time down to one hundredth of a second, how can that possibly be "a casual comment"? I have seen some smoke being blown -- like that coming from the enormous dumpsters in front of the Pentagon -- but this palpable nonsense is setting a new low for deceit and deception.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBesides, even if the towers had come down in 13 seconds, as this guy suggests, that can't save the day. Even with an instantaneous start-stop for each floor as it impacted with the floors below, it would have required about a second per floor, actually, around 97 seconds, for such an event to have taken place. I explain this in the two presentations I have linked, which shows that these guys are not paying any attention to the scientific arguments that refute the official account.
We have discovered that explosions in the subbasements of both of the Twin Towers prior to any aircraft hitting the buildings drained their sprinkler systems. The fires burned neither hot enough nor long enough to cause the steel to weaken, much less melt. Below the 80th floor of the South Tower and the 94th of the North, they were stone-cold steel. There was no reason for them to collapse or to turn into very fine dust. None.
We believe that it is the highest form of respect to those who died on 9/11 and their survivors to establish how and why they died, which our own government manifestly has not done. With the American media under the thumb of the intelligence agencies, we can no longer count on the press to perform its investigative function. But we can do our best to expose falsehoods and reveal truths about 9/11.
When the statement of THE 9/11 COMMISSION, which I have quoted, specifies the time down to one hundredth of a second, how can that possibly be "a casual comment"?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this---
Simple, you stupid, lying sonofabitch: their bailiwick was the aactions of the 9/11 attackers and our government's failure to prevent it. The investigation of the collapse was the NIST's job, not, the 9/11 commission's.
Again:
The Naudet video clearly shows 13+.
The seismographs show 13+.
Still photos of the collapse clearly show 13+.
And yet you peddle this lie.
You are a pathological liar, Feetzer.
"Besides, even if the towers had come down in 13 seconds, as this guy suggests, that can't save the day. Even with an instantaneous start-stop for each floor as it impacted with the floors below, it would have required about a second per floor, actually, around 97 seconds, for such an event to have taken place."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat utter, utter bullshit. THere is no need for "instantaneous start stop" for each floor, any more than a martial artist's hand has to "start stop" at each block of wood when he punches through a block.
For conclusive proof that these debukers don't know what they are talking about, here are two studies that are of major importance, namely:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisElias Davidsson, "No evidence that Muslims hijacked planes on 9/11",
http://newcrisispapers.com/noevidence.pdf
and
David Ray Griffin, "Phone Calls from the 9/11 Airliners [were faked]",
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16924
Indeed, as I also explain in my presentations -- which these guys desperately hope you will not watch -- Col. George Nelson, USAF (ret.), and expert on air crash investigations, has observed that, of the millions of uniquely identifiable parts from these crash sites, the government has yet to produce even one!
And I have in hand FAA Registration records that show the planes corresponding to Flights 11 and 77 were not deregistered until 14 January 2001 and those corresponding to Flights 93 and 175 not until 28 September 2005.
And I have no doubt that the passenger manifests I am reading now have been taken down from the internet precisely because they do not show any Arabic names, much less those of any alleged hijackers. We have good reasons to believe that the 9/11 attacks were an elaborate hoax.
We can all see how far downhill Fetzer has gone. Remember, he can do nothing more but insult readers' intelligence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou still skirt the point, Fetzer: for 9 years you have been peddling the lie that the towers collapsed in 10 seconds when it is clear and proven that they took over 13 seconds to collapse.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou still claim the names were not on the manifests when the names clearly were on them.
You are a pathological liar, Fetzer.
Come on, Fetzer: why do you still peddle the 10 seconds lie?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI published studies about the time of fall under various conditions in THE 9/11 CONSPIRACY (2007). So we have more proof here that these nasty guys -- notice how intemperate they become when I refute their baseless allegations! -- have not been paying attention to even the most basic scientific evidence about this case.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUsing Galileo's law of free fall, which is d = 1/2 Gt2 (distance fallen d is equal to one-half the product of the gravitational constant times the time of fall squared), for a bowling ball to have fallen from the top of one of the towers to the ground would take 9.22 seconds in a vacuum, that is, with not even air to resist the fall.
But if we assume that the contact between floors poses even minimal resistance, then the benefit of time squared is lost and the times have to be calculated on a floor-by-floor basis, which leads to the result that it would have taken 96.7 seconds. So these guys are displaying that they do not even understand high-school-level physics.
If you go to my Buenos Aires Powerpoint, "Was 9/11 an 'inside job'?", http://twilightpines.com/JF-BuenosAires/Buenos-Aires.html then you can find my discussion of these points (with graphs) at slides 34 and 35. Along the way, you will be able to determine for yourself the extent to which they are concealing, distorting, or simply fabricating evidence about the events of 9/11.
"A passenger list is a list of all the passengers. They do not discriminate between the rich and the poor, the tall and the short, the victims and the terrorists -- and if, indeed, there were any, how could the airlines possibly know? This is more pap from disinfo specialists."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVictims can be seen as clear as day highlighted at the top of that page Jim. And you blithely ignore the Boston Globe article which has the manifests (terrorists included). I don't have to respond to all of your arguments here. I'm familiar with the tactics your trying to use here. You keep listing erroneous claims, quotes deliberately taken out of context and exercise in anomaly hunting. I only have to show that one of your arguments is demonstrably false. To the intelligent readers out there who have been following this, I invite them to think about the following. If Jim is unable to grasp that the CNN article he refers to as evidence is a VICTIM's list, what else is he unable to grasp. Every other claim he has made follows the same logical mistakes and faulty research skills as the passenger manifest claim. The fact that he peddles these fantasies on obscure message boards and comments sections says a lot about the "evidence" the truth movement has uncovered. That or they are unaware of the hundreds of peer reviewed engineering journals out there.
"#19. There is more, especially about the alleged hijackers, including that they were not competent to fly these planes and their names are not on any original, authenticated passenger manifest. Several have turned up alive and well and living in the Middle East. The government has not even produced their tickets as evidence that they were even aboard the aircraft they are alleged to have hijacked."
Everything here is complete bs. You can find out about the ticket purchases and the manifests below. The hijackers did not turn up alive as Fetzer maintains. If this were true why hasn't Jim interviewed them? Think about how absurd the claim is. The government is planning to stage the conspiracy of the century and they choose to incriminate people who are still alive and well living in other countries.
http://conspiracyscience.com/blog/wiki-911-hijackers-still-alive/
http://911myths.com/html/still_alive.html
If this were the case why hasn't Jim interviewed any of them??
http://www.911myths.com/images/5/51/Team7_Box17_FBI302sOfInterest_Flight93.pdf
"But if we assume that the contact between floors poses even minimal resistance, then the benefit of time squared is lost and the times have to be calculated on a floor-by-floor basis, which leads to the result that it would have taken 96.7 seconds. So these guys are displaying that they do not even understand high-school-level physics."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo sir you are displaying that you don't understand high school level physics. Once the collapse initiated the floors below failed one by one in quick succession because each floor by themselves is not designed to hold the weight of a falling 30 story mass. When things fall, their force amplifies (gravity). What you have is 30 floors vs. 1 floor, then right after 31 floors vs. 2 etc. And with all of that weight dropping, the force increases by about 30 times. We also have plenty of examples of crushdown collapses. Just google verinage demolitions. I guess Jim would argue that the laws of physics have been violated in these instances.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwFHEoiUZ7o&feature=player_embedded#!
"I published studies about the time of fall under various conditions in THE 9/11 CONSPIRACY (2007). "
Oh how impressive. You publish studies about the collapse time in your own book! I suggest you talk to more physicists. There have been dozens of scientific studies published in peer reviewed journals on the collapse of the towers. Why doesn't one of your engineers publish their findings in an engineering journal? (I can only wonder why...)
On the physics of the collapse:
http://www.nmsr.org/nmsr911b.htm
Read the articles by Elias Davidsson and by David Ray Griffin and decide which of us is prevaricating and which of us is not. The very idea that American Airlines or United Airlines would be in the position to make a determination about who were "victims" and who were "terrorists" is at least faintly absurd. They were all (allegedly) passengers on the planes and therefore their names should have appeared on the manifests. But they don't. All of the deceased were "victims". He is blowing smoke. Notice, by the way, that Dave Sorenson is tacitly granting my point, namely: that no name of any (alleged) terrorist appears on any of the passenger manifests, which contradicts what other of these debunks has said. So they are not even consistent among themselves. The government is going to great lengths to keep the American people from learning the truth about 9/11--and they are aiding and abetting.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are still dodging the issue, Jim. You have been peddling the 10 seconds lie for 9 years now. When you know full well that the towers collapsed in 13+ seconds, as shown by the video, by the seismo, and by the pictures.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen will you stop peddling the 10 seconds lie, Jim>?
We remember when Jim Fetzer was kicked out of the 9/11 "Truth" Movement:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Jim Fatzer: loon extraordinaire"
http://911blogger.com/node/8114#comment-136747
Once again demonstrating that he has no idea what he is talking about, Dave Sorenson supposes that I am citing my own work when I am citing expert studies in a book that I edited! Ten experts contributed to THE 9/1! CONSPIRACY. This is a nice illustration from a man who has no idea about physics, engineering, or aerodynamics. The fires burned neither long enough nor hot enough to cause the steel to weaken, much less melt. When steel weakens or melts, it flows rather like ice cream melting. But there was no reason for the steel to even weaken here, since the fires were only burning at the temperature of ordinary office fires at 500 degrees F, as NIST found from its own study of 236 samples of steel. (It appears that this guy has not even been reading my posts in his zeal to convince readers of his phony account of the events of 9/11.) If the steel had weakened or melted, then, since the fires were asymmetrical distributed, it would have undergone a gradual sagging and tilting over time, not the total, abrupt and complete demolition sequence we observe. Indeed, NIST has never been able to establish even a point of initiation for them to have "collapsed", much less an account of the behavior of the towers once that point had been reached. This guy seems to think that, if a few floors were to fall, the whole structure would collapse. But think about it. Every floor was designed to carry every floor above it -- and, according to John Skilling, a chief engineer on the project, it was built with a safety factor of 20, which means that each floor could carry a mass equal to 20 times its expected live load (where live load = dead load of unoccupied space plus the furniture, computers, and personnel expected to occupy them). Plus the longer the fires burned, the more mass was converted into energy and was therefore unavailable to exertany downward force. His theory, like the NITS theory, is a farce designed to take in a gullible public. I would like to believe readers of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN are more intelligent and scientifically literate than the average American and therefore can see through the rubbish this man and his buddies on this thread are pushing. It is, in my view, rather embarrassing that he thinks he can con anyone here into taking him seriously. But this is the level of discourse that occurs when the government is pushing big lies that violate laws of physics and of engineering. As I have often observed, the "official account" of 9/11 is just fine as long as you are willing to believe impossible things.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The very idea that American Airlines or United Airlines would be in the position to make a determination about who were "victims" and who were "terrorists" is at least faintly absurd. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo are you claiming that when the article was published no one had any clues to who hijacked those planes? It was CNN that was in the position to determine who the victims and terrorists were, not the airlines.
"Notice, by the way, that Dave Sorenson is tacitly granting my point, namely: that no name of any (alleged) terrorist appears on any of the passenger manifests, which contradicts what other of these debunks has said."
Lol. Jim how on earth do you think I am granting your point? The names are all on the manifests as I have provided links to them for anyone else to see. The "manifests" you keep talking about are simply not manifests!!! They are a victim's list that CNN put up. Keep ignoring the boston globe article, your putting on a show for us.
"Read the articles by Elias Davidsson and by David Ray Griffin and decide which of us is prevaricating and which of us is not. "
This is exactly the point I'm trying to make. Griffin was the one who initially used the "victim's list" as a source for the passenger manifest. You continue to use it as as source as does he. This to any thinking person is a clear sign of pathological lying or incompetence to the highest degree.
"The government is going to great lengths to keep the American people from learning the truth about 9/11--and they are aiding and abetting."
Yeah keep telling yourself that. That's the best way to insulate your beliefs.
"The fires burned neither long enough nor hot enough to cause the steel to weaken, much less melt"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo let's think about this logically.
-The forensic examiners failed to obtain samples of steel that had temperatures greater thatn 500 degrees. (Not true but i'll grant it anyways). (And NASA thermal images show the fires were much hotter)
-Therefore explosives/thermite or beam weapons had to have been used. Which I remind you would have been much higher temperatures than 500 degrees. Jim is substituting the lack of evidence for evidence of his version. In no way do I see this following. None of the forensic examiners noticed any of the obvious effects of thermite or explosives on any of the columns. This is what Jim doesn't want you to know.
You can see the perimeter columns bowing into the building. In fact if you watch the building as it collapses, you can see where exactly the beams fail. And by sheer coincidence it collapsed right where the planes hit. Jim fails to address the verinage demolitions for obvious reasons. His long rant on why the fires couldn't have weakened the steel is so factually off base it would take me an entire article to point out all of the errors. I recommend Ryan Mackey's white paper which debunks everything David Ray Griffin has to say about the collapse. By the way, Fetzer is using a theologian as an authority on science.
I invite Jim and anyone else interested to watch and respond to this short video.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.youtube.com/user/RKOwens4#p/u/30/bMZ-nkYr46w
The CIA must have had people up all night trying to figure out how to neutralize the CNN manifests that were published almost immediately. They certainly had no label "Victims". Nor would it have made any sense to have done that. All those aboard the planes had to have their names on the passenger manifests, regardless of whether we think they were good guys or bad. This is such incredible nonsense that I can hardly believe he is trying to peddle it. But that's what happens when you are attempting to defend BIG LIES.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRead what I have written in post 70 above about the inconsistency between the official account and the behavior we would have witnessed had it been true and what we did witness when the towers came down. It cannot possibly be the case that the fires caused the steel to weaken, much less melt. Those massive steel structures were an enormous heat sink drawing heat away from any specific location and distributing it through the building. Those modest fires would not have caused any damage to the steel. They could have burned forever and the steel would not have weakened.
Jesse Ventura has a gift for making complex points simple. As he has observed, his camping stove uses propane, which burns at a temperature higher than kerosene (where jet fuel is kerosene based). Yet it does not weaken or melt when he cooks with it on camping trips! And we haven't even gotten around to WTC-7 yet, where the BBC announced that it had collapsed some 27 minutes before it happened. And it wasn't hit by any airplane and had no jet-fuel based fires.
Just consider what he says about the collapse of the Twin Towers and what I have said about it. One of us is right and the other is wrong. You should be able to figure it out for yourselves. Go through my Powerpoint or my London presentation for an overview of all of the events of 9/11 and compare what I am explaining there with what he is telling you. Or, on this specific point, simply review the photographs that I have published in "New 9/11 Photos Released", http://jamesfetzer.blogspot.com/2010/02/new-911-photos-released.html
Sorenson's fantasy video is a nice example of disinformation being sold as truth. The towers were constructed with 47 massive core columns and 240 external support columns which were connected by steel trusses that were covered with 4-8" of concrete. The foam he describes has nothing to do with protecting the steel, which doesn't melt until you reach 2,800 degrees F. It helps to keep fires from spreading from one floor to another.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe buildings were designed to withstand even multiple impacts from the then-largest commercial carriers, which were Boeing 707s. They are comparable to the 767s that are alleged to have hit the buildings, where Frank DeMartini, who was the project manager, observed that, given the intricate lattice strucutre of the buildings, such impacts would cause only local damage and not threaten the integrity of the buildings.
I explain all that in the first ten slides of my Buenos Aires Powerpoint or the first ten minutes of my London presentation. But NIST's experiments with the truss sagging theory showed that they only sagged about 4.2" under the conditions that were present, so they fudged their figures by about ten times to make it closer to 42" (or perhaps even more, as this video implies). It isn't true, but let's suppose it happened this way.
What would have taken place? This theory characterizes their design like that of an old 33 rpm record player or perhaps an old 45 rpm. Remember how the records drop in order to be played? Well, suppose all of the dropped? What would be left? The player's spindles would be left. In the case of the Twin Towers, those 47 massive core columns would have remained standing. So we know this theory is false, because it didn't happen that way.
There are two short videos I mentioned along the way that are more honest and accurate in their discussions of what happened on 9/11. The first, "This is an Orange", is about the demolition of WTC-7, which was a classic case of controlled demolition from the bottom up. The other, "9/11: Towers of Dust", shows that the destruction of the Twin Towers occurred from the top down and was therefore not a classic controlled demolition, but was a demolition from the top down that was under control.
Jim is so silly he wants us to believe WTC 1 and 2 didn't survive the impacts of the jets.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnyone have any photos or videos of the towers collapsing immediately after the impacts?
Jim really needs help.
You still won't answer teh question: you know full well the collapses took 13+ seconds. Why do you continue to claim they they took 10 seconds?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey did not collapse. If you don't understand that, you have no business posting on this thread or anywhere else about 9/11. I have quote the claim found in THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT that the South Tower collapsed in ten seconds. There were no "if, ands, or buts" about it. If you reject that, then you are rejecting the official government account. And do I have to explain that 13 seconds doesn't cut it no matter how hard you try to support that claim? The fires burned neither long enough or hot enough to cause the steel to weaken, much less melt. That is an obvious conclusion when you consider that, even according to NIST, 233 samples of the steel it had selected had not been heated above 500 degrees F and the other three not above 1200 degrees F. Since steel melts at 2800 degrees F and Underwriters Laboratory had certified the steel used in the buildings to 2000 degrees F for three or four hours without any adverse effects, it would not matter if the fires had burned that hot, since they only lasted in the South Tower for about an hour and in the North for about an hour-and-a-half. So you are out of luck either way. I cannot have happened as you suggest. Plus below the 80th floor of the South Tower and the 94th of the North, those buildings were stone cold steel. It would have been physically impossible for any collapse to have taken place under those conditions, especially since, as John Skilling observed, the building had a safety factor of 20, which means that each floor could carry 20 times its expected live load. Since you do not appear to be reading my posts or you would already know this, even if the steel had lost half its carrying capacity, it would still have had a safety factor of 10; and, since the buildings were stone cold steel below the 80th floor of the South Tower and the 94th of the North, none of that would have lost ANY of its carrying capacity. In case you don't know, by the way, in 1975, the North Tower experienced an intense fire on the 11th floor which burned at 2000 degrees F for three or four hours, yet it did not weaken or melt, which vindicated the UL certification. None of the steel had to be replaced. So there is no basis for your allegations about the trivial difference between 10 and 13 seconds. The only way the buildings could have been destroyed in 10 to 13 seconds would have been using some forms of energy beyond the fires and gravity. As Paul Craig Roberts has observed, on the official account, there is a massive energy deficit! Better luck next time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOnce again, you are dodging the question.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou know full well the buildings took 13+ seconds to come down.
And yet you peddle the lie that they took 10.
Why?
Why are you such a pathological liar, Fetzer?
Fetzer is clearly in need of help. He is completely irrational. I suggest ending this discussion now.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShermer is part of the echo chamber media and it's no surprise he's a regular in the pages of Scientific American because nearly all American physical science is at the government trough directly and indirectly, and echoes the government line too. A least most scientists do not have the hubris to strut around as independent of the establishment like Shermer does. Shermer is a coincidence theorist because he claims "stuff just happens." No it doesn't. Every effect has a cause, there is no exception to this rule. The big "stuff" that "just happens" includes Bay of Pigs, the Operation Northwoods fraud, the Gulf of Tonkin fraud, Watergate, Iran-Contra, the Kuwait incubator hoax, false allegations of yellow cake in Niger and WMD in Iraq, one rotten lie after another and one conspiracy after another. The kicker is that the official 9/11 conspiracy theory is completely indefensible. The advertised white paper promised by Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice never appeared because the government cannot provide authentic evidence for its conspiracy theory. For example, the FBI was forced to admit in June 6, 2006, that Osama bin Laden was not wanted for the crimes of 9/11 because it had "no hard evidence" for his involvement. Where are Shermer's facts? He will be sorely disappointed if he depends on the government to supply verifiable facts for its 9/11 fable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGood one, econrn! Where do things stand? I agree that temperatures greater than 500 degrees would have been involved if the buildings were destroyed by mechanisms involving massive energy, what ever they may have been. (I am not committed to the conclusion that thermite or directed energy have to have been involved, but some enormous source of energy was required.) Which suggests that these 236 samples cannot have been chosen randomly, or the Twin Towers would still be there. They aren't, so these samples can't be random.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe also know from temporal considerations that we cannot be dealing with any kind of collapse. From the 80th floor of the South Tower and the 94th of the North, they were stone cold steel. It would have taken around 1.0 sec per floor for a collapse, when it happened far more quickly. The truss theory is at least as bad, since the spindles would still have been standing, which they weren't. So we know it was not some kind of collapse.
The use of explosives/thermite/directed energy or some alternative could have blown the floors apart, turning most of them into very fine dust, at a rate closer to 0.1 sec per floor. Parts would have been blown outward or even -- in some cases -- upward, where the fall of those pieces in air could have taken place in no more than 10 to 13 seconds. But most of the mass would have been suspended in air in the form of very find dust.
The conversion of most of those massive, 500,000-ton buildings into very fine dust was indispensable, since otherwise the bathtub would have been shattered and the Hudson River would have flooded beneath lower Manhattan, including the subway and PATH train tunnels. Which means that some unfamiliar mechanism for demolition has to have been involved. The bathtub had to be preserved.
So the sample was probably selected from the upper-most floors, whose remnants would have been most likely to have survived intact when most of the buildings were converted into very fine dust. So what remains to be determined is the precise mechanism(s) that were used to bring about the demolition at a rate fast enough to turn them primarily into very fine dust, while remnants fell to the ground in 10 to 13 seconds.
Nothing works on behalf of the government's 9/11 theory. In "four standard fire resistance tests that were conducted under a range of insulation and test conditions, NIST found...in all cases, the floors continued to support the full design load without collapse for over 2 hours" (p. 43 of 298), so whether or not insulation was present, there is no scientific case for WTC tower collapse from structural impact and fires. Lawyers would call this "an admission against interest." To make it plain, what we were told is a complete lie. Further, extensive fires in the north tower in February 1975 had already demonstrated "proof of concept" that the towers, like all steel framed skyscrapers, were extremely resistant to fires. No other skyscrapers, of course, have ever "gone away" due to fires despite some extremely hot and extensive fires for as long as 24 hours.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have read the responses to Jim Fetzer on here and it is quite astonishing the ad hominems being used. Fetzer had presented fact after fact and all the others do is say he is a liar. Refute his facts, not his person! You can reference Mark Roberts all you want but all he did was regurgitate the abysmal Popular Mechanics hit piece on 9/11. Watch the Fetzer debate where he goes 2 on 1 against Roberts and Ronald Wieck, watch the debate where he destroys a totally unprepared Michael Shermer. I'm sure Fetzer would be glad to host any of you here to debate him on his radio show, but it would help to reveal your name so he can ask you! I would suggest looking at Charles Boelwyn's work on 911scholars.ning.com and trying to explain what exactly he has wrong.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe purported flights of those aircrafts were aerodynamically impossible. Many qualified pilots have used a flight simulater in an effort to fly into those buildings at that speed and flight path, and most couldn't do it. How do these terrorists, supposedly just out of flight school, both hit their targets dead center, when pilots with dozens of years of experience could not? Please take a look at September Clues on youtube.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou can't deny that OUR OWN GOVERNMENT perpetrated these attacks. ]
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd here is Dick "Criminal" Cheney saying exactly WHY he wanted the attacks to go on
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-xPSxMA580
The truth is there!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sM7Q1WiepoQ&feature=related
Shermer has no facts. Did you listen to his debate against Fetzer? All he could say after Fetzer lists about a dozen refutations of the offical story is say that it is improbable that they government could keep it a secret (the same argument gatekeeper Chomsky uses). Go to youtube and search "Fetzer Chomsky" to see Dr Fetzer explain Chomsky's total failure to come to grips with the evidence in regards to JFK and 9/11 as well as a critique of his linguistic ideas which are hopelessly inadequate. Fetzer is 10 times more qualified to speak on JFK and 9/11 than is either Shermer or Chomsky.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisdingledogg has made some astute points. Mention of Chuck Boldwyn reminded me of one of his studies, which shows that the thickness of the core columns diminishes as we move to the upper floors. They are initially 5" thick, then 4" thick, then gradually -- in a staggered pattern -- reduce to 0.5" thick or so. Which leads me to ask, how could the thinner and less massive segments of the core columns possibly collapse on the thicker and more massive?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThink of a structure of bricks, where there are five on a side at the bottom, then four on up to, say, a half brick at the top? How could that half brick "collapse" onto a full brick or a full brick collapse onto two bricks and two onto three and so on? The truss theory may be the best the government can do, because there is simply no reason for the core columns to "collapse" at all! This whole idea of a "collapse" is a complete and total fairy tale. Even on the floor collapse theory, there is no reason for the spindles to "collapse".
Or to vary the illustration, consider a long steel rod that is tapered toward one end. It is thicker at the bottom and thinner at the top. Would anyone suppose that the upper portion of the rod, which is also thinner, could possibly "collapse" on its thicker and more massive parts? The very idea is simply absurd. Without some source of heat and energy, none of this makes any sense. And on the official account, there isn't any beyond the modest fires and gravitational attraction, which is not enough -- even remotely!
"I have read the responses to Jim Fetzer on here and it is quite astonishing the ad hominems being used. Fetzer had presented fact after fact and all the others do is say he is a liar. Refute his facts, not his person"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFetzer has presented lie after lie after lie. And continues to present these lies long after they have been refuted right in front of him, because he is a pathological liar./
Example:
Fetzer continues to claim the towers collapsed in 10 seconds. The Naudet video clearly shows it took 13+ seconds. The seismo readings clearly show it took 13+ seconds. Still photos clarly show it took longer than 10 seconds. And yet, Fetzer continues to peddle the 10 second lie.
Fetzer continues to claim the hijackers names were not on the manifest. That is, long after the manifests were published, with the names of the hijackers.
Fetzer is a pathological liar. This thread shows it.
Here is an interesting and rather obscure video about the destruction of the Twin Towers. Notice the firemen and other first responders reporting that the building was turned into dust. At about 11:00, moreover, you can see what appear to be the core columns still standing. Take a close look and decide if anything here that supports a collapse rather than the use of explosives to turn this 500,000-ton building into millions of cubic yards of very fine dust: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBeUmU7MUAk
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHe quoted that 10 seconds from the 9/11 Commission. If he is lying about the 10 seconds, so are they. And he said, if you read his response, 13 seconds doesn't at all destroy his case.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://conspiraciesrnotus.blogspot.com/2010/12/nist-tested-bomb-demolition-hypotheses.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisQuote: "...the conspiracy involves large numbers of people who would all need to keep silent about their secrets."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI single this quote from Lerner out because those who have closed their minds to the possibility of conspiracy often say it. The implication is that large numbers of people cannot and do not keep secrets.
Who says that every conspiracy theory is a secret? Those of us who have studied the issue of the JFK assassination, for example, know through the facts that Oswald did not shoot the president and by that reason alone there was a conspiracy that is not a secret.
Who says that large numbers of people can't keep secret about something they know, such as who actually fired the shots? If the consequence of revealing this type of secret were death or leaving a group from whose company they have benefited, those in the know have no reason to reveal.
Who says the public will believe even one who confesses to a heinous crime? James Files has confessed to shooting JFK but not everyone who believes in conspiracy theories believes him.
Spare me the talk about how no one keeps secrets. No one who doesn't want to believe them will care about them, anyway.
Dean Hartwell
Manchurian wrote:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The implication is that large numbers of people cannot and do not keep secrets."
Any rational person knowing 9/11 conspiracy theories knows that not one of the so-called "theories" could have succeeded WITHOUT there being large number of people involved and/or keeping quiet before, during, or after the attacks.
This is precisely why not ONE 9/11 "Truther", including Fetzer, has been able to offer up a successful 9/11 conspiracy theory, much less demonstrate an "inside job" in the over nine years you poor kids have desperately tried to do so.
Fetzer knows there are gullible people like you 9/11 Deniers who won't actually think rationally for themselves. So Does David Gray Griffin who continues to blinker you with ten separate books on 9/11.
The proof is in the pudding, Manchurian. IF 9/11 were an actual conspiracy by the US Government, you WON'T be able to show us how the events, as they transpired, were reported, and were investigated, could have happened without hundreds, if not thousands - including many hundreds of non-participants and eyewitnesses - knowing something was amiss.
You'll notice how Fetzer scrupulously evades this point. He knows WHY any 9/11 conspiracy "inside job" cannot work and WHY bin Laden's could.
You all who still believe Fetzer's nonsense never considered the nature of snake oil salesmen and why Fetzer can so easily take advantage of you.
bjebje:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI asserted that people can and do keep secrets.
I asserted that what some say is a secret others do not.
I asserted that those who reveal secrets are not necessarily believed.
Why don't you address these points?
There is something surreal about a thread where one side provides virtually all of the arguments based upon logic and evidence and the other piles "ad hominems" one upon another. It almost makes you think they just don't have an answer for the points that have been made. The 9/11 op was a "false flag" event staged to instill fear into the American people to make us more amenable to launching wars in violation of international law, the UN Charter, and even the US Constitution.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNoel Twyman, BLOODY TREASON (1967), published the names of eight (8) prominent individuals who talked about JFK's assassination either before or after the event, including several mafia bosses and others associated with the CIA. Even LBJ told his mistress, Madeleine Duncan Brown, that the CIA and the oil boys had decided that Jack had to be taken out (during their rendezvous at the Driskill Hotel in Austin on New Year's Eve, six weeks after the event).
In the tradition of shills and charlatans, instead of dealikng with the evidence -- which they know is hopeless -- they invent phony arguments about how there had to have been vast numbers involved, who haven't talked. The proof is in the evidence, which I have already provided. But, as I explained to Ollie North on "Hannity & Colmes", http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08va1i6LYPc this was one of those covert, classified, and compartmentalized ops where only a few at the top actually knew the score.
So this is a nice example of the "straw man", by creating an exaggerated version of the argument you cannot defeat in the hope that gullible readers will be taken in. The rest of those involved thought they were participating in a training op or were otherwise simply fulfilling their professional obligations.
They had no idea that the real purpose was to promote a foreign policy that contradicted the moral values and principles for which this country has stood and benefit the endless greed of corporations like Halliburton, the drug trade run by the CIA and a pipeline across Northern Afghanistan, while constricting civil rights at home by the rapid passage of the PATRIOT ACT.
I note for the record that neither Manchurian nor Fetzer can address their failure to make any of their 9/11 conspiracy theories work.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust as the real world has known since 9/11.
Well, Manchurian, are you going to give us your 9/11 conspiracy theory? Or did your figure out that you know I am right?
Dear bjebje:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere is my theory on 9/11:
http://deanhartwell.weebly.com/deans-911-theory.html
One doesn't have to go beyond this (second paragraph) to see how several hundred people would know something was amiss and not constant what either the media or government was saying:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"I use Bureau of Transportation Statistics records, which indicate clearly that two of the flights associated with 9/11, United 175 and United 93, were scheduled to fly that day and that the other two flights, American 11 and American 77, were not scheduled."
Sorry, Manchurian, that comes under the "epic fail" fail category, as bad as Craig Ranke and his Citizens Investigation Team claiming a jet flew over and way from the Pentagon instead of hitting it.
Read "consistent" instead of "constant" in third line of my comment just above.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSecrecy is the norm in the military-industrial-intelligence-complex, for example, all swear oaths of secrecy to obtain their top secret security clearances. Ask Private Bradley Manning about this. Here’s how large, inside conspiracies work:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this• Conspiracies—partnerships in crime—are common: a corner drug deal is a conspiracy and one in four federal prosecutions include a conspiracy charge. Mark Lane of "Rush to Judgment" fame laughs that he's defended hundreds in federal court against conspiracy charges yet in the JFK case the federal government and its acolytes mock him as a "conspiracy kook".
• Hundreds not thousands probably were necessary to pull off the 9/11 psychological operation.
• Many conspirators would be ideologues committed to the idea that the 9/11 hoax would serve the interests of the nation. Worthy ends justify murderous means to this crowd. The human cost of 9/11 turned out to be less than a month’s highway fatality toll.
• Many participants are cunning sociopaths (amoral) with the mindset of stone cold killers. They wear a suit or military uniform but have no respect for the lives of the “little people.”
• Only the trustworthy are at the center of the hub-spoke-and-wheel compartmentalization necessary in a complex conspiracy.
• Most participants would not know in advance how “over-the-top” the twin tower demolitions were going to be. Some jobs can be contracted out to ruthless foreigners. Once done, it’s too late to get out.
• Any participant would hesitate to squeal after because disbelief, disgrace and grief would follow, at a minimum. The major media, shills for 9/11 from the start, would discredit squealers, as necessary.
• Risk-taking behavior is always greater in groups than for lone individuals (psychology 101).
• Conspirators face no threat of arrest, prosecution and punishment by the government’s justice system, a proven fact since government and media obstructed and trashed New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison’s JFK investigation and prosecution.
• Stonewalling plus blatant and repeated resistance against truthful investigations, aided by obstruction of justice and abetted by media silencio, prove there is a lot to hide.
For more http://nomoregames.net/index.php?page=911&subpage1=closed_minds_on_911
econrm,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou forget the hundreds of people that would have had nothing to do with the "conspiracy" that would know something was amiss.
Read more carefully what I wrote.
There are untold millions that "know something was amiss," like you and I.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot in the way you believe, econrn.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe fact remains is that no 9/11 conspiracy theory has ever survived the most rudimentary examination to this date. Every one of them has failed the test. It is the Achilles heel of the 9/11 Denial Movement and precisely why Fetzer continues to evade the matter.
You can't do any better, either, we see.
And I note that
It's not about "9/11 conspiracy theory," it's about the impossibilities of the government's conspiracy theory. Known facts refute the government fable at every turn. There is no credible evidence, for example, for 9/11 hijackers: no Arab names on any of the changing (non-authenticated) passenger manifests, no American Airlines flights 11 and 77 in the BTS data base for that day (officially these flights did not exist), no witnesses to any of the flight boardings divulged by the airlines despite repeated requests, no airport security personnel ever testified to actually seeing any of the alleged hijackers, we have no surveillance videos of any of the boardings with time, date and location stamps, no boarding passes released, no positive proof of hijackers bodily remains, no documented chain of custody, corporate media contact with 10 of the alleged hijackers after 9/11, the four cleanest crash sites in aviation history, not a single aircraft part identified by its unique part number, no crash investigations released by FBI or NTSB, etc., etc. Btw, no Boeing 757 or 767 had ever been hijacked in domestic service since their introduction into commercial service in 1983. The only known hijacking of these aircraft prior to the alleged events of 9/11 was the Ethiopian 767 crash off Comoros in 1996. Then suddenly four in one day? How? How could hijackers take over the cockpit? For example, no pilot would ever give up his seat according to pilot John Lear. They would resist by every means possible. It would be impossible to knife both to death in such tight quarters, remove both bodies, and fly the plane to their targets with blood all over the instruments and controls, while being the technical morons these guys were. Further, aluminum planes cannot fly through steel, concrete buildings without shattering all over hell. Where are the 40' tall tail sections?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTotally, absolutely ridiculous. The perps must be into "degree of difficulty" to show how stupid and gullible the American people are.
econrn,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLike every denialist in history, you choose to repeat a plethora of things that were debunked YEARS ago or shown to be false and completely irrelevant. Why do you, like Fetzer, insist of repeating KNOWN nonsense?
In fact, examining every one of your debunked claims illustrates exactly WHY not one of your gullible conspiracy theory believers can make your silly 9/11 conspiracy theories work.
The proof is that you will NOT be able to construct how your conspiracy theory would work in reality without it involving many hundreds, if not thousands, of people, most of whom would be witnesses during the events, witnesses that the government could not know existed in what number, nor where, nor how much they would see or know. It is precisely why CIT could not make its claim work that a jet flew over and away from the Pentagon .
This very simple, logical fact, completely and utterly destroys every single 9/11 conspiracy theory ever offered up.
But the question here, econrn, is why you so easily fell for the nonsense you wrote above. You are just repeating nonsense you believe, told to you by other conspiracy theorists without examining the fact that you know nothing about what you are talking about and leave out all of the information which renders those conspiracies hopelessly unworkable.
In sum, you are illustrating Dr. Shermer's points, just as Fetzer has. The only question is why you are so gullible.
Give me the documents or sources that "a plethora of things that were debunked YEARS ago or shown to be false and completely irrelevant." Please, please cite one example, just one example to back up your expansive claim.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLOL! All you are doing is trying to shift the burden of proof, the classic denialist tactic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou must be a newbie at this, econrn. You forget NOBODY has to provide you anything, much less that which has been written about extensively for the last nine years. YOU are the one who needs to support your own claims.
None of us have any responsibility to do anything. The burden of proof is ENTIRELY on YOUR shoulders to demonstrate YOUR claims. You have to demonstrate YOUR conspiracy theory.
Why do you think your 9/11 Denial Movement has gotten nowhere in nine years? Why do you think I know it is impossible for you all to make ANY of your 9/11 conspiracy theories work?
Now, get busy, econrn. Show us how your 9/11 conspiracy theory could possibly work. Here's your opportunity; you'd be the first.
This guy is logically confused. The official account can be falsified by discovering one significant respect in which it has been refuted. I have given twenty (20) by number and at least a dozen more along the way.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is the government and its apologists who bear the burden of proving that its account of 9/11, which has been used to justify illegal and immoral wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is accurate and complete.
Articles I cited by Elias Davidsson and by David Ray Griffin have shown that the government has never been able to prove the alleged hijackers were aboard any of the planes and the alleged phone calls were faked.
Pilots for 9/11 Truth obtained flight data recorder for Flight 77 that is alleged to have hit the Pentagon. But they discovered it had a different trajectory, could not have hit any lampposts and flew over the building.
The Pentagon is a nice case to make the fraud and fakey involved here explicit. Take a look at "What Didn't Happen at the Pentagon", archived at http://jamesfetzer.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-didnt-happen-at-pentagon.html
Let's go through the evidence I present, which contradicts the official account, and you can explain what you think I have wrong. This ought to provide an appropriate test of your intelligence and integrity.
This guy is a parody of the empty controversialist. He cites no facts and is proud of it. Just believe the media and government like I do, that's all he's got, despite the proven frauds perpetrated by these institutions in cases like the Gulf of Tonkin, Operation Northwoods (documented plan rejected though), Watergate, Iran-Contra, Kuwaiti incubator babies, and on and on. If George Washington "cannot tell a lie," that apparently means the federal government and its media shills like the NY times cannot either. Contrary evidence? Doesn't matter! bjebje is a faith-based participant.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have just been notified that Jesse Ventura will address the Pentagon attack this Friday on "Conspiracy Theory", TruTV, at 10 PM/ET
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDate: Mon, 13 Dec 2010 12:56:40 -0700 [01:56:40 PM CST]
From: "Pilots For 9/11 Truth Forum" <forum@pilotsfor911truth.org>
To: jfetzer@d.umn.edu
Subject: The Pentagon - Jesse Ventura Speaks With Pilots For 9/11 Truth ( Pilots For 9/11 Truth Forum )
jfetzer,
Jesse Ventura invited representatives of Pilots For 9/11 Truth to discuss the 9/11/2001 attack on the Pentagon for his latest show which will be airing this Friday, December 17, 2010, on truTV.
Click here to view a short video of our trip to DC, including an interview with Jesse -
http://pilotsfor911truth.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=20872
This is just a repeat with what we did back on Usenet in early 2002. As you keep demonstrating, econrn, you are afraid to support your claims about 9/11.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo matter how far you bury your head in the sand, you cannot make any 9/11 conspiracy work. Not one.
And look how Fetzer makes a fool of himself again by using Pilots for 9/11 Truth as a source. Rob Balsamo, the head of the silly enterprise was easily debunked, along with Craig Ranke of CIT, when neither of them could demonstrate that ANY jet flew over and away from the Pentagon. And Balsamo made an animation with Craig Ranke that refuted their own claims.
You notice how Fetzer keeps trying to shift the burden of proof, econrm? We know what happened on 9/11. You conspiracy loons just sit around repeating claims after claims. Anybody can do that. But Fetzer can make any 9/11 conspiracy work. He KNOWS he can't. So does the rational world of which he left some years ago.
Such is the life of charlatans.
In any case, econrm, you keep digging yourself in deeper for your inability to support your claims and demonstrate your 9/11 conspiracy theory.
Are you going to keep making such a fool of yourself for our entertainment? Or are you going to finally show how your 9/11 conspiracy theories could possibly work?
You're on the hot seat, econrn.
It's telling that Pilots for 9/11 Truth can only get on a conspiracy theory entertainment show, isn't it?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIndeed...and its also quite telling that Ventura wasn't embarrassed enough by being exposed as a complete liar by way of editing out the results of Van Romero's super thermite demo, to not bother tackling 9/11 again. It just goes to show that 1 Ventura doesn't care about "the truth" and 2. he likewise knows his viewers don't either.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso of note is how "Dr. Fetzer" is defending the 9/11 CR's estimates of the collapse times, yet disavows anything inconvenient. Simple fact is that he is deferring to a non technical report in spite of the real investigation of the collapses. Whether oir not its the real Fetzer such statements aren't beyond his lunacy.
"Dr. Fetzer", my original post cited a few logical fallacies in your posts. When will you be addressing them aside from saying you are an expert?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh and don't forget "Dr.", what source say OBL was in a cave on or leading up to 9/11? After you do that we can get to your more serious bumblings.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI believe that this article was impart inspired by your own silliness. I like how you totally ignored the premise of the article, and showed a prime example of what the article claims. Thanx!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd to the rest of the people commenting on this article, thank you for showing us all what Michael Shermer was talking about.
You know all you 'truthers' fell into Michael Shermer's trap. He knew you guys would follow up his article with basically proof of his argument. And you guys didnt even notice. :P
I honestly wonder why all these Truther commenters even read a magazine like Scientific American. Why don't you all go read The High Times or some parapsychology magazine?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMore "fact-rich observations" from the Shermer/gov't/media camp. Not. Do not question, nothing here, just move on, baaaaaa...pretty sad postings for an allegedly scientific forum.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMr. Shermer's assertions are just that, I'm afraid. He simply does not look at the evidence before passing judgment, which is unfortunate if not comical given the title of this magazine.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"# The conspiracy is complex, and its successful completion demands a large number of elements.
# Similarly, the conspiracy involves large numbers of people who would all need to keep silent about their secrets. The more people involved, the less realistic it becomes."
The Manhattan Project alone puts these judgments in the trashcan.
Citing a random example doesn't make what Michael said untrue. Here's another, "China invented rockets, that means NASA had a conspiracy to go back in the past and steal the technology!" No, a random example doesn't mean anything.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother aspect is that Michael doesn't say that just because a conspiracy theory is exceedingly unlikely doesn't mean it's entirely impossible. He only cites probability guidelines, not proof guidelines.
The Manhattan Project also differs in that the government freely gave the information of it in 1945, so there was no real cover up like most conspiracy theories. Many of the scientists involved even got public rewards for their service in the project.
Whoops, double negative! I should say, "Another aspect is that Michael doesn't say that just because a conspiracy theory is exceedingly unlikely means it's entirely impossible.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs this a Conspiracy Theroy Detector or a Michael Moore's movie script?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBest regards, Rodolfo.
... stays still always a theory ...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirst of all congrats to Michael Shermer for a topic which is obviously still of great interest. However, I think he was off bit in his analysis. For one, pretty much everyone agrees that the 9/11 attacks were a conspiracy, the only question is who was in the know. Was it hundreds, a dozen or only the pilots of the planes? Second, everyone should also be able to agree that the US government knew that the WTC was a target of interest to these terrorists. Third, it seems obvious to me that the US government was making as much PR use of the incident as they could. For example, has there ever been another incident like this where the body count decreased over time like it did here.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo it does not really surprise me that there are many people who believe different stories about what happened this day. I would love to see a good analysis of what people believe after all this time and why, but I think that would be more like an entire issue of S.A. Mind rather than a one page editorial.
What our 9/11 deniers (conspiracy theorists) here fail to understand that the 9/11 conspiracy theories out there all require that some type of "scenario" be constructed to explain the observations. What they don't understand is that whatever scenario they construct must take into account every implication and consequence that results.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd 9/11 deniers must extend the conspiracy theory into even more implausible explanations when those implications and consequences are pointed out.
Here's one example. On Thursday, Jesse Ventura is supposed to be talking with Pilots for 9/11 Truth who claim that AA77, a Boeing 757, did not hit the Pentagon but "flew over and away from the Pentagon."
There are simple implications and consequences of such a flyover, one which I argued for years with Pilots for 9/11 Truth and CIT, and they never could acknowledge that it made their "theory" completely implausible.
So let's see if our bevy of 9/11 deniers here can work out what would have to be true IF a jet "flew over and away" from the Pentagon, whether it was AA77 or a decoy. Think of everything you know about the area around the Pentagon and see if you can refute P4T and CIT. If you use your brain and a dash of critical thinking, you can see why charlatans don't want you to.
There seems to be quite a lot of confusion on the other side. For those who want more about the Pentagon, try "What Didn't Happen at the Pentagon", also archived at
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://jamesfetzer.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-didnt-happen-at-pentagon.html Follow the links and you will learn a great deal about it that you won't hear from the shills.
Pay special attention to the clear, green and unblemished lawn, which had no debris -- no wings, tail, bodies, seats or luggage -- from the alleged crash. Indeed, not even its massive and virtually indestructible engines were recovered. And notice the use of dumpsters to create the dark, billowing smoke that created the false impression for the benefit of members of Congress!
Reading it should be a good primer for Jesse Ventura's "Conspiracy Theory" show on the Pentagon this Friday, which will be broadcast on TruTv at 10 PM/ET. If you missed his JFK show, the article has links to it: http://www.opednews.com/articles/Jesse-Ventura-Exposes-the-by-Mac-McKinney-101121-380.html
I have archived the passenger manifests for the four flights, which CNN posted almost immediately. Notice that there are not only no names of any of the alleged terrorists but no Arabic names, as I previously stated.
For more, see http://www.aldeilis.net/english/images/stories/911/noevidence.pdf
I have also included a list of the casualties from the Pentagon, who were 125 in number. It was reported at the time, "One Army office in the Pentagon lost 34 of its 65 employees in the attack. Most of those killed in the office, called Resource Services Washington, were civilian accountants, bookkeepers, and budget analysts".
As some of you may recall, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld announced the day before 9/11 that the Pentagon had lost track of $2.3 trillion. Those killed appear to have been the personnel -- and probably the records -- related to the attempt to track those missing trillions. Some might consider that quite a lot of motive all on its own.
P.S. Here is the link to the passenger manifests and the list of casualties at the Pentagon:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://twilightpines.com//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=129&Itemid=72
It can also be accessed by visiting http://911scholars.org and clicking on "Flight Manifests" on the top menu bar.
By the way, I have visited CNN.com to track down the section that is called "Victims", which is dedicated to those who died on 9/11:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVICTIMS
More than 3,000 people died in the September 11 attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. Visit our memorial to learn who they were and to send a tribute.
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims.section.html
This has nothing to do with those listed on the passenger manifests, where, as I previously explained, if the hijackers had been aboard them, their names would also have appeared. But of course they do not. And as Elias Davidsson has explained, the government has never been able to prove that they were aboard any of those planes; see, in particular,
http://www.aldeilis.net/english/images/stories/911/noevidence.pdf
For those who have acquired an interest in these subjects,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn the nature of conspiracy theories, consider:
"Thinking about 'Conspiracy Theories': 9/11 and JFK"
http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/fetzerexpandedx.htm
"Birds of a Feather: Subverting the Constitution at Harvard Law"
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Birds-of-a-Feather-Subver-by-Jim-Fetzer-100121-980.html
"Conspiracies and Conspiracism"
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_6047.shtml
For more about JFK and RFK:
"JFK and RFK: The Plots that Killed them, The Patsies that Didn't"
http://www.voltairenet.org/article165721.html
"RFK: Outing the CIA at the Ambassador"
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_6464.shtml
"JFK: What We Know Now"
http://www.opednews.com/articles/JFK-What-We-Know-Now-by-James-Fetzer-101122-863.html
For more about 9/11:
"Why doubt 9/11?"
http://twilightpines.com//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17&Itemid=46
"Was 9/11 an 'inside job'?"
http://twilightpines.com/JF-BuenosAires/Buenos-Aires.html
"Are Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan justified by 9/11?"
http://noliesradio.org/archives/21621/
I think most critical thinking people here understand why Jim Fetzer cannot make any 9/11 "inside job" conspiracy theory work.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoesn't the fact that we know about the Manhattan Project mean that it was NOT kept secret for many decades?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI've been reading this thread with some interest and it's obvious there some passioned feeling here. I'd like to offer my take on the matter of 9/11 for what it worth to the conversation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe offical account of 9/11 is a conspiracy theory as much as any other of the truther theories. 19+ people (if not more) were able to kept some pretty complex secrets and did conspire to attack the US. This is just a theory, like evolution, relativity, quantum string mechanics, and bigfoot(for good measure). Of course the offical report can't prove this as fact 'cuz the conspiritors are technically all dead. So- it's a theory.
I think what all the truthers are fundementally are saying is the same. Something isn't right, but why?
I'm not going debate with youtube videos. I've watched many other people put a lot of time and effort into making youtube videoes and I watched both sides of the coin. I'm going to leave the engineering technobabble to the "experts". Here's some things that I just can't shake out of my head...
timing and motive. cheney and friends write a paper calling for a "pearl harbor" a YEAR before 9/11
bush only barely wins the election and only because of florida where ballot counts get a little fishy and oh, yeah, one of bush's relatives in govenor. Then bush goes on vacation for a while. Hey Chaney want power to call for stand down on fighter scrambles. why not! we haven't been in office for 6 months yet.
"ownership" of the WTC complex is bought by Silverstein 6 weeks prior (or even 6 months depending on your theory du jour) and puts in a clause for "terrorist attack" which despite a '93 bombing and oft known as a terrorist target, I guess didn't need a clause before this.
Shortly thereafter, guess what? yup. terrorist attack.
there's also the matter timing involving put options on air lingus, southwest and jet blue and .. oh sorry not those guys... massive put options on the two airlines that would be involved in the attack. massive stock trading and people not flying or not showing up for work.. file all of that in minor timing conviences.
okay so bright and early monday sept. 11th...
gee, NORAD let's do a drill about planes hitting buildings. I have another theory about timing... Towers fell roughly in the window of about an hour to an hour and half. I wonder what the evacuation time is for the towers? I'll wager about an hour to an hour and half. afterall, we don't want too many people dying.
so I'll continue with a couple of more things to mention in the next post...
The Next post...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisso 2 planes head out from boston and hit the towers. A 3rd plane leaving from NJ does not make it to its intended destination. ( my own theory on that was it was going to hit WTC7 that's a 47 story skyscraper and heck it conveniently fell anyway.. just like the other two that were hit planes )but Silverstien could only claim 2 seperate attack and only get 7 billion, which is still a considerable sum of hush money.
Here's any interesting timing thing to consider in all of this. no fighter planes are scrambled? when the towers are hit? Just as a matter of national security? Okay, well how about in the 30 ro some inutes? not even when aa77 is headed for DC?
So why the pentagon? Terrorists are supposed to go for mass casualties? civillians? etc. Even if u93 and aa77 were heading for DC you don't want to hit the white house? and the Capitol building? But Terrorists want to hit The pentagon?
okay... so how does this stack up next to motive. i imagine a terroist conversation like this...
Terrorist#1: our Mo is mass causualities civillian and striking fear. we'll hijack 4 planes. We'll send 2 planes into the NY towers; those should fall straight down. Then we'll-
terrorist #2: send another plane into the empire state building we know that one from the monkey movie! Then send the last plane into time square! that would be a lot of fear and mass civillian casualties!
Terrorist #1: no then we'll send the other two to DC one will hit the pentagon-
Terrorist#2: the one with the dome where congress meets?
Terrorist #1: no
Terrorist #2 did you mean The White house and kill their president?
Terrorists#1: no The pentagon the squat thing that's the base of their military. It'll be glorious, we'll all get virgins, maybe some new recruits, bigger cave perhaps some donations from Iran pakistan and syria Iraq, but I doubt it. Then america will do nothing to us!
Terrorist#2 really?
inside job motive conversation between bush and cheney: we clear out the WTC money pit, silverstien makes a few billion he's not gonna say anything. We get patriot act. Oil, Haliburton gets contracts in the middle east. the war machine get's greased. we get homeland security and the TSA and cool war on terror stuff, that will let us do whatever we want. We get to go kick Iraq for '91. We can keep this up for 8 years. but isn't 9/11 too obvious a date it just like 911? plus Bush's brother company got the security for the wTC and AA how sweet is that. even if he's not wit hthe company he can make things happen right?
see post 3 for finale'!
post 3:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this...If I were going to give a self inflicted wound, I'd pick the pentagon too.
Timing: 3 months to figure out who did it and then go to war (btw did AlQaida ever take responsibility for 9/11 or make any terrorist demands or claims shortly there after? I don't recall. or did we say they said it?)
BUT over 1 1/2 years later when we're at war and past mid term elections and ground zero is cleared. THEN we begrudgenonly start a 9/11 investigation.
But the important thing is we got 'em. Osama? no Saddam. wait the iraqi leader from your dad's war? Is that where the terrorists were? no. they had WMD's? Uh, no. Were they a threat to us or behind 9/11? well they continued to viloate that no fly zone and other sanctions- we had to take them out; I mean... free the iraqi people and give them democracy. Because Iraqi terrorists flew planes into the twin towers?
no.
in conclusion... historically speaking, US has done false flags ops to go to war before and this is why I think that something ain't right with what happened on 9/11. And it doesn't haven't anything to do what temperature steel melts or cruise missles or whatever little details. 1400 architects and engineer truthers is nothing to dismiss. Seems to me everyone argues about the trees when they should be talking about the forest. Apparently a place like the pentagon only has a single survailance camera and the 7-11 down my block has five. If wtc 7 not hit by plane but due to fire and some structural damage resulted in partial collapse or full collapse over time, or the north tower had a partial collapse reigning debris from the 70th floor. I'd be looking at 9/11 differently... But as it stands now.. I just am not convinced and I'd personally like to consider other possible theories.
thanks for reading.
@JimFetzer The link in post #128 is a victims list, not passenger manifests, as evidenced by the fact that the URL at the top of each page contains the word "victims". Besides, if these were passenger manifests and not a victims list, as you claim, why are there mini-biographies for half of the people on them?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks to rmdragon for introducing some common sense into this exchange, which deals with the forest, not the trees. We need both, since it is the scientific problems with the official account that prove it cannot be true. But these posts contribute to the historical context.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe passenger manifests have been controversial from the start for the obvious reason they do not include the names of the alleged hijackers, who were passengers, too, according to the official account, and whose names should also have appeared on any such passenger manifest.
That the word "VICTIMS" occurs on the menu bar has generated some confusion, which I have addressed before. I have visited CNN.com to track down the section that is called "VICTIMS", which is dedicated to those who died on 9/11, including those who died in the crashes:
VICTIMS
More than 3,000 people died in the September 11 attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. Visit our memorial to learn who they were and to send a tribute.
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims.section.html
This is independent of the names listed on the manifests themselves, where, as I previously explained, if the hijackers had been aboard them, their names would also have appeared. But of course they do not. And as Elias Davidsson has explained, the government has never been able to prove that they were aboard any of those planes; see, in particular,
http://www.aldeilis.net/english/images/stories/911/noevidence.pdf
When you combine that with David Ray Griffin's studies of the phone calls, which reveal that they were all faked and the realization that not even one of millions of uniquely identifiable parts from the planes has ever been produced by the government, as Col. George Nelson, USAF (ret.), has observed, the indications we have been deceived increases.
The fact that so much of the evidence at the scene of the crime was expeditiously removed and unavailable for forensic study has caused concern among many parties, including firemen and first-responders.
Visit http://firefightersfor911truth.org/ and see for yourself that the evidence these events were staged becomes stronger and stronger.
Hey... where did all the debunkers go? :)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo mention of the many phone calls from United 93 by passengers who stated that they had been hijacked. I can't say what involvement that the Bushies may or may not have had, but it is a fact that the planes were hijacked. It is also a fact that the buildings went down due to the impacts and fires. IMO, the Bush administration may have known and failed to act for their own purposes. But I don't really think he is that evil...he's just stupid and easily manipulated.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thissure there were phone calls, I'm not going to argue that one way or the other. I don't think that detail matters. Setting up hijackers and letting them do a this pre-determined plan... I'm sure our interests can arrange that all of that. That's just as viable a theory as the rest and I don't think terribly outlandish, either.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe fact that out of all the security companies to be brought in for new position the one related to the Bush family HAPPENS to be the one to now handle security.
yes, wtc 1 & 2 collapsed from impacts and fires. IMHO they had a little help, probably not as much as some of the more outlandish theories. put the base of operations for the tower demo in wtc 7 and when the towers are down, take out wtc 7 later. except there were problems with that plane, so it just happens to collapse from fire later on, covering the tracks.
Let's say you wanted to legitimately demo the WTC. It's a money pit to maintain and not profitable. It's next to impossbile. Way too costly, lots of risks and hazzards for surrounding locations. It would have to slowly be dismantled again costly and take years.
OR insure it against terror attack. And arrange to have terrorists attack it. just make sure it comes down completely. now the Demo takes about 10-13 seconds per tower.. not years. And rather than pay money for demo and haul away insurances pays it out. And everybody pitches in to clean up your mess.
i think in a court of law it all adds up to at least a grand jury indictment or probable cause for an arrest warrant or "person of interest" for the Bush admin. administration.
"Bush administration may have known and failed to act for their own purposes" is this not a conspiracy theory as well? I have another interesting angle I may add later on.
Oh, Fetzer, you still haven't answered the question:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswhy have you been peddling the lie that the towers went down in 10 seconds when you've been confronted with proof that it took upwards of 13 seconds?
rmdragon,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour premises are not sound.
One fault is the common Truther attempt to demote a conspiracy for which the evidence from numerous different sources converges on the conclusion that bin Laden was beho=ind 9/11, to the level of 9/11 conspiracy theories to make it appear they are all equally valid and worthy of consideration.
One other fault is to claim a small number of people under bin Laden's direction had to keep "complex secrets" in order to pull off the attacks.
One thing Truthers don't understand is that bin Laden had no guarantees that his attacks could accomplish anything, much less what actually happened.
Did bin Laden know he could ultimately cause the collapse of the towers? Maybe, but not necessarily. Did the towers have to collapse to make his point? Did both towers even have to be hit; wouldn't the sight and psychological impact of one hijacked plane hitting one tower causing a massive fire that might burn uncontrolled for days or longer be sufficient? Much less the complexity of dealing with the future of towers after the fires and structural damage from the crashes had they not collapsed. Why would the towers need to collpase to make his point? And if the objective was to collapse the towers, hitting them far lower might have caused them to topple.
Here are some things that you should ponder:
1. Each lead hijacker did not have to know the plans or existence of the other hijackers. None of them had to coordinate their actions with each other to accomplish their individual missions.
2. bin Laden could not guarantee success of any hijacking. This is a good argument for attempting four hijackings to increase the probability that at least ONE attack would succeed. Again, wouldn't one of the attacks have had the same psychological affect on us?
3. September 11 was an exceptionally clear day. Wouldn't visibility be a prime concern for the hijackers to see their targets in order to fly visually given their limited flight and instrument training?
I calculated years ago (having flown all around the Northeast for years) that with good clear days in the Northeast, the pilots of AA11 and UA175, given the flight paths and altitudes they flew, could fly visually using the coast of Connecticut and Long Island as a guide to NYC's location, and using the Hudson River as the final "route" into NYC. You can duplicate this yourself using Microsoft Flight Simulator. A simple road map would be all they needed if they hadn't memorized to recognize the Hudson River.
(continued in next comment)
(continued from previous comment)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow contrast that with the idea of a government conspiracy to actually PLAN those events adding all the elements that 9/11 conspiracy theorists propose, e,g,, planting explosives in three towers, having planes hit at the exact locations the explosives would start going off, having it all successfully work with the large number of people necessarily being involved, and not saying a word or contradicting the so-called "official story".
Conspiracy theories fail for many number of reasons. For one they never can consider ALL of the actions, nor consequences of the actions, that would have to take place in order for it to succeed. Neither can actual conspiracies actually anticipate potential screw-ups.
9/11 conspiracy theories all assume that unknown numbers and identities of witnesses to events would NOT contradict the so-called "official story" and media reports. As an example, Pilots for 9/11 Truth and CIT require that NO witnesses out of the hundreds all around the Pentagon would see a "jet fly over and away from the Pentagon", or that they voluntarily would not say a word after a huge explosion took place on one face of the Pentagon. The Pentagon conspiracy theories require a leap of irrational faith that the government would KNOW with certainty as part of the plan that out of potentially hundreds of eyewitnesses to a "jet flying over and away from the Pentagon" no one would see that as out of place, or ever report it to the media or anyone else. Would you ever be so foolish to make that assumption as part of your plan?
I would hope not, but that is one of the silly consequences of the Pentagon conspiracy theories.
Did I say menu bar? I don't think I did, but let me check. Nope. I didn't say menu bar. I said "URL". But since specifically stating what I was talking about didn't work, let me try again.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEvery time you print a page off of the internet, the URL (web address for those being dense) gets printed at the top of the page and the current date and time are printed at the bottom. When you archived the pages, you printed them out and then scanned them back in to your computer. This means that we have recorded where you got the pages from and when you printed them off.
Now lets look at the URLs from the tops of the pages.
American Airlines Flight 11 - http://www.cnn.com/SPECIAL/2001/trade.center/victims/AA11.vic...
United Airlines Flight 175 - http://www.cnn.com/SPECIAL/2001/trade.center/victims/ua175.vic...
American Airlines Flight 77 - http://www.cnn.com/SPECIAL/2001/trade.center/victims/AA77.vic...
United Airlines Flight 93 - http://www.cnn.com/SPECIAL/2001/trade.center/victims/ua93.vict...
Notice how after "/trade.center/" in each URL, it says "victims/". In fact, nowhere on any of the pages does the phrase "passenger manifest" show up. Also, as I pointed out earlier, why would there be mini-biographies on a passenger manifest? If these were actual passenger manifests, and posted almost immediately, as you claim, they wouldn't have had the time to create them.
But, since these pages were printed off on the morning of 9/7/06, nearly five years after the attacks, that leaves plenty of time to edit the list. Which, with the inclusion of the mini-biographies, we know has happened to some extent. This, in addition to what I said above, brings us to the only logical conclusion that the lists are, in fact, victims lists, not passenger manifests.
God - believe when I see.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this9/11 - believable. Human GREED*
Loch Ness - you never know, NEW Species are being found daily!
Aliens - you really think we are alone in this fish tank?
C/mon now!!
But when it all comes down to it, i gotta see it to believe it.
Well, this is very interesting. I am now convinced that there is enough ambiguity about these "flight manifests" I no longer regard them as sufficient to prove my claim. I therefore withdrawn the argument I have made based upon them. That one of my premises is unjustified, however, does not mean that my conclusion is false. In fact, Elias Davidsson has advanced the most thorough and painstaking study of the failure of the US government to prove that any of these alleged 19 Islamic terrorist were aboard any of those planes, which follows from his arguments independent of my mistaken premises.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNotice, by the way, that the insufficiency of the proof that I provided also does not mean that there were bona fide passenger manifests that included their names. My failure to prove that those names were missing using the documents I have archived is not the same thing as the US government proving that those names were actually present on bona fide passenger manifests. Indeed, as I have noted in earlier posts, the manifests that Mark Roberts showed me during our "Hardfire" exchange were clearly faked. The "terrorist's names" had been added to the very top and bottom of those lists and were obviously not genuine, a deception he did not admit but also did not deny.
Since I have presented dozens upon dozens of arguments during the course of this exchange -- where we know that I have presented twenty (20) that were identified using numerals -- suppose that number was, say, thirty-six (36), what is the consequence of the withdrawal of one? Some would make the obvious deduction, namely, that now my arguments have been reduced by one to thirty-five (35). And that is perfectly appropriate, with the caveat I have introduced above, which is that the conclusion of my argument -- that their names do not appear on any bona fide passenger manifest -- still seems to be true. And along with that conclusion are all of the rest that I have presented here.
It would be a logical blunder to suggest that one false premises vitiates a multitude of independent arguments. If any of the arguments I and others have presented are true, the official account of 9/11 is false. And we have proven it to be false in virtually every major respect. Those who want to vindicate the official account should be devoting themselves to proving that what we have been told by our government is true. But that is going to be very difficult to do, since the other arguments presented here have already shown the official account is false. A mistake does not change that.
bjebje-
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks for taking the time to consider my posts. I hope you don't mind if I take a moment to respond.
My apologies if I might have misled you to think I think Bin laden's behind it. I don't think he is, most simply because we haven't gotten him yet.. even Bush ADD'd on that mission...
it is still 4 conspiracies even if you want to split the hijackers up into groups. it becomes an even greater orchistration if you the further you break it down. and of course you still need people to coordinate to some degree the various cells. But the meat of it is- Conspiracy theory. Plus the "cells" concept you apply to the hi jackers I can equally argue that concept applies to an inside job
That term has gotten a bad rap. I think it's a valid term and not just a way to dismiss the tin foil hat industry. The offical story of 19 hijackers still to me is just another conspiracy theory.
I agree with you there are a lot of various theories out there and some are really out there! I don't subscribe to them and I try to get as much information from debunkers and truthers to come to my own conclusion. (not all truthers believe all the theories, but do all debunkers believe the offical story? if not what do they disagree on?)
I try not to get sucked down into the quagmire of minute details on these things. I'm not an expert on a lot of the 9/11 tech stuff, nor am I claiming to be. But I think the real story is in the bigger picture. Timing, motive and payoff. However it happened, it happened. I think alot of that really doesn't matter ultimately.thermite, sharks with lasers, hijackers. fine. whatever the inside job did, they pulled it off. ( u93 not so much as planned.) It seems to me that most truthers try and zero in on that smoking gun- that A-HA! moment; looking for the last "connect the dot", somewhere in the rubble; honestly, I don't think it's out there and we'll never have the entire picture. Debunkers do a great job of weeding out alot of stuff- that airplane into the pentagon animation was well done and made several valid points. I don't question that didn't happen, but I question why there was only 1 or 2 videos "reluctantly" released. and no black box of the pentagon at least? where's that info? to me that continued reluctancy of information is more telling.
running out of space to finish my thought.. check next post please..
next post...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisgoing back to your "One thing Truthers don't understand is that bin Laden had no guarantees that his attacks could accomplish anything, much less what actually happened."
debunker and truther BS aside for asec, let me put a question to you, it is one I can't shake..
with everything being as you said, independent but codepentdent cells of terrorists planning multiple hijackings with planning and preparation, and from multiple cities within the US. That it just so happens to be, on all the days for this to happen; not just in the first year of Bush term but any year. that very same exact day when the military is doing excerise drills involving the FAA and NORAD and terrorists hijacking planes and slamming them into buildings? and then real terrorists hijack planes... and slam them into buildings. I mean what are the odds? and it just so happens that military planes are moved off the eastern seaboard, and or not scrambled to protect DC airspace? Of all days.
Does that not give you pause to say that just a little too much coincidence? it's just a little bit too convienent? ...and for all the right people?
one other point I'd like to make about why I think 9/11 was an inside conspiracy job. in contrast...
Because the BP Gulf disaster wasn't. Take a look. here we have a large steel oil rig structure, that suffers a massive explosion and is subject to similar intense fire with an unlimited fuel supply and it did not collapse pancake style for 2 days. not 1 hour. or 2 . or 9 hours (wtc 7) or 18. 48 hours. Fire and steel. Just saying.
no my real point is nothing was really gained by anybody involved (not even haliburton this time). It was unforeseen, unplanned accident. Certainly not even close to a degree as what was gained by the Bush administration shortly after 9/11.
There are a lot of 9/11 con theries out there. I don't subscribe to all of them- "too hot" nor do I subscribe to the "official" 9/11 commission report version- "too cold" So far the only porriage that is just right is "this was a false flag.".
Thanks for reading.
Thanks Jim, for the acknowledgements!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJim, I am interested in your opinion about the September Clues video that can be watched via youtube? It is interesting that they haven't addressed your other 35 points by the way. It's hard to argue with hard scientific evidence I suppose!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisdingledogg,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDon't forget that the burden of proof is on Fetzer's shoulders. No one has to address "Truther" claims. Truthers have to prove their own claims.
Repeating claims ad infinitum doesn't cut the mustard. That's one reason 9/11 conspiracy theories never made it out the front door and why the real world doesn't pay attention to them.
He has given multiple lines of evidence, even one of which would be enough to knock the government's theory down all by itself. Are you saying that every single one of his 20 plus refutations of the governments "story" is wrong? So say half of his 20 refutations happen to be wrong, it would still be enough evidence to prove that something is totally wrong with the government's story. (And I highly doubt half of them are wrong until I see evidence to the contrary)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo the people 'orchestrating' the attack did not plan properly and never thought of covering their tracks?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisClever enough to get it done (and not a single whistleblower), yet too stupid to make the towers fall in a more "authentic" manner. Also, who was in charge of the Pentagon "missile"? Making the hole too small for a plane to fit and thereby compromising the whole conspiracy...
Can we get a study on the link between superstitious people and conspiracy theorists? Accepting that the major ‘religions’ are no less superstitious than the ‘poor primitives’ they are so condescending about.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-shermer/my-day-in-dealey-plaza-wh_b_796812.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMichael Shermer
Publisher of "Skeptic" magazine
Posted: December 14, 2010 06:20 PM
My Day in Dealey Plaza: Why JFK was Killed by a Lone Assassin
On Tuesday, December 7, I walked through and around Dealey Plaza in Dallas where JFK was assassinated by a lone assassin Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO). Or was he? A lone assassin, that is? Yes, he was, but that is not what anyone giving informal tours of the plaza will have you believe if you give them a few minutes (and a few bucks).
(read more)
________________________________________________________
If anyone harbored any doubts about Michael Shermer's role in all of these things, I cannot begin to express my contempt for his abuse of his position. He is not only the least skeptical "Skeptic" in history but is doing whatever he can to perpetuate the myths promoted by corrupt forces within the American government -- especially the intelligence agencies and the CIA in particular -- for all of the obvious reasons.
If you want to understand the case -- and I organized a research group consisting of the most highly qualified individuals to ever study the case, chaired or co-chaired four national conferences (Minneapolis 1999, Dallas 2000, Dallas 2001, and Duluth 2003), and published three collections of studies by experts on different aspects of the case: ASSASSINATION SCIENCE (1998), MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA (2000), and THE GREAT ZAPRUDER FILM HOAX (2003) -- consider these summaries of our findings about what happened to JFK and to his brother Bobby:
"Dealey Plaza Revisited: What Happened to JFK?"
http://www.und.edu/org/jfkconference/UNDchapter30.pdf
"JFK and RFK: The Plots that Killed them, The Patsies that Didn't"
http://www.voltairenet.org/article165721.html
"RFK: Outing the CIA at the Ambassador"
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_6464.shtml
"JFK: What We Know Now"
http://www.opednews.com/articles/JFK-What-We-Know-Now-by-James-Fetzer-101122-863.html
So Shermer is going to continue to mislead and deceive the American people about the death of our 35th president. Not only was Lee Oswald not "the lone assassin": his weapon cannot have fired the shots that killed JFK; he was observed in and around the 2nd floor lunchroom immediately before and immediately after the assassination took place; and Marina reported that Lee admired JFK and bore him no malice. So the man fingered for the crime had neither the motive, the means nor the opportunity to have killed him. This is despicable.
dingeldogg,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am afraid you fell for the "Official Story" canard, the claim that all of what we know about 9/11 came from, and was controlled by, the "government." It is a patently absurd concept that presumes the "government" - whoever and how many individuals comprised the "government" - had the ability to control unknown eyewitnesses in unknown numbers, what they saw, and what they said.
Most Truthers try to dodge that fact by claiming that the "official story" is the 9/11 Commission Report and/or the various NIST, FEMA, and ASCE reports, forgetting that the term "official story" was first used by conspiracists on the morning of 9/12/2001. They also forget that what we knew on 9/11 and in the subsequent reports was the sum total of all information and independent eyewitness reports gathered since 9/11.
It points to how easily Truthers and conspiracy theory believers uncritically accept claims at face value.
Your claim that Fetzer "has given multiple lines of evidence, even one of which would be enough to knock the government's theory down all by itself," fails on multiple counts, not the least of which is that they are based on the faulty premise of the "official story." But the fact that you make such a claim only demonstrates that you have not bothered to do any research whatsoever on your own. You can do that and find out all by yourself why none of Fetzer's claims hold up under scrutiny.
Fetzer does not present evidence but only claims of evidence.The claims always mislead and are based on faulty assertions of fact. He will not acknowledge that he knows those claims have been repeatedly shown to be false for years; that is not the point. The point is that he knows many people will believe him regardless, that there are, sadly, gullible people he can cultivate. You can, of course, do all the research on your own and see how conspiracists work.
And you can always ask Fetzer what he is doing here after nine years. With all his so-called "evidence" why hasn't Jim and 9/11 Truthers long-since filed criminal charges against the "government" in Federal Court? Indeed, why hasn't über-9/11 Truther, David Ray Griffin filed charges? After all, he's written 10 books "exposing the9/11 government conspiracy" in the last nine years. Surely he has enough evidence that he would have convinced the entire world of his "facts", no?
" why hasn't Jim and 9/11 Truthers long-since filed criminal charges against the "government" in Federal Court?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOf course! Why didn't I think about that?! While I'm at it I'll file some charges against Nixon for theft, LBJ for the Gulf Of Tonkin incident, Bush for the rigged election. While I'm at it I might as well file some charges at the UN against Isreal for what they are doing to Palestine, this is the end of injustice throughout the world!
Maybe you possess the reasoning ability to realise I'm being sarcastic, but I'll point it out just in case.
The "official story" was created by the media on the day of 9/11, funny how they got it right so quickly amidst all the confusion. A thinking person would see the obvious truth that the media were fed the official story by the government on the day.
The planes flew into the buildings, the buildings fell down, this is the extent of the eyewitness accounts included in the commission report. The eyewitness testimony relating to the multiple explosions before and after the impact of the planes in all three WTC towers that collapsed was ignored by the report.
You claim that Dr Fetzer's evidence has been shown to be false, can you back that up with some links please? I have read reams of articles on "debunking" sites claiming to disprove the evidence of controlled demolition and a Norad stand down but they have not delivered, all they have provided is obfuscation and attacks on character. So please provide me with a debunking of better quality then the popular mechanics attempt which states it has been shown confidential documents proving the official story that are unavailable to the public.
cmoore,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou're just telling us that your research capabilities are severely lacking.
bjebje,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are simply displaying a deranged trust for authority bordering on the sado-masochistic. Your brain will not allow you to perform a logical assessment of the available evidence. If you can't/don't want to provide counter evidence against the claims made by "conspiracy theorists" then don't pretend they are unfounded.
cmoore,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou must be a newbie at this. Your comments are just cut-and-pastes of what we heard back on Usenet in 2002 and ever since.
I don't waste my time doing what has already been done repeatedly since then and have no need to. Truthers have utterly failed to make their claims stick and Fetzer knows that as well as anyone.
As much as I hate to say it, bjebje displays all the
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thissymptoms of being cognitively impaired. He repeats
himself endlessly and does not respond to, much less
rebut, any of the argument that have been presented
here.
Those who want to understand the use of "conspiracy
theory" as a phrase used as an intellectual club to
rhetorically assault those who are searching for the
truth about JFK, RFK, 9/11, and other controversial
event should read these:
On the nature of conspiracy theories, consider:
"Thinking about 'Conspiracy Theories': 9/11 and JFK"
http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/fetzerexpandedx.htm
"Birds of a Feather: Subverting the Constitution at Harvard Law"
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Birds-of-a-Feather-Subver-by-Jim-Fetzer-100121-980.html
"Conspiracies and Conspiracism"
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_6047.shtml
Since he has yet to debunk even one of the multiple
arguments I have presented in these documents and
presentations -- where most of the evidence turns
out to be visual -- he is simply fantasizing when
he claims to have refuted them:
For more about 9/11:
"Why doubt 9/11?"
http://twilightpines.com//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17&Itemid=46
"Was 9/11 an 'inside job'?"
http://twilightpines.com/JF-BuenosAires/Buenos-Aires.html
"Are Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan justified by 9/11?"
http://noliesradio.org/archives/21621/
These are serious signs of mental impairment. His style
reminds me very much of someone who relies upon the same
kind of vacuous repetition without substance, Ron Wieck.
I would not be surprised if they were one and the same.
Sure, Jim, we've heard it all before. You've illustrated Dr. Shermer's points for him quite well.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOf course, one has to question why you cannot put together a coherent conspiracy theory after all these years of making claims. We both know why you can't.
Fetzer, for 9 years you have been peddling the lie that the towers came down in 10 seconds.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Naudet video of the collapses show they took longer than that.
The seismo readings that day show they took longer thatn that.
Still photos taken of the collapse show they took lkonger than that.
Why do you persist in peddling that lie?
Well, you must have your head buried in the sand. The links that
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have just provided advance overviews about the evidence and the
events of 9/11. For twenty (20) refutations of the official account,
"Why doubt 9/11?"
http://twilightpines.com//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17&Itemid=46
To the best of my knowledge, you have never refuted even one.
So why don't you offer summaries of my points and your replies?
For an overview about the events of 9/11, see my presentations:
Was 9/11 an 'inside job'?"
http://twilightpines.com/JF-BuenosAires/Buenos-Aires.html
"Are Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan justified by 9/11?"
http://noliesradio.org/archives/21621/
And if you want variations on the themes, where the evidence
speaks eloquently about what was going on in the US that day,
"Thinking Critically about Conspiracy Theories"
http://jamesfetzer.blogspot.com/2009/12/httpdotsub.html
"Unanswered Questions: Was 9/11 an 'Inside Job'?"
http://jamesfetzer.blogspot.com/2009/12/httpdotsub.html
where the first was presented in Portland on 11 December 2009
and the second in Seattle on 13 December 2009. In between,
"What Happened to JFK--and Why it Matters Today"
http://jamesfetzer.blogspot.com/2009/12/httpdotsub.html
which I presented in Portland on 12 December 2009. Why don't
you display your brilliance by offering us a single example of a
presentation that you have made defending the official account?
I'm not going to hold my breathe because we know you haven't
done it and couldn't do it if your life depended upon it. Perhaps
no one cares about your views because they are poorly grounded.
If you have a single published article or public video presentation,
now would be a good time to link to it. Otherwise, we have scant
choice but to conclude you are blowing smoke with no substance.
Reread 78. JimFetzer
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this07:35 PM 12/11/10
They did not collapse. If you don't understand that, you have no business posting on this thread or anywhere else about 9/11. I have quote the claim found in THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT that the South Tower collapsed in ten seconds. There were no "if, ands, or buts" about it. If you reject that, then you are rejecting the official government account. And do I have to explain that 13 seconds doesn't cut it no matter how hard you try to support that claim? The fires burned neither long enough or hot enough to cause the steel to weaken, much less melt. That is an obvious conclusion when you consider that, even according to NIST, 233 samples of the steel it had selected had not been heated above 500 degrees F and the other three not above 1200 degrees F. Since steel melts at 2800 degrees F and Underwriters Laboratory had certified the steel used in the buildings to 2000 degrees F for three or four hours without any adverse effects, it would not matter if the fires had burned that hot, since they only lasted in the South Tower for about an hour and in the North for about an hour-and-a-half. So you are out of luck either way. I cannot have happened as you suggest. Plus below the 80th floor of the South Tower and the 94th of the North, those buildings were stone cold steel. It would have been physically impossible for any collapse to have taken place under those conditions, especially since, as John Skilling observed, the building had a safety factor of 20, which means that each floor could carry 20 times its expected live load. Since you do not appear to be reading my posts or you would already know this, even if the steel had lost half its carrying capacity, it would still have had a safety factor of 10; and, since the buildings were stone cold steel below the 80th floor of the South Tower and the 94th of the North, none of that would have lost ANY of its carrying capacity. In case you don't know, by the way, in 1975, the North Tower experienced an intense fire on the 11th floor which burned at 2000 degrees F for three or four hours, yet it did not weaken or melt, which vindicated the UL certification. None of the steel had to be replaced. So there is no basis for your allegations about the trivial difference between 10 and 13 seconds. The only way the buildings could have been destroyed in 10 to 13 seconds would have been using some forms of energy beyond the fires and gravity. As Paul Craig Roberts has observed, on the official account, there is a massive energy deficit! Better luck next time.
In addition to Dr. Shermer's consistent deconstruction of conspiracy theory thinking and methodology, we also have a nice science blog devoted to the subject of denialism that all conspiracy theorists like Jim Fetzer practice:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The Denialism Blog"
"Here we will discuss the problem of denialists, their standard arguing techniques, how to identify denialists and/or cranks, and discuss topics of general interest such as skepticism, medicine, law and science. I'll be taking on denialists in the sciences, while my brother, Chris, will be geared more towards the legal and policy implications of industry groups using denialist arguments to prevent sound policies.
"First of all, we have to get some basic terms defined for all of our new readers.
"Denialism is the employment of rhetorical tactics to give the appearance of argument or legitimate debate, when in actuality there is none. These false arguments are used when one has few or no facts to support one's viewpoint against a scientific consensus or against overwhelming evidence to the contrary. They are effective in distracting from actual useful debate using emotionally appealing, but ultimately empty and illogical assertions.
"Examples of common topics in which denialists employ their tactics include: Creationism/Intelligent Design, Global Warming denialism, Holocaust denial, HIV/AIDS denialism, 9/11 conspiracies, Tobacco Carcinogenecity denialism (the first organized corporate campaign), anti-vaccination/mercury autism denialism and anti-animal testing/animal rights extremist denialism. Denialism spans the ideological spectrum, and is about tactics rather than politics or partisanship. Chris will be covering denialism of industry groups, such as astroturfing, and the use of a standard and almost sequential set of denialist arguments that he discusses in his Denialist Deck of Cards."
See http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/about.php
Jim Fetzer has no end-game for his conspiracy theories except, perhaps, book sales, but like David Ray Griffin, Fetzer has no place to go, nothing to accomplish.
After nine whole years the 9/11 Denial Movement has accomplished exactly zero - no new investigations, no court cases, nothing but playing conspiracy theorists on the Internet.
Fetzer has nothing to do but make the same claims over and over and pretend to anyone who will listen that he has "evidence." He may as well stand on a mountaintop and yell that the sun orbits the earth.
"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you." - Kurt Cobain
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReread 78. JimFetzer
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's pathetic, Fetzer.
You have been peddling for 9 years the lie that the towers came down in 10 seconds when you know full well the truth is they took more than 13 seconds, and all you can do to defend your lie is to invent your own meaning for the word "collapse" so you can quibble over semantics.
To recap:
The Naudet video shows they took 13+ seconds to come down.
The seismograms of 9/11 show they took 13+ seconds to come down.
Still photos taken show clearly that they took about 13 seconds to come down.
You have seen all three, and been confronted with this, and yet you continue to peddle the lie that they came down in 10 seconds. Why>?
How should we describe someone who repeatedly posts the same mistaken and misleading remarks and won't acknowledge when they have been answered and explained? This kind of repetitive behavior is obviously a form of harassment that discredits the one who posts them. A great deal can be learned about those who want to create obstacles to the search for truth about JFK, RFK, and 9/11 by studying the techniques that are being used here, some of which -- like this one -- are extremely juvenile and purposeless except for the purpose of harassment. So notice those who post, what they say, and how often they say it. When it has been dealt with, why repeat it? We are seeing a disinformation op at work in this thread.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"How should we describe someone who repeatedly posts the same mistaken and misleading remarks and won't acknowledge when they have been answered and explained? "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell, how should we describe you, who have been posting the same lie for 9 years?
For 9 years you have claimed that the towers came down in 10 seconds, when you know full well that they came down in over 13 seconds.
How should we describe your behavior, Fetzer?
Mind you, Fetzer, you made the 10 second claim repeatedly in this very comment thread. So it makes perfect sense to hammer it into you until you explain why you keep repeating that lie.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisuh just to comment as a casual observer with no obvious vindictive bend one way or the other... that 10 second claim he makes that you talk about being a lie. HE WAS QUOTING FROM THE OFFICIAL 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT. citing the page and the work. That was his source. I have to wonder if you actual try to read and MAYBE try and see things from a different perspective. It seems you just OCD in on this one thing and everything else is just blah blah blah in your mind waiting until you can jump in and post your pre recorded zinger. No wonder he keeps posting the same things to you guys. It's like if Truther A applies con theory #132 then you just counter with debunker theory #133.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswhat's next? dismissing this comment with observation of typical conspiracy theory profile #24?
Please surprise me with a different tactic and change your game a little.
Rmdragon,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou certainly haven't followed the comments at all, nor the facts.
Well, that pretty much wraps it up. Any further questions about Fetzer's 9/11 Conspiracy theories and denialism?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisyou must be right. that's why in post #44 he quotes the page and the source of where he references a 10 sec. collapse. ( the 9/11 commission report btw)and 126 post later they are still asking him why he keeps repeating this "lie" even though he's already explained this. The "lie" is from the main goverment source.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhich comment or fact am I not following here? I'm not talking about 9/11 details. I'm talking about he already answered the question several times but obviously that's not what's important. so what's the point?
sure just one question.. how come I still believe him more than I believe you?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisfollow up question.. is it because he showed more integrity to admit when he made an error in evidence he was presenting or was it because I believed more that he believed in what he was trying to prove, than I believed in the integrity of the debunker's arguments.
Maybe we'll never know the true answer, but I think it's the integrity thing.. it's just a theory though..
a fact may be a fact, but a fact in a glass of water, still begs the question is the glass have full or half empty?
The Conspiracy Debunker Detector
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow to tell the difference between a conspiracy theorist and an arbitrary debunker.
In response to Michael Shermer’s column (December 2010), I would like to offer the following aids to those who wish to be able to detect arbitrary debunkers of conspiracies.
1. Debunkers are inclined to ignore evidence and resort to social commentary about conspiracy theorists in general. This has a snob appeal for those who do not wish to dirty their hands with details.
2. The theorist selected for description is always from the radical fringe, and never from the thoughtful, intelligent people who have studied the evidence. This is the straw man syndrome.
3. The radicals are described in terms like “nutty”, “breathless”, and “idiotic”. This implies that all supporters of the conspiracy are equally off balance,
4. The debunker will route the discussion from the subject conspiracy to encompass all other supposed conspiracies, thus belittling them all in a class action tactic.
5. The debunker is usually in a position where intellectual honesty on an unpopular subject would be hazardous to his professional reputation or academic position. Television personalities and print columnists are examples.
6. The debunker either cannot or will not separate the ranting of those would “poison the well” with tales about little green men from the careful reasoning of the legitimate theorist.
7. The debunker will reluctantly admit that conspiracies like false flag incidents do sometimes happen – never here and now, but sometime long ago and somewhere far away.
8. The debunker will not accept a conspiracy theory that consists only of unanswered questions. The theory must be complete in every detail in order to merit consideration.
9. The debunker harbors a silent faith in authority that is not unlike a religious dogma. “My government would never do a thing like that!”
10. The force of denial of a conspiracy is directly proportional to its presumed consequences if true. There are many who cannot accept the terrible implications of government complicity in the events of 9/11. These people will reject the conspiracy theory instead.
Jim Osburn
Conspiracy theorists, oddly enoough, do not actually have any theory about what happened on 9/11. They make the claim that there was a conspiracy, but they have no overall theory or plausible scenario as to what actually happened on that day or even a theory as to what happened in specific cases such as the Pentagon event or the crash of the plane in Pennsylvania. The "official" theory actually has a theory as to what happened and we (on both sides)know roughly what that official theory is. The CTs try to poke holes in the official theory. That's it. But people should be aware that any theory, such as the theory of evolution, has problems. But there is no alternative to that theory. To say that God created things is not to offer a theory, but rather to make a claim and a claim is only that. It is not a theory or even a plausible scenario. Likewise for the CTs. They don't have a theory or plausible scanrio as to what happened. When asked to provide a scenario, they say that that's not their job and that there job is to point out that the official theory has holes in it, and so the investigation should be re-opened so as to find out the truth. Of course, if there were such a re-opening of the case and the official theory were again vindicated, they would question any verdict that went against them and demand another investigation. The CTs would demand still more investigations until they got one that vindicated their claim that the official theory is incorrect. However, even if the official theory has problems, this would not show that their "theory," (strictly speaking, they don't actually have any real theory or overall scenario)is the correct one.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"uh just to comment as a casual observer with no obvious vindictive bend one way or the other... that 10 second claim he makes that you talk about being a lie. HE WAS QUOTING FROM THE OFFICIAL 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT. citing the page and the work."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd ignoring the evidence that the quote was a simple case of sloppiness. The 9/11 Commission investigated the hijackings, not the collapse of the towers. That Fetzer continues to peddle this sloppy quote instead of accepting what a simple foray to Youtube will prove, i.e. the 13+ seconds duration, shows what a pathological liar he is.
rmdragon wrote:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"sure just one question.. how come I still believe him more than I believe you?"
The REAL question is why do you believe Fetzer to begin with, whatever anyone else says? Can you give a rational explanation?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisif only youtube was around back then, then the official report wouldn't be so sloppy, right! LOL!
but really, you kept asking him where he got his information and he kept answering you. Then you kept asking him again. I mean seriously. You obviously already had the answer. Why continue to ask the question? just makes you look less credible.
is the "name calling" really necessary? it makes it very difficult to focus on your points without having to weed through all that noise.
"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisif only youtube was around back then, then the official report wouldn't be so sloppy, right! LOL!"
Maybe. But Fetzer takes that quote and treats it as fact, when a simple look at Youtube (i.e. the Naudet videos) shows that the Commission was sloppy in saying 10 seconds there.
And that shows Fetzer to be fundamentally dishonest.
The man expects you to look at videos of the collapse, which show 13+ seconds, and at this quote, and disbelieve your lying eyes and believe him instead.
Which shows what a liar he is, and what a fool you are.
rmdragon,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you actually understood the 9/11 Commission Report and it's purpose you'd understand why the use of "10 seconds" is completely irrelevant.
But then you just accepted Fetzer's statement as if it had meaning. Why?
Which brings me back to the question I just asked you:
"The REAL question is why do you believe Fetzer to begin with, whatever anyone else says? Can you give a rational explanation?"
stop with the name calling.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswell look, If everything had a rational explanation then, religion would be the first debunked conspiracy theory.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisfor starters.. you're kinda of dodging my "questioning" by simply re phrasing a question back on me. Which is a pretty obvious textbook conversational tactic. It would be a little more intriguing if you were interested in find out why I don't believe in your position. seems a little bit more sincere that way. I'll bite though, I won't be replying by pointing out because Jim said this and that and that's why. that's just more ammo for the debunkers to OCD over.
as much as even the most reasonable 9/11 theory you think ( I presume) is a fallacy, I feel the "official story" of 9/11 is just as lacking. There are a lot of people who saw what happened, so heard or read something that made them say… something is not right. we do have a matter of 1400 architects and engineers and some pilots that are saying… Something's not right. They are all nut jobs? okay say 10% of them are. still leaves a huge amount who aren't. There's something to that. Yes there are a lot of people that don't believe in 9/11 con theories. but there's a lot who do and not all of them live in their parent's basement. There something to that. to debunk and dismiss this doesn't make sense to me.
honestly, I want to be proven wrong. It scares the **** out of me that I can't even convince myself that the official story is the end all be all to 9/11. if it was an inside job, the world is a lot scarier. I'm trying to prove to myself that it's anything but a con theory.
but there's a flaw in all of this. As you've mentioned truthers have the burden of proof. and since they can't prove things the con is false. Well that would be next to impossible to achieve. Because not all the evidence needed to prove a theory has been found or even exists or would be readily accessible to an "average person". Truthers would have to be time traveling omniscient omni present beings to gather all of their evidence to prove one way or the other.There may never be that smoking gun to satisfy a debunker enough to say.." whoa. guess i've been wrong!" it doesn't matter If the tower fell in 10 seconds or 13.
There was too much gained in a short amount of time by people/groups with too similar interests that would've had the resources, to arrange and capabilities and motives to accomplish them. Actions by these people after the fact also lend to this suspicion.
Ultimately, I can't prove it. But that doesn't mean I have to accept the "official story"
if you believe you are right there's no need for insulting people to make your point. I've tried to have a respectful and reasonable discussion.. even with a little humor. Up to this point I've enjoyed the discussion. I never directly or intentionally insulted you or anyone else in this thread.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thistotally uncalled for, and deserving of an apology. If you lack the integrity to do so, you have undermined your entire purpose on this thread. Otherwise don't talk to me.
"if you believe you are right there's no need for insulting people to make your point. I've tried to have a respectful and reasonable discussion.."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou can only have a reasonable and respectful discussion with honest people who deserve respect.
Fetzer knows full well that the towers took 13+ seconds to come down. Yet for 9 years he has been peddling the lie that they took 10 seconds. You cannot have a reasonable discussion with a liar like him. Nor is there any point to having a respectful discussion with someone as manifestly unworthy of respect as he is.
Now you come around to say that it "doesn't matter" whether they took 10 or 13 seconds to come down. But if it doesn't matter, why is Fetzer so insistent on peddling this lie ? Truth matters. Wanton disregard for truth, whether by a liar like Fetzer or someone as cavalier about about swallowing lies as you are, deserves disrespect, contempt, and derision. And whether I talk to you here is up to Scientific American. It is not up to you.
I don't have to insult people to have discussion. Obviously, you do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhatever dude. Good luck in your life.
"You can only have a reasonable and respectful discussion with honest people who deserve respect."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisyou are absolutely right, dude. Which is why I can't have a discussion with you.
"I don't have to insult people to have discussion. Obviously, you do."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA simple look further back on this thread will show you casting aspersions also. And Fetzer is particularly prodigious about casting them.
"you are absolutely right, dude. Which is why I can't have a discussion with you."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm nto the one who's been knowingly peddling a lie for 9 years. Fetzer is. I'm not the one defending this proven liar. You are.
Insult guy is still trying to have a discussion with me! I love you, Insult guy!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Trying"? I'm succeeding quite well.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo, rmdragon: did the towers come down in 10 seconds or over 13?
Does it matter? If so, why? If not, why is Fetzer continually making the 10 secodns claim?
So...calling someone "insult guy" isn't an act of name calling or insulting in any way.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisrmdragon,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think you are missing the point.
Jim Fetzer has made very specific claims here that he says are "proof" the "official story" is false. Leaving aside the canard of the "official story" I already discussed, Fetzer is making specific claims of FACT that he is either claiming happened, claims is true, is in a report, or asking us all to accept at face value.
It is always the responsibility of someone making a claim to support the validity of the premises of that claim and with evidence. And not only must the evidence support the claim, it must be consistent with ALL of the other evidence. How do we know we should or shouldn't accept Fetzer's claims?
Now this is the position ALL of us are in. The events of 9/11 took place. How do you and I, as individuals, evaluate all of the information and evidence from hundreds of different sources on our own? How do we use the power of our own intellect, reasoning abilities, and particular knowledge to conclude what happened and why, what didn't happen and why, and who is and is not telling the truth?
Here is an example, one of two claims Fetzer made earlier about the Pentagon:
"#14. The hit point at the Pentagon was too small to accommodate a 100-ton airliner with a 125-foot wingspan and a tail that stands 44-feet above the ground; the debris was wrong for a Boeing 757: no wings, no fuselage, no seats, no bodies, no luggage, no tail! Not even the engines were recovered, which means that the official account is not true."
He's making several specific claims of evidence that leads him to state a conclusion: "the official account is not true." He is using this as one of many similar claims and wants you to accept them at face value as proof that the government has misrepresented the facts.
Now, rmdragon, do you accept those claims as true? If so, why? How do you evaluate them as true or false, on your own, to either accept them or reject them as valid? Is Fetzer actually giving evidence or is he just making claims? Should anyone just accept them at face value without further information?
Tell us how you would deal with this.
"#1: The impact of planes cannot have caused enough damage to bring the buildings down, since the buildings were designed to withstand them (as Frank DeMartini, the project manager, has observed), the planes alleged to have hit were similar to those they were designed to withstand, and the buildings continued to stand after those impacts with negligible effects."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLets examine this.
"The impact of planes cannot have caused enough damage to bring the buildings down" - True, evidenced by the fact the buildings remained standing, which is something you point out.
"since the buildings were designed to withstand them (as Frank DeMartini, the project manager, has observed)" - Less true. The idea of a plane, lost in the fog, crashing into the building (as had happened to the Empire State Building) was brought up when the building was being designed. But, since this went untested, no one could be absolutely sure.
"the planes alleged to have hit were similar to those they were designed to withstand," - False. The airplane that was thought about in the fog/crash scenario was a Boeing 707. American Flight 11 was a Boeing 767-223ER (North Tower) and United Flight 175 was a Boeing 767-222 (South Tower).
"and the buildings continued to stand after those impacts with negligible effects." - Misleading. Here is where you point out that the buildings survived the impact, but calling the effects of the impacts negligible is false. The buildings had received severe structural damage and massive fires had been started.
You don't need to demean somebody to discuss stuff. I was fine with the discussion until it devoled into an unprovoked mean spirited personal attack. After that I just can't take insult guy seriously anymore. So now he's my lovable, fluffy insult guy. He lowered the bar. I'm just meeting insult guy on his on terms.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisbasically, I'm not out to insult people on a personal level on this thread, and if I do end up offending someone legitamately... call me on it, I will have no problem apologizing, that's not what I came here to do. All I ask is to be regarded with the same basic social courtesy.
bjebje-
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks for engaging me on this. Perhaps there's a underlining misunderstanding in all of this.
I'm not neccassarily defending Jim's points specifically. I may not even agree with all of them. There's a lot of theories out there and I don't subscribe to alot of them. But at the base of it, he's looking at as there's something not right with the official story. I don't really question hijackers and planes. the towers falling maybe seems a little "not right" and moreso with WTC7. And even hitting the pentagon. for me the conspiracy lies in the setup of it all and the coincidences. maybe nothing more thanarrangements to setup the hijackers and leave to door open so to speak. still that constitues an "inside job"
I'll comment more on this later....
Thanks for reading
rmdragon,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSeveral things to consider:
1. What constitutes too many coincidences? What criteria do you use to characterize them? They are only seen in hindsight and there are always coincidences that seem odd, improbable, or impossible, but you must have criteria to judge the difference between what a coincidence is and what purposeful action is. See this for some guidance: http://www.davidmyers.org/Brix?pageID=91
2. I've already characterized the "official story" as a Truther canard in an earlier comment. It has connotations that mislead, is too vague, and it allows conspiracy theory promoters to define the term in any way that is convenient at the moment. So when you use the term yourself, what constitutes the "official story" to you and why should we consider that in place of the massive independent evidence that comes from many hundreds of disparate and independent sources, pieces of evidence, and eyewitnesses?
3. Remember, Jim Fetzer is not "theorizing". He is making definitive claims of fact. He never said it "might not have been a Boeing 757 that hit the Pentagon." He is saying definitively that "it could not have been a Boeing 757."
So far, you are using a narrative which is common to all conspiracy theories. It only took one day after 9/11 for the all those elements to show up on conspiracy forums on Usenet as the narrative for 9/11, and not much longer for the items in Jim Fetzer's list to surface.
In sum, the best thing you could do is to first sort through all of the assumptions you are making, how you came to them, and why.
part II.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisit's said that the more complex the conspiracy goes, the least like it is to be true. Also the more outlandish it is the less realistic it is.
but add another factor to that equation. Coincidence.
The more complex the coincidences the less like it's coincidence? the more outlandish the coincidence, the more likely it's not. Does this sound at the very least, reasonable. my reasoning for not going with the official story is there are too many convienient coincidences to ignore.
by the time the towers fell, the conspiracy had already happened. sifting through the youtube video rubble for theories, maybe someone will find something conclusive. maybe not, we weren't there to know if it was thermite charges or just "plane" physics. ( sorry could resist the pun) but however it happened. it did. whether it took 10 seconds or 13 seconds. whatever. that's not the issue.
given that physics and engineering science should be by nature "absolute" in a sense. after all we have skyscrapers and cites built around the world for decades. Then at the very least the informed experts on that stuff ( which I am not) would at least be able to agree on the collapse science. They don't. Seems even the mathmaticians can't all agree that 2+2=4.
And that alone is enough to give me pause.
and getting back to the coincindece aspect for a sec...
these are the only skyscrapers to completely collapse due to fire ( and only fire wTC 7). In the history of building things. There's been plenty of skyscraper fires, though. On the other hand, there have been plenty of buildings brought down by demolition.
and to that end, it's a convienient, advantagous coincidence.
If any other security co. that had no realtion to bush were involved with the WTC
if there was no " planes hitting buildings drill" on that day.
if DC had scrambled jets over washington at all.
If Larry bought the buildings 5 years ago, rather than 6 weeks before.
if the " new pearl harbor paper" wasn't written a year prior and didn't have a bunch of bush admin names on it.
if the 2000 elections were hinged on any other state other than Gov. jeb bush's florida.
if we didn't jump into iraq (where former pres bush had his war..)
If a even month or 2 after 9/11 the bush admin form an investigation committee and gave them full cooperation and funding.
and so on....
If Al Gore had won the presidential race (which he sort of did) do you think the 9/11 thing would have happened?
this is the stuff to look at and debunk.. not whether it took 10 or 13 seconds for a tower collapse.
rmdragon,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou probably wrote your part II before reading my comment so take a re-look at what you are saying.
You state: "Then at the very least the informed experts on that stuff ( which I am not) would at least be able to agree on the collapse science."
The informed experts do agree. It was the most comprehensive forensic investigation in history. The NIST investigations are available for every relevant expert in the world to analyze. The evidence, methodology, and conlsuions are there for any forensic scientist, structural engineer, physicist, chemist, and architect in the entire world to analyze, agree with or rebut. It is after all VITAL to those in the relevant professions to understand the nature of the damage, fires, fire fighting ability, structural engineering and so on.
Those who dissent must demonstrate factually that their claims hold up. The fact that you have those who CLAIM that the towers could not collapse in the way they did without explosives does not mean there is valid disagreement. It does NOT mean they are valid arguments. And if you think it is like controlled demolition, then you can try and find ANY demolition technique in the world that would waste so many explosives and so much money by exploding each floor from top to bottom to collapse the building instead of what all demolitions do is to allow gravity to do the work with a little push. It doesn't happen that way in the demolition industry.
Also, you accept the claim that the WTC towers were "the only skyscrapers to completely collapse due to fire." What does that actually mean? There are plenty of steel buildings that have collapsed due to fire. There are plenty of skyscrapers that did NOT collpase due to fire because they were not built like the WTC towers nor suffered the combined effects of airplane strikes and fires that were not fought. There are skyscrapers with concrete cores that had no prior damage, burned for longer hours but whose fires were able to be fought.
One should not just accept a vague and misleading claim that the WTC towers were "the only skyscrapers to completely collapse due to fire."
That gets back to what I've stated earlier. You really have to carefully your own assumptions and where they camme from.
The quality of thought from the likes of bjebje is simply pathetic. Not only have I laid out twenty (20) points of refutation -- each of which has been substantiated by the research of members of Scholars -- but I have laid out my theory of the case as to who was actually responsible.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd I have given links to presentation where I lay it out:
"Why doubt 9/11?"
http://twilightpines.com//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17&Itemid=46
"Was 9/11 an 'inside job'?"
http://twilightpines.com/JF-BuenosAires/Buenos-Aires.html
"Are Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan justified by 9/11?"
http://noliesradio.org/archives/21621/
Not only did the buildings continue to stand after the alleged airplane crashes, but Frank DiMartini, who was the project manager, was recorded in a video explaining why their intricate lattice design would mean the towers could sustain even multiple hits with only local damage:
Frank DiMartini statement (video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EREolpI1G4w
Notice that Frank even uses the analogy of a mosquito screen, where the impact of those planes on the towers would be like sticking pencils through the netting: it not only does no serious damage to the netting, but the netting is hardly affected by the pencil's penetration.
In my presentations, within the first fifteen slides or so, I offer comparisons between the 707s, which were the largest commercial carriers at the time, and the 767s that allegedly hit the building. They are very comparable,
as I explain, where the higher cruising speed of the 707 would mean that, if both had hit at their cruising speed, the 707 would have done more damage.
What this means is that shills like this guy bjebje are suppressing evidence and distorting my position, since I do the things they claim I don't do in the presentations I have linked. Go to my London symposium lecture, "Are Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan justified by 9/11?", and you will see that I am quite explicit about those I take to have been responsible.
This op was motivated by persons who were associated with the Project for the New American Century, including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Pearle, Donald Feith, General Richard Meyer, Rudi Giuliani, and Larry Silverstein, with some help from the friends in the Mossad. (See "9/11 and the Neo-Con Agenda" and "Is 9/11 reearch 'anti-Semitic'?")
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is the same officials who forestalled a 9/11 inquiry for 441 days, for example, and who selected a Bush/Cheney insider, Philip Zelikow, to be its executive director, a man who, as I have previously explained, has the creation and maintenance of public myths as his area of academic specialization. (Go to http://911scholars.org, "articles" and "general articles".)
So bjebje's entire line of argument is fraudulent. He is counting on the failure of others to know enough about my work or the state of research on 9/11 to carry the day. I suppose if I were not here to call his bluff, he would get away with it. But his entire position is built upon deceit and deception.
Unfortunately, I have a life to live apart from threads like this one. But the relentless and repetitive rubbish they are posting is beyond belief. How many times do I have to explain that the difference between 10 and 13 seconds makes no difference, since a bona-fide collapse would have taken around 97 seconds, not 13.
But that is the best they can do so their seize it like a pit-bull and try to make something out of nothing. The official account states 10 seconds, as I have already explained. But since parts of the building were blown up and outward, it may well have taken as much as 13 seconds for them to have hit the ground.
But how can a position that contradicts THE 9/11 REPORT possibly support the official account? It can't, of course, which means that my critics have no coherent account of their own. It is not that I lack a theory about the case, but that their theory is pure bunk, where no one who cares about this country would want to promote it, much less in the corrupt fashion they illustrate here.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"10:28 PM 12/18/10
The quality of thought from the likes of bjebje is simply pathetic."
Way to engage in intellectual debate, Fetzer.
But then, not much more can be expected from a pathological liar like you.
So, Fetzer, in this thread you contonue to assert that the towers came down in 10 seconds, when you know full well that the Naudet video proves they took longer than 13 seconds, that the seismo readings prove they took longer than 13 seconds, and still photos taken show they took longer than 13 seconds.
How does it feel to be a pathological liar, Fetzer?
"Not only have I laid out twenty (20) points of refutation"
Meaning you cut&pasted the same crap you'v been peddling for 9 years now.
You are one sick puppy, ocschwar. Your mind-numbing repetition of allegations long since refuted does not enhance your credibility, which, at this point in time, must be nil for anyone who has followed your posts. My comments are chock full of evidence, arguments, and links to more. Yours are redundant, vacuous, and display signs of a very warped mind.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou're the one peddling a lie knowingly for 9 years.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor 9 years you've claimed that the towers came down in 10 seconds.
For 9 years you've known they came down in 13+ seconds.
You've even gone so far as to peddle this lie in this very comment thread.
And, you're too cowardly to address the issue directly, so you resort straight to insults.
By the way, learn some grammar, dolt. I've been repeating 1 allegation and 1 only, since the proper way to deal with liars like you is to confront you about one lie at a time. Once you've explained why you'v been peddling the 10 second lie, we'll get to another one of your lies.
Since I only founded Scholars in December 2005 and did not post "Why doubt 9/11?" until 2006 at the earliest,you don't even have the most basic facts straight. That you persist in this nonsense about "lies" indicates that you do not even understand the English language, since lies are only committed by persons who know what they are saying is false but persist in asserting it anyway.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat describes you, ocschwar, not me. You have been repeating endlessly this drivel about 13 seconds, when I have debunked it many times, including, most recently, in post #202. Since the number comes directly from THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT, page 305: "At 9:58:59, the South Tower collapsed in ten seconds, . . ." Now what is there about this that you do not understand?
Moreover, even if some of the debris took a few seconds longer because it was blown upward and outward by the massive explosions that converted these 500,000-ton steel and concrete structures into millions of cubic yards of very fine dust, that is insignificant when you consider that an actual collapse of one floor upon another would have taken about 97 seconds. (See THE 9/11 CONSPIRACY, page 93, for the graphs that illustrate it.)
So not only have I not been committing lies (by citing the number provided by THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT) but I have gone out of my way to explain -- several times now -- why your insistence upon 13 seconds might be correct for some of the debris (parts of the buildings what were blown upward and outward) but does not save the collapse hypthesis, where a collapse would have taken much, much longer -- using your 13 seconds, 97 - 13 = 84 seconds more, which means the buildings did not "collapse"!
So unless you are incapable of performing subtraction, we are all bewildered at your persistence in making a point that does not salvage your case. The fact that you are doing this over and over again, moreover, suggests rather strongly that you are either cognitively challenged or emotionally impaired -- or both, which seems increasingly likely with each new repetition of one of your patented posts, which are poorly reasoned and factually confused.
I can hope rmdragon may be taking my advice to take a step back and examine his own assumptions and examine Truther claims like Fetzer's more carefully.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisrmdragon would see doing his own research that Fetzer's rpeated claim that "You have been repeating endlessly this drivel about 13 seconds, when I have debunked it many times," simply doesn't hold up. Please refer to my comment #40:
"Fetzer knows full well that all three towers, WTC 1, 2, and 7, took 13+ seconds to collapse. See, for example, WTC 2:
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYHPGdIzueA&feature=related."
Fetzer already knows that. He also knows that he is unable to demonstrate that "parts of the buildings what were blown upward and outward," yet he happily repeats them as true and wants you to accept them as true.
As I wrote earlier, Fetzer cannot support his assertions and claims. I used just one of his claims:
"#14: The hit point at the Pentagon was too small to accommodate a 100-ton airliner with a 125-foot wingspan and a tail that stands 44-feet above the ground; the debris was wrong for a Boeing 757: no wings, no fuselage, no seats, no bodies, no luggage, no tail! Not even the engines were recovered, which means that the official account is not true."
As anyone can see, these are nothing more than unsupported assertions; Fetzer supplies no supporting evidence.
As I also wrote earlier, there are many premises, implications, and consequences to claims that must be true if one is to accept them as valid. Fetzer knows full well that he has no ability to satisfy ANY condition to show that his claims are valid. For instance, he cannot take number 14 above demonstrate it is valid or true. To do so would only expose how shoddy the claim is.
But Fetzer can count on many people not to question his claims - that's how many conspiracy theories survive so long but never actually prove a conspiracy. It doesn't matter if they have been challenged and/or debunked 1 time, 10 times, or 1,000 times. Fetzer will just ignore them and happily repeat the same nonsense ad infinitum.
rmdragon, if you are still with us, you can ask Fetzer to support his claims. Start with #14 above and watch how Fetzer won't be able to satisfy all the conditions to be accepted as valid on their own or as part of a wider conspiracy.
You might ask WHAT conditions? This is where using your own reasoning and critical thinking abilities come in. This is what true skeptics do and what makes us informed human beings and citizens. It is why Fetzer counts on you not to think for yourself.
Since I have laid out a substantial case against the official account and for complicity by those whom I have previously identified (with a great deal but far from all of the evidence that supports that case) in many of my lectures, including these two:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Was 9/11 an 'inside job'?"
http://twilightpines.com/JF-BuenosAires/Buenos-Aires.html
"Are Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan justified by 9/11?"
http://noliesradio.org/archives/21621/
where I present (in the former) around 100 slides with explanations of their importance as evidence, why don't you take each one -- start with slide #1, then slide #2, and so forth -- and tell us what I have wrong? Explain what I have argued and explain what I have wrong.
Because if you can't do this -- and I am very confident that you cannot -- it will prove that everything you have been asserting here is complete and utter rubbish, as you and I both know. And in the process my case will have been sustained!
You might view my London presentation (the second listed above) as a preliminary to your response to my Buenos Aires Powerpoint, since I say more about the parties I hold responsible in the former than in the latter. But it will be impressive if you make even a feeble attempt to rise to a challenge I know you are unable to meet.
I have just checked and this presentation includes 114 slides, so there are 114 opportunities for you to prove me wrong. Let's see what you can do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Was 9/11 an 'inside job'?"
http://twilightpines.com/JF-BuenosAires/Buenos-Aires.html
Under the circumstances, it would be an entirely fair and reasonable inference to draw that, if you do not rise to the challenge, it is because you are unable to respond.
And your failure to respond will be evidence that what you have been saying throughout this thread is not only false but provably false, tacitly admitting I am right.
"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this01:18 PM 12/19/10
I have just checked and this presentation includes 114 slides, so there are 114 opportunities for you to prove me wrong. Let's see what you can do. "
You have laid out a crock of horsesh-t composed of umpteen lies.
One of them is the 10 seconds lie, which you have been knowingly peddling for at least 5 years (I'll stand corrected on it being 9 years...)
You know full well the towers took longer than 13 seconds to come down. And yet you continue to peddle the 10 seconds lie even now.
Why? Why must you be such a pathological liar?
sorry, holiday and life don't leave me with alot of time to get into this... yes our posting got mixed up. let me start from the top.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSeveral things to consider:
1. coincindences- how many? there's no perfect equation or magic number. There seems to MANY and they also seem to be self serving by those who the abilty and resource to manufacture the elements of coincidence and who ultimately benefited. (i guess that's criteria.)
of course, it's only seen in hindsight, that's kind of an obvious statement. but the flip side, a series of coincindeces recognized before they would happen, I would consider that a premditated plan.
2.official story- defined as the general account of what the bush administration said happened, and from the 9/11 commission report also as the commonly accepted series of event. also known as what debunkers must believe! :) j/k
3. no disrespect to Jim, but I'm not arguing his points. And my views aren't neccessarily based off only his findings. He MAY have valid points.
as for the pentagon.. you answer me this- why did it take 4 years of resistance to release just several blurry frames of footage from just the one camera of the plane and an explosion. when ultimately all it does is support the idea of the "official story". It certainly didn't add anything "new". How come this was offered up sooner?
"So far, you are using a narrative which is common to all conspiracy theories"
Yes. That's what makes it a conspiracy theory and not a romantic comedy. Wouldn't the most effective conspiracies also be the most difficult to prove?
do you not believe that a conspiracy (in general) can exsist at all?
and all of this is on the usenet groups from day 1? now you're starting to sound like a truther! :)
In sum- I have. This isn't all based on just what i've seen here. I've been following truthers and debunkers on line stuff for years. The stuff that I've talked about are the things I still question after all of that.
Start here. Look at the slides and respond to the text:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSlide #1. Construction began in 1966 and occupancy in 1970. The 110-story Twin Towers incorporated a novel "tube within a tube" design and were capable of supporting 20 times their expected "live load" including floors, furniture, and human beings. But it appears to have been far greater.
Slide #2. Their 47 enormous core columns were connected to the 240 external support columns by steel trusses, which were welded at both ends and filled with 4" of poured concrete, creating an intricate lattice structure with open office space.
Slide #3. The World Trade Center included five other buildings beyond the Twin Towers, one of which--WTC-7--was a 47 story structure that came down at 5:20 PM, around 7 hours after the towers had been destroyed.
Slide #4. A French film crew, the Naudet Brothers, “just happened” to be in an ideal position to record the first strike. The image was rather blurry and indistinct, where some have suggested that it looked like several unmanned aerial vehicles flying in close formation. It did not look like a Boeing 767.
Slide #5. Here is a time sequence from the Naudet brothers’ film that was prepared by Rosalee Grable. If a 767 has a wing span of 156 feet and the side of each Twin Tower is 208 feet, could this possibly be a 767? And if it’s not, what is it? Some nice clips are found at her web site, http://webfairy.org/
Slide #6. Jack White, the legendary photo-analyst of JFK fame, made this comparison, which shows that the “cut out” in the steel support columns has been enhanced. Maybe it didn’t look right to those who were managing the script.
Slide #7. The “impact” would be accompanied by a substantial fireball with dust and debris. The North Tower was officially struck by AA Flight 11 around its 94th-96th floor.
Slide #8. The hit on the South Tower by United Flight 175 was even more peculiar than that on the North. The plane--officially, another Boeing 767--was flying at an estimated 560 mph, which turns out the be its cruising speed at 35,000 feet but aerodynamically impossible at 700-1,000 feet.
Slide #9. Its entrance into the building was a fantasy. When you study the relevant frames, there is no a/pparent damage to either the building or the plane. No mass of debris was broken off and no “cut out” was created.
Continue. Look at the slides and respond to the text:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSlide #10. This diagram shows that the purported plane would have intersected with eight floors, each defined by steel trusses carrying an acre of concrete apiece. A plane would have crumpled, its wings and tail broken off, with seats, bodies, and luggage falling to the ground. None of that happened.
Slide #11. The image that was created in the steel was almost as though it had been created artificially by specially placed explosives or perhaps an external laser. There was a cartoon-like quality to it.
Slide #12. The nose of a 767 is quite vulnerable and includes loads of fragile electronics. Surprisingly, the nose of this “plane” transited the building and came out the other side of this steel-and-concrete structure intact.
Slide #13. If there was a plane loaded with jet fuel, most of it burned up in these spectacular fireballs in ten or fifteen seconds, leaving only ordinary office fires in their wake. NIST (The National Institute of Standards and Technology) would study 236 samples of steel from the towers and find that 233 had not been exposed to temperatures above 500*F and the other three not above 1200*F. Underwriters Laboratory had certified the steel to 2000*F for three to four hours without incurring any damage. The fire in the South Tower lasted about an hour, in the North about an hour and a half. The fires burned neither hot enough nor long enough to weaken the steel, much less melt it.
Slide #14. Frank DeMartini, the project manager, explained that the towers were constructed to withstand the impact of even multiple hits by the then-largest commercial carrier, which was a Boeing 707. Such an impact would cause local damage but not threaten the integrity of either building. He said it would be like sticking a pencil through mosquito netting.
Slide #15. The 707 and 767s that purportedly hit the towers were very similar in their mass and fuel capacity. Had they hit at their cruising speed, the 707--whose cruising speed was higher--would have done more damage than a 767.
Look at each of these slides and respond to the text:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSlide #16. When Andy Card notified President Bush of the second hit, Bush remained in an elementary classroom for seven more minutes. He would later--on public occasions--observe that, when he watched the first hit, he thought, “Well, there’s one terrible pilot!” The Naudet footage, however, would not be broadcast until the following day. Since no one would make such a remark after the second hit, he appears to have had access to closed Secret Service television coverage.
Slide #17. There were enormous explosions in the subbasements of the Twin Towers shortly before the alleged impacts of those two planes. William Rodriguez, in the North Tower, witnessed one of them.
Slide #18. This explosion damaged the open lobby, destroyed heavy machinery, and--as I learned during a conversation with Willie in Madison--filled the subbasements with water as the sprinkler systems drained into them.
Slide #19. These explosions registered at .7 and .9 on the Richter scale at a seismic laboratory maintained by Columbia University. The explosions that destroyed the Twin Towers would come in at about 2.1 and 2.3.
Slide #20. Based on FAA and radar data, Gordon Ross and Craig Furlong discovered that these explosions occurred as much as 14-17 seconds before the reverberations from the mid-90th floors in the North Tower and around the 80th floor in the South, which did not even register on the Richter scale.
Slide #21. As “Loose Change” vividly portrays, many firemen reported hearing explosions throughout the towers. The demolition sequence of the South Tower appears to have been triggered by a report by the Battalion Seven Chief, who radioed from the 78th floor, “Ladder 15, we’ve got two isolated pockets of fire. We should be able to knock it down with two line.” Once the fires had been extinguished, there would have been no plausible explanation for their “collapse”.
Slide #22. Although it was hit second, the South Tower was destroyed first. The top thirty floors (above the 80th) actually began to pivot and fall to the ground. As it tilted toward the horizontal, all thirty floors turned into very fine dust!
Slide #23. The destruction was thorough and complete as each floor awaited its turn from the top down to be “blown to kingdom come”, in the memorable phrase of Morgan Reynolds, former chief economist in the Department of Labor in the Bush administration and professor at Texas A&M.
Look at each of these slides and respond to the text:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSlide #24. Both towers were converted into dust in approximately 10 second apiece. Here is a four-part sequence of the North Tower, which is distinguishable from the South by the large antenna on its top.
Slide #25. The sequence as it unfolds is simply stunning.
Slide #26. Words alone are inadequate to describe it.
Slide #27. The destruction complete, symmetrical, and abrupt.
Slide #28. According to the government, we are observing a “pancake collapse” of one floor upon another. Judy Wood, a former professor of mechanical engineering, has made a diagram. Even then the core columns should have remained standing
Slide #29. Here is an actual “pancake collapse”, which cannot occur with a steel-reinforced structure, but is not uncommon with concrete buildings like this one. This one occurred after an earthquake in Pakistan. Notice the stack of “pancakes”.
Slide #30. Dr. Wood has compared their destruction to two enormous trees that are turning to sawdust from the top down. This diagram is a far closer approximation to what actually occurred.
Slide #31. Charles Boldwyn, a high-school physics instructor, has calculated that while the government claims that the collapse of the top 16 floors of the North Tower caused the bottom 96 to collapse, it would have taken 588 16-floor segments to acquire enough mass to cause such an effect.
Slide #32. Astonishingly enough, these buildings were destroyed “below ground level”, which I personally confirmed with Fr. Frank Morales of St. Mark’s Church, one of the first responders.
Slide #33. Remember that this sequence took place in approximately ten seconds, as even The 9/11 Commission Report confirms
Slide #34. Dr. Wood has calculated that a bowling ball in free fall dropped from the top of a 110-story building would hit the ground in 9.22 seconds in a vacuum--without even air to resist it.
Slide #35. If one floor had fallen on another and caused the lower floor to fall, it would have taken 96.7 seconds. Their “collapse” was not physically possible, as even considerations of time alone reveal.
Slide #36. The problem with the official account, as Paul Craig Roberts, a prominent public intellectual, has observed, is “a massive energy deficit”. Some powerful sources of energy beyond modest fires and gravitational force were involved. Boldwyn has calculated that turning one tower into very find dust would have required the energy equivalent to 2.4 Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs.
Slide #37. The visual experience was of “shock and awe”.
Fetzer, you are a pathological liar:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"
Slide #14. Frank DeMartini, the project manager, explained that the towers were constructed to withstand the impact of even multiple hits by the then-largest commercial carrier, which was a Boeing 707. Such an impact would cause local damage but not threaten the integrity of either building. He said it would be like sticking a pencil through mosquito netting."
Yes, he did a calculation with pen and paper, in 1966 (back when there were no computers more powerful than a blackberry) indicating that a 707 at 150 MPH, without a full fuel load, would not knock a tower down.
How funny that you omit these details.
So a tower predicted to withstand a 707 at 150, without a full fuel load, was not able to withstand a 767 (i.e heavier plane) travelling at 500MPH (i.e. 9 times the kinetic energy), and with a full fuel load.
What a surprise.
How conveniently you also omit that De Martini's calculation was a guess, and no more. They did not have finite element simulation capacity back in 1966.
And by the way, why are you still peddling the lie that the towers came down in 110 seconds when you know full well they came down in 13_+ seconds? You've seen the Naudet videos. So you know full well that you are lying.
Look at the slides and respond to the correlated text:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSlide #38. Footage of the destruction of the North Tower even captured one of its core columns being turned into dust.
Slide #39. Dr. Wood has also estimated the conversion of each tower would have produced enough dust to cover 2.5 square miles an inch deep. While they resembled the pyroclastic clouds emitted from volcanoes, these clouds were “uncomfortably warm” but not intensely hot. The energy might have come from cold fusion.
Slide #40. Millions of cubic yards of very fine dust covered the city and gradually blew out to sea.
Slide #41. Imagine the feeling experienced by those where were responsible for cleaning this up.
Slide #42. In addition to the massive quantifies of dust, tons upon tons of paper were distributed throughout the city. Astonishingly, the paper survived undamaged--neither burned nor singed.
Slide #43. Here you can see what Fr. Frank Morales told me on two occasions, namely: that the towers were destroyed below ground level. In this photograph, you can see Building 7, which is still standing but seems to be “fuming”--in Judy Wood’s language--on one side
Slide #44. The fires in this building were very modest and should have been extinguished by the sprinkler system. It was not hit by any airplane and had no jet-fuel based fire. An extremely robust building, it was constructed above two enormous generators that provided electricity for lower Manhattan.
Slide #45. No steel structure skyscraper has ever collapsed due to fire before 9/11 or since. This fire at the First Interstate Bank Building--a 62-story skyscraper in Los Angeles--burned for 3 1/2 hours on May 8, 1988--and was far more extensive than any of the fires at the WTC, yet it did not collap
Slide #46. The collapse of Building 7 was complete, symmetrical, and abrupt, where all of the floors were moving at the same time and it fell into its own foundation. These are key features of classic controlled demolitions. The Twin Towers were taken out by demolitions under control, but they were not "classic".
Slide #47. While WTC-7 fell at the rate of free fall in about 6.5 seconds, there was a pile of debris of about 12% of the building’s mass, which, in this case, was equal to about 5.5 floors (or “pancakes”).
Slide #48. WTC-7 came down at 5:20 PM. Yet at 4:57 PM, one Jane Stanley of the BBC announced that “the Solomon Brothers’ building”--another name by which it was known--had already collapsed, 43 minutes before that
would happen.
http://twilightpines.com/JF-BuenosAires/Buenos-Aires.html
That you persist in this nonsense about "lies" indicates that you do not even understand the English language, since lies are only committed by persons who know what they are saying is false but persist in asserting it anyway. Moreover, since it would have taken about 97 seconds for the buildings to have collapsed, you are off the mark by 84 seconds! And yet you persist with this nonsense? You really do need professional help.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat describes you, ocschwar, not me. You have been repeating endlessly this drivel about 13 seconds, when I have debunked it many times, including, most recently, in post #202. Since the number comes directly from THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT, page 305: "At 9:58:59, the South Tower collapsed in ten seconds, . . ." Now what is there about this that you do not understand?
Moreover, even if some of the debris took a few seconds longer because it was blown upward and outward by the massive explosions that converted these 500,000-ton steel and concrete structures into millions of cubic yards of very fine dust, that is insignificant when you consider that an actual collapse of one floor upon another would have taken about 97 seconds. (See THE 9/11 CONSPIRACY, page 93, for the graphs that illustrate it.)
So not only have I not been committing lies (by citing the number provided by THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT) but I have gone out of my way to explain -- several times now -- why your insistence upon 13 seconds might be correct for some of the debris (parts of the buildings what were blown upward and outward) but does not save the collapse hypthesis, where a collapse would have taken much, much longer -- using your 13 seconds, 97 - 13 = 84 seconds more -- which means the buildings did not "collapse"!
Unless you are incapable of performing subtraction, we are all bewildered at your persistence in making a point that does not salvage your case. The fact that you are doing this over and over again, moreover, suggests rather strongly that you are either cognitively challenged or emotionally impaired or both -- which seems increasingly likely with each new repetition of one of your patented posts, which are poorly reasoned and factually confused.
"That you persist in this nonsense about "lies" indicates that you do not even understand the English language, since lies are only committed by persons who know what they are saying is false but persist in asserting it anyway. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou have been asserting, for years, that the towers came down in 10 seconds. They came down in 13+ seconds. You know full well that they came down in 13+ seconds.
Ergo, you have been lying. For years now.
"Moreover, since it would have taken about 97 seconds for the buildings to have collapsed, you are off the mark by 84 seconds! And yet you persist with this nonsense? You really do need professional help."
And apart from being a pathological liar, you are ridiculously off base. Keith Seffen's journal (you know, an actual professor of structural engineering, publishing in a peer reviewed journal)details precisely why 13 seconds is about right for such a building collapse.
"
That describes you, ocschwar, not me. You have been repeating endlessly this drivel about 13 seconds, when I have debunked it many times, including, most recently, in post #202. Since the number comes directly from THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT, page 305: "At 9:58:59, the South Tower collapsed in ten seconds, . . "
You have seen the Naudet video. The Naudet video, i.e. actual video footage of the collapses, shows very clearly that it took longer than 10 seconds.
This is a sloppy comment on the 9/11 Commission's part, but then they were not charged with investigating the collapse, only the attack itself. Your omission here is yet another example of what a pathological liar you are.
Again: you know full well the towers took 13+ seconds to coollapse. And yet you continue to claim they took 10. You have cchosen too behave like a pathological liar. Why?
Since you have already conceded the obvious, namely, that the buildings did not collapse after the planes hit them, why do you persist in claiming that Frank DeMartini was wrong? According to you, the planes hit them and they did not fall. So apparently DeMartini was right!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhich is one more illustration of the demented state of your mind. You talk about a difference between 10 seconds and 13 seconds that doesn't save the collapse hypothesis, as I have repeatedly explained. You are short by 84 seconds! So even if they had taken 13 seconds instead of 10, as THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT asserts, the buildings still could not have collapsed.
And now you want to impugn Frank DeMartini for observing that the buildings could have taken multiple hits with only local damage but with no threat to the integrity of the buildings structer, which, when tested, turned out to be correct! Your reasoning processes certainly appear to be malfunctioning.
You argument should be that the fires burned intensely and caused the steel to weaken if not melt. But the burned neither hot enough nor long enough to cause the steel to weaken, much less melt, as I explained in Slide #13.
If the steel had weakened, then the behavior of the Twin Towers would have been completely different. Since the fires were asymmetrically distributed, there would have
been some asymmetrical sagging and tilting, all gradual and slow, not the complete, abrupt and total destruction that actually took place.
So I suggest you back up and ask yourself what you are doing here. If it's merely to harass by posting the same false claims over and over again, you have accomplished your task. But you are deluded if you think anyone is going to be impressed by your arguments.
The only inference to draw from your performance here is
that you are on a mission to do your best to obfuscate and obscure what we know about 9/11. I don't believe that anyone is going to be fooled, however, unless that would be you!
You have grossly insulted the intelligence of the readers of this thread. Based upon your past performance, you are going to continue to post baseless allegations and ad hominem attacks -- even though each one discredits you more and more. Well, be my guest. If that is your goal, you are doing a superb job of it!
"Since you have already conceded the obvious, namely, that the buildings did not collapse after the planes hit them, why do you persist in claiming that Frank DeMartini was wrong? According to you, the planes hit them and they did not fall. So apparently DeMartini was right! "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLast time I was in New York I noticed that the buildings weren't there. The Empire State Building, however, was still there.
"
Which is one more illustration of the demented state of your mind. You talk about a difference between 10 seconds and 13 seconds that doesn't save the collapse hypothesis, as I have repeatedly explained."
If 10 seconds versus 13 seconds doesn't matter, then why do you keep peddling the 10 seconds lie?
If it doesn't even matter, why do you insist on lying, Fetzer? Surely if it didn't matter, you would have corrected yourself and moved on. Yet you didn't.
" You are short by 84 seconds! So even if they had taken 13 seconds instead of 10, as THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT asserts, the buildings still could not have collapsed."
Funny, but Keith Seffen, the one structural engineer who actually did publish a peer-reviewed look atht he collapse says they could, and did collapse. As for 84 seconds, I challenge you to find one measly example of a building taking that long to collapse. Here's a hint: no building collapses one floor at a time.
"
And now you want to impugn Frank DeMartini for observing that the buildings could have taken multiple hits with only local damage but with no threat to the integrity of the buildings structer, which, when tested, turned out to be correct! Your reasoning processes certainly appear to be malfunctioning."
De Martini did a paper calculation in 1966, since computers were not up to the task. You are the one impugning him, not I.
Now again: you know full well the towers took 13 seconds to come down. Why are you still peddling the 10 seconds lie RIGHT NOW, IN COMMENT 220? Why are you so pathologically devoted to lying that you continue to peddle the 10 seconds lie after having it rubbed in your face like you're a bad puppy?
You are sick. No other buildings would have taken that long because no other buildings were that tall! I have told you were to find the calculations. They are in the Powerpoint I have invited you to consider in Slides #34 and #35. So you have no excuse for not knowing better.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have a limited tolerance for insanity. Your repetition of arguments that have been refuted signifies to me that you are incapable of rational argument. Certainly, you are not responsive to logic or to evidence. Your mind is not simply closed but actually impenetrable!
If there is a better example on this forum of someone who is emotionally and mentally warped, I cannot imaging who he would be. Some of your allies may be in competition,
but the race is not even close. You win the prize for most demented! Wear your badge with pride.
"You are sick. No other buildings would have taken that long because no other buildings were that tall! I have told you were to find the calculations"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJim Fetzer, you babbling idiot: no building has come down one floor at a time. That is not how buildings collapse. Ever.
Hence Keith Seffen's article on the collapse of the WTC towers.
"
I have a limited tolerance for insanity. Your repetition of arguments that have been refuted signifies to me that you are incapable of rational argument. Certainly, you are not responsive to logic or to evidence. Your mind is not simply closed but actually impenetrable!
"
No, what you have a limited tolerance for is admitting that you lied.
You have been peddling the 10 second lie for years. You know full well it took 13+ seconds. Even though you claim this detail doesn't matter, you continue to peddle the 10 seconds claim, because you know that the moment you retreat from one of the lies you have been spouting, you will immediately be attacked on the next lie you have been peddling. (And I will be there to attack you on it. Not sure which lie to call you on next, though. It's like being a mosquito in a nudist resort.)
Now, you have not refuted a damn thing.
You have been pushing the 10 seconds claim. And you admit that you have been pushing the 10 seconds claim. In fact, you pushed the 10 seconds claim AGAIN in comment #220.
You know full well the buildings came down in 13 seconds, from the Naudet video, which you watcned, and the seismo readings, which you have seen.
And yet you continue to lie and push the 10 secons claim. Why? What do you gain from being a pathological liar?
It should be apparent now that Jim Fetzer cannot support his claims and assertions, and when presented with evidence he cannot refute he just blows it off.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere I have taken one of his claims, #14, where he asserts without evidence nor without any reference to how or why he would know it to be valid, to wit:
"The hit point at the Pentagon was too small to accommodate a 100-ton airliner with a 125-foot wingspan and a tail that stands 44-feet above the ground; the debris was wrong for a Boeing 757: no wings, no fuselage, no seats, no bodies, no luggage, no tail! Not even the engines were recovered, which means that the official account is not true."
We all understand that Fetzer would either have to have expert abilities or be able to refer us to experts and evidence to be able to substantiate the claims he makes. And again, he is saying quite clearly in claim #14 that "a Boeing 757 could not have hit the Pentagon."
All Fetzer can do to avoid substantiating his claims is to refer us again to the same claims. (Note how he cannot support his claim that "parts of the buildings were blown upward and outward. It never happened, he knows it, and he can't demonstrate it. It is not hard to see what Fetzer is really here for. He's just using this comment section as a means of spreading the same claims and assertions he's been spewing since 9/11. And he just wants to argue the same nonsense with us that has already been debunked for years. The truth is entirely irrelevant to Jim Fetzer.
As always, Fetzer tries desperately to shift the burden of proof from his shoulders but he can't do it. He cannot even support one of his claims when asked to do so.
But I'll give Jim another opportunity to support claim #14 above. The floor is entirely his now to explain the validity and implications of the claims contained therein, which, as he well knows requires expertise he does not possess nor refers us to, and necessarily involves the knowledge of hundreds of people before, during, and after the event who would have had nothing to do with the conspiracy if it were one.
In other words, Fetzer cannot support the claims in #14 without boxing himself in a corner. And Fetzer knows it.
And here I was hoping you'd be taking a step back to consider my points. as soon as I can get some time, believe I'd love to jump in on this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have few seconds right now, here's what I see....
insult guy is still throwing insults around so I can't take what he says seriously, even if would he right. and you are trying to prove to me your point by knocking down Jim's character and his points. like it or not, Jim's still is right. It's in there. the 9/11 commission report does state what he says. until that's retracted... he's correct. I really think your missing his point.
I'll be back to play some catch up with your posts, B...
rmdragon,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisConsider:
"2.official story"
How then do you explain that what we actually know came from hundreds, if not thousands, of disparate independent sources on 9/11? Do you want us to accept the notion that the government would know who thousands of eyewitnesses were before the attacks happened?
No, the "official story" is a canard; the majority of what we know came from independent, non-government sources. The "government" had no ability to control all those sources and unknown eyewitnesses.
You ask,
"as for the pentagon.. you answer me this- why did it take 4 years of resistance to release just several blurry frames of footage from just the one camera of the plane and an explosion. when ultimately all it does is support the idea of the "official story". It certainly didn't add anything "new". How come this was offered up sooner?"
This is one of the favorite strawman arguments of 9/11 Truthers.
1. The government withheld those frames legitimately as evidence in the trial in the Zacarias Moussaoui. They were released after the trial ended.
2. The video cannot actually be used to prove anything. One cannot look at that video and say, "That's a Boeing 757." It's too blurry but it is also irrelevant, which leads us to:
3. Most importantly, NO one needs any videos of a jet hitting the Pentagon to know that it did. This is a key failure of conspiracy thinking to assert, as 9/11 Truthers claim, that because the video is too blurry or that the "government is withholding other videos", then NO one can prove a 757 hit the Pentagon.
How silly. 9/11 Truthers reject every other bit of evidence that clearly demonstrates AA77 hit the Pentagon. That is as stupid as saying because we have no videos of the Titanic hitting an iceberg and sinking as a result, how do we know that it happened?
Evidence comes from multiple sources, as it does with the 9/11 attacks, that converges on a conclusion.
rmdragon,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you read back through the comments you'd see why the 9/11 Commission comment of "10 seconds" is totally irrelevant. All Fetzer can legitimately do is say the report says 10 seconds.
But the 9/11 Commission had no responsibility for the investigations of the collapses. And the videos quite clearly demonstrate that the towers took 13+ seconds to collpase.
Fetzer states unequivocally that 13+ seconds is a lie despite all the evidence to the contrary.
I am not sure why that confuses you.
Quoting ocschwar: "Jim Fetzer, you babbling idiot: no building has come down one floor at a time. That is not how buildings collapse. Ever."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne of us may be a "babbling idiot", but it ain't me. The official story is that the Twin Towers fell in (what are called) "pancake collapses".
Those are floor-by-floor collapses. I explained all of this and offered a photograph of a pancake collapse in my Powerpoint, if you check it.
The theory of NIST is that the fires burned so hot that they caused the steel to weaken bring about a pancake collapse of both buildings.
There are two variations, one a pancake collapse of the floors, the other a pancake collapse of the trusses, but both were of that kind.
So if we needed an further proof that he are a complete ignoramus, here it is! This guy truly deserve "Idiot of the Year"! He has earned it.
I laid it all out in Slides #28, #29, and #30. Since he doesn't bother with evidence, he hasn't taken the time to study what I have presented.
Which of course explains how he could commit a blunder of this magnitude. He obviously knows nothing about 9/11. Not a thing!
No wonder he clings to his flimsy point about "13 seconds" as though it were a life raft in a choppy sea. For him, it serves that purpose.
He appears to be confounding "classic" controlled demolitions, where all the floors fall at the same time, with what happened to the towers.
Their demolition was under control, but it was not a "classic" controlled demolition such as occurred with WTC-7 when it went down at 5:20.
Here is a summary of the differences between these kinds of cases:
Buildings: WTC-1 & WTC-2 / WTC-7
Sequence: Top down / Bottom up
Floor motion: Stationary / Falling together
Mechanism: Pulverization / Controlled Demolition
Time/Speed: About 10 secs. / About 6.5 secs.
Equivalent: = free fall / = free fall
Remnants: No pancakes / Pancakes
Compare these events by viewing the brief videos, "This is an Orange" and "9/11: The Towers of Dust" and, in less than five minutes, any rational person will understand that these cases were entirely different in their modes of destruction. That excludes ocschwar. I have no idea why someone of such clearly diminished capacity is posting here.
"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne of us may be a "babbling idiot", but it ain't me. The official story is that the Twin Towers fell in (what are called) "pancake collapses"."
A pancake collapse doesn't happen one floor at a time either, you babbling baboon. And, once again, you are lying. The official story is not, in fact, that the towers fell in a pancakke collapse. Either way, there is no reason why the collapse should have taken 90 seconds.
"
No wonder he clings to his flimsy point about "13 seconds" as though it were a life raft in a choppy sea. For him, it serves that purpose."
Notice you still won't explain why you've been lying about this. If it doesn't matter to you whether it took 13 seeconds or 10 seconds, why do you keep knowingly pushing the 10 seconds lie., Fetzer?
You know full well it took more than 13 seconds.
Why do you keep claiming it took 10?
Why are you such a liar, Fetzer?
These guys are either completely demented or deliberately dishonest. Either way, there is no point in attempting to reason with them, since they are not acting as rational agents in relation to professed beliefs
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut if their objective is to throw up lots of smoke and dust to obscure
what is known about 9/11, then they may be acting rationally for that
purpose, which, of course, has nothing to do with discovering truths.
I highly recommend these two brief YouTube videos, which make it very clear that the Twin Towers and WTC-7 were demolished by very
different causal mechanisms. Figure out what they were is important:
"This is an Orange"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv7BImVvEyk
"9/11: The Towers of Dust"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPJUP-Ry7d0
In less than five minutes, any rational person will understand that these cases were entirely different in their modes of destruction. I have no idea why someone of such clearly diminished capacity is posting here.
Unless, of course, it is to create an unpleasant environment for anyone who wants to figure out what happened. I shall treat these two as noise, which is the appropriate category. They are nothing but noise.
The reason the Twin Towers had to be turned into millions of cubic yards of very fine dust, by the way, is to avoid damaging the bathtub, a kind of dike surrounding their foundations to protect from river water.
If the bathtub had been shattered, as I explain in my presentations, the Hudson River would have flooded lower Manhattan and undermined the world's most expensive real estate by eroding the building foundations.
It would have flooded the subway system and the PATH train tunnels. The destruction would have created an enormous problem. So they were turned into dust and suspended in air to not damage the bathtub.
"These guys are either completely demented or deliberately dishonest. Either way, there is no point in attempting to reason with them, since they are not acting as rational agents in relation to professed beliefs?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFetzer is unable to answer to the substance of the criticism against him, so he just casts aspersions.
To recap: for several years, Fetzer, you have been making the claim that the towers came down in 10 seconds, when you know full well that they came down in 13+.
You have not only been confronted with proof of the 13+ second durations, from the Naudet video and seismo readings, but you've even gone so far to use the video and seismo as evidence in other factual claims, while continuing to make the 10 second claim knowing that it is false.
When will you retract your lie, Fetzer?
One would have to wonder by now why Jim Fetzer would not WANT to support his claims.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut here he is, making excuses again.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/12/18/gordon-duff-gov-jesse-ventura-proves-911-cover-up-will-americas-government-fall/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGORDON DUFF: GOV. JESSE VENTURA PROVES 9/11 COVER-UP, WILL AMERICA’S GOVERNMENT FALL?
December 18, 2010 posted by Gordon Duff · 364 Comments
"thought it was a bomb...walked out through the hole..burning wreckage..no plane parts...threatened to keep silent"
FORMER VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY ACCUSED OF ENGINEERING PENTAGON ATTACK
DONALD RUMSFELD CITED AS POSSIBLE ACCOMPLICE
By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor
Confirmed sources in the Nigerian government tell us, in order to keep former Vice President Cheney out of prison for crimes involving Nigeria, $500,000,000 in bribes have been promised, negotiated by former President George H.W. Bush. Now, only a day later, Cheney faces possible charges, so many charges they can only be imagined, for planning the Pentagon attack on 9/11.
TV host, Jesse Ventura, former Navy Seal, former Governor of Minnesota, on a one hour documentary on prime-time American television, makes an open and shut criminal case tying Cheney, Rumsfeld and officials throughout the US government with complicity in the planning, execution and subsequent cover-up of the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon.
YouTube - Veterans Today -
According to experts on 9/11, engineers, pilots, intelligence officers and members of our military, Jesse Ventura “hit the nail on the head.” Ventura, using evidence developed over 9 years by hundreds of individuals, outlines the utter impossibility of the government’s cover story on 9/11 and systematically debunks it using testimony and
scientific evidence.
Ventura cites, in an interview with a 9/11 commissioner, a possible motive for the Pentagon attack being included with the attacks on the World Trade Center. $2,300,000,000,000, yes 2.3 trillion US dollars had disappeared, cited only the day before in a televised statement by Secretary Rumsfeld, money “gone missing” from the Pentagon’s accounting. The area of the Pentagon hit by a missile or destroyed by explosives or both contained all records of this missing money.
(more)
I think people are beginning to understand why Fetzer cannot get to square one in court with his conspiracy theories but is reduced to promoting entertainment television shows.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt gives you an idea just how dumb he believes his followers are.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFetzer is unable to answer to the substance of the criticism against him, so he just tries to change the subject with more lies.
To recap: for several years, Fetzer, you have been making the claim that the towers came down in 10 seconds, when you know full well that they came down in 13+.
You have not only been confronted with proof of the 13+ second durations, from the Naudet video and seismo readings, but you've even gone so far to use the video and seismo as evidence in other factual claims, while continuing to make the 10 second claim knowing that it is false.
When will you retract your lie, Fetzer?
"Slide #15. The 707 and 767s that purportedly hit the towers were very similar in their mass and fuel capacity. Had they hit at their cruising speed, the 707--whose cruising speed was higher--would have done more damage than a 767."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA Boeing 707 has a mass of 46,785 kg. A Boeing 767-222 (United Flight 175) has a mass of 80,130 kg and a 767-223ER (American Flight 11) has a mass of 82,380 kg. Making both of the 767s nearly twice the mass of the 707.
What I don't understand about Fetzer is that he believes that the government is behind 911, but still believes the official report made by the government and uses that to prove that he is right.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNEW: Dr. Shermer on Stossel on astrology, anti-vaccers, 9/11 truthers, & penis shrinking mass hysteria:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YJqeTJdRQM
These shills are here to obfuscate and conceal what we have discovered about 9/11 because those staged attacks are being used to effect the transformation of an open and free America into a Nazi-style police / military state, which is moving forward at a rapid pace.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo not deceive yourself. This is real. The phonies and fakes are doing all they can -- like the little Dutch boy who stuck his finger in the dike to keep it from flooding -- because they are afraid you, the readers of this fine magazine, might actually figure out what's going on.
Now, no doubt, they will explain that you can't trust The Washington Post, which will be grab-bagged with the Holocaust deniers and the 9/11 truthers. Once you catch onto their m.o., their posts become transparent.
ttp://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/monitoring-america/
"Nine years after the terrorist attacks of 2001, the United States is assembling a vast domestic intelligence apparatus to collect information about Americans, using the FBI, local police, state homeland security offices and military criminal investigators.
"The system, by far the largest and most technologically sophisticated in the nation's history, collects, stores and analyzes information about thousands of U.S. citizens and residents, many of whom have not been accused of any wrongdoing.
"The government's goal is to have every state and local law enforcement agency in the country feed information to Washington to buttress the work of the FBI, which is in charge of terrorism investigations in the United States.
"Other democracies - Britain and Israel, to name two - are well acquainted with such domestic security measures. But for the United States, the sum of these new activities represents a new level of governmental scrutiny.
"This localized intelligence apparatus is part of a larger Top Secret America created since the attacks. In July, The Washington Post described an alternative geography of the United States, one that has grown so large, unwieldy and secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs or how many programs exist within it."
Today's story, along with related material on The Post's Web site, examines how Top Secret America plays out at the local level. It describes a web of 4,058 federal, state and local organizations, each with its own counterterrorism responsibilities and jurisdictions. At least 935 of these organizations have been created since the 2001 attacks or became involved in counterterrorism for the first time after 9/11.
Take a look at some of the studies that expose
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthe 9/11 event as an elaborate hoax and scam:
http://newcrisispapers.com/noevidence.pdf
No evidence that Muslims hijacked planes on 9/11
By Elias Davidsson
10 January 2008 (revised 8 February 2008)
Abstract: The United States government has alleged that 19 individuals with Arab names, deemed fanatic Muslims, hijacked four passenger planes on 11 September 2001 and crashed them in a suicide-operation that killed approximately 3,000 people. In this Note, the author shows that there is no evidence that these individuals boarded any of these passenger planes. Absent such evidence for over six years, the official account of 9/11 must finally be exposed as a lie.
The US government alleges that nineteen individuals whose names and photographs have been released by the FBI1 and whom no one has seen since 11 September 2001, had booked seats on flights AA11, AA77 (American Airlines) UA93 and UA175 (United Airlines) for that same day, boarded onto those flights, hijacked the aircraft and deliberately crashed these aircraft with passengers and crew on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and on a field in Pennsylvania.
The accusations against these nineteen individuals were based, for the most part, on what were described as lucky discoveries made on 9/11 by the FBI. The first was the discovery of two pieces of luggage allegedly owned by Mohammed Atta, the lead suspect, which were not loaded onto flight AA11 at Boston Logan airport. The reason why these bags were not loaded onto the aircraft was never disclosed. According to FBI Special Agent James M. Fitzgerald, who testified at the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the connecting flight from Portland which brought Mohammed Atta and his alleged co-hijacker Abdul Aziz Alomari to Boston, had ‘arrived too late for the luggage to be loaded onto Flight 11’2 According to the 9/11 Commission, however, the flight arrived on time at approximately 6:45 A.M., one hour before the scheduled departure of Flight AA11.3 It has never been revealed who was responsible for the “mistake” that ensured that the bags would not be loaded onto the aircraft. The contents of the luggage enabled FBI agents, as claimed by them, to ‘swiftly unravel the mystery of who carried out the suicide attacks and what motivated them’.4
. . .
For more, download the entire article as a pdf
at http://newcrisispapers.com/noevidence.pdf
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16924
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPhone Calls from the 9/11 Airliners
Response to Questions Evoked by My Fifth Estate Interview
by Prof David Ray Griffin
Global Research, January 12, 2010
On November 27, 2009, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Fifth Estate program aired a show entitled “9/11: The Unofficial Story,”1 for which I, along with a few other members of the 9/11 Truth Movement, was interviewed. In the most important part of my interview, I pointed out that, according to the FBI’s report on phone calls from the airliners provided in 2006 for the Moussaoui trial, Barbara Olson’s only call from Flight 77 was “unconnected” and hence lasted “0 seconds.”
. . .
In this essay, I respond to the most important of these claims [raised in objection to my findings], namely:
1. The FBI has not admitted that cell phone calls from high-altitude airliners on 9/11 were impossible.
2. There is no evidence that some of the reported 9/11 phone calls were faked.
3. American Airlines’ Boeing 757s, and hence its Flight 77, had onboard phones.
4. The FBI’s report on phone calls from the 9/11 airliners did not undermine Ted Olson’s report about receiving phone calls from his wife.
The four sections of this essay will respond to these four claims in order.
. . .
Conclusion
Although this essay has focused on details, often minute, in merely one aspect of the official account of 9/11, the implications are enormous. Without the widespread assumption that the 9/11 attacks had been planned and carried out by al-Qaeda, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would not have been possible. With regard to the war in Afghanistan in particular, Michel Chossudovsky has recently emphasized the fact that NATO’s decision to support this US-led war was based on a briefing by Frank Taylor of the US State Department, in which he provided what was called conclusive evidence of al-Qaeda’s responsibility for the attacks.121 Although the contents of Taylor’s briefing have never been made public, the main evidence provided to the general public has consisted of the hijack-describing phone calls reportedly received from passengers and flight attendants aboard the airliners. But when subjected to a detailed analysis, these alleged phone calls, far from supporting the war-justifying story, lead to a very different conclusion: that these alleged calls were faked. This analysis thereby suggests that the entire 9/11 story used to justify the US-led wars is a lie.
. . .
For more, use the link to the article above.
http://jamesfetzer.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-didnt-happen-at-pentagon.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat Didn't Happen at the Pentagon
. . .
Questions about what happened at the Pentagon, of course, fall into the area of uncertainty as a complex and complicated issue many in the community dislike. There is a body of evidence, much of which is photographic, however, to which scientific reasoning can be applied to resolve that uncertainty. As I have elsewhere explained, the basic measure of the strength with which evidence e supports hypothesis h is provided by the likelihood, L, of h, if e were true. That, in turn, is equal to the probability, P, of e if h were true, where L(h/e) = P(e/h). Approximately speaking, this involves treating the evidence as an "effect" of the "cause" described by various hypotheses, where an hypothesis hi with higher likelihood on evidence e is better supported and is therefore "preferable" to an hypothesis hj with lower likelihood.
As a simple example, we find likelihoods employed in everyday life and in criminal investigations. The discovery of a body with bruising around the neck but no bullet holes or knife wounds makes it more likely that the deceased was killed by strangulation than by shooting or stabbing. After all, the probability of no bullet holes (knife wounds, and so on) if the victim was shot (stabbed, and so forth) is zero, while the probability of bruising about the neck as the result of strangulation is very high. Since the evidence (no bullet holes or knife wounds but bruising around the neck) is more probable if the death was caused by strangulation than by shooting or stabbing, that hypothesis has a higher likelihood and is therefore better supported by the evidence.
When the evidence has "settled down" and tends to point in the same direction, then that hypothesis is also acceptable in the tentative and fallible fashion of science. The introduction of new alternatives and the acquisition of new evidence, including the discovery that evidence that has been taken to be authentic in the past has been fabricated, can lead to the rejection of hypotheses previously accepted and the acceptance of hypotheses previously rejected-or to the suspension of belief in cases previously thought to be resolved. There appear to be more than a half-dozen arguments against the official account that a 757 hit the Pentagon, which appears to be a fantasy. To begin with, consider the alleged "hit point" at the Pentagon on the ground floor:
For more, follow the link I provided above.
The photographs are especially important.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Is-9-11-Research-Anti-Sem-by-Jim-Fetzer-090615-95.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs 9/11 research 'anti-Semitic'?
A kind of hysteria regarding 9/11 research has surfaced in multiple forms, the most blatant of which has been an assault by FOX host Glenn Beck, who has characterized students of 9/11 as “anarchists”, “terrorists” and “Holocaust deniers”. The comparison with Holocaust deniers is patently false, of course, because Holocaust deniers deny that the (German) government committed atrocities, while 9/11 investigators affirm that the (American) government committed them. They could not be more opposite. The use of the phrase can be politically potent, nonetheless, because it subtly conveys the prospect that anti-Semitism may be involved, no matter how faulty the analogy.
. . .
No one should be afraid of research, even research on complex and controversial subjects, whether it is JFK, 9/11 or the Holocaust. I, like Michael, believe in the historical reality of the Holocaust. Neither he, nor I, nor anyone else, for that matter, should worry about someone wanting to do work in that domain because, if their research is sound they will inevitably be led to conclude that it was real! None of us, for example, would worry about someone doing research on whether or not the Earth is flat. Holocaust deniers are in a similar plight: if they do their homework properly—and, of course, if we are right in our belief in its reality—then they should arrive at the conclusion that it was real. And if we are wrong, we need to know that, too. Either way, there is no moral or intellectual warrant for censoring inquiry.
Research, even on complex and controversial subjects, should be open and unfettered, regardless. There is certainly no good reason to fear research on subjects like these, especially by resorting to the use of elementary fallacies—such as the ad hominem, the genetic fallacy, and guilt by association—that I spent 35-years teaching freshmen to avoid. I believe that every thoughtful person, especially professional scholars, will side with me about these things. Indeed, it would like to think that every American would recognize that politics should not be put ahead of the search for truth. We have seen too much of that from the last administration, which has been doing everything it can to place obstacles in the search for truth about 9/11, especially. It is the highest form of respect for those who died that day to know how and why they died, which, alas, we have certainly not yet been told by our own government.
No, the reason that 9/11 "truthers" are considered anti-semitic are because the make comments like this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"2. The debunkers have a personal stake in preventing the truthers from being believed. Shermer is Jewish and some of the truthers say Israel was involved in 9/11. See: Jews did 9/11, Nov. 1, 2010;"
That quote was taken from post #14 on this very thread.
http://jamesfetzer.blogspot.com/2010/02/new-911-photos-released.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNew 9/11 photos released
Newly released aerial photos of the World Trade Center terror attack capture the towers' dramatic collapse, from just after the first fiery plane strike to the apocalyptic dust clouds that spread over lower Manhattan. But the photos suggest something else was going on. This does not look like a "collapse".
The images were taken from a police helicopter--the only photographs allowed in the air space near the towers on September 11, 2001. Underwriters Laboratory had certified the steel up to 2,000°F for three to four hours. . . .
It took a year for the National Institute of Standards and Technology to respond to ABC News. NIST may not have wanted to release them, because they contradict its theory that the heat from the fires cause the towers to collapse. Since the fires were not evenly distributed, any "collapse" should have been asymmetrical, too--slow and gradual, not complete and total.
. . . This one shows the fragile "bathtub" beneath the towers, which kept Hudson River water out. They remained intact only because the buldings did not collapse but were turned to dust.
Notice that the South Tower has already turned to dust, which is enveloping lower Manhattan. The modest fires only burned for about an hour in the South Tower and an hour and a half in the North Tower--neither long enough nor hot enough to cause the steel to weaken, much less melt.
How could anyone--including NIST--have viewed the conversion of these two 500,000-ton towers into millions of cublic yards of very fine dust and concluded that they had "collapsed"? It reminds me of the old Richard Pryor joke, "Who are you going to believe--me or your lying eyes?" . . .
Notice the remnants of its core columns of the North Tower. Footage of the destruction of the building actually shows those remnants turning to dust--including, of course, the steel. Something quite unusual was taking place in New York City. Here you can see it happening before your very eyes--steel and concrete being converted into dust!
While CNN News described it as "smoke", what you are viewing is the remnant of the core colums of the North Tower turning to dust--which is hardly surprising, since that is happening to the entire building. That is where those millions of cubic yards of very fine dust is coming from. No wonder NIST did not want to release them . . .
And the dust cloud grew . . .
and grew . . .
and grew . . .
enveloping lower Manhattan . . .
and gradually blowing out to sea.
Post #14, which I did not author, gives seven reasons why there may be reasons for believing 9/11 truthers as a reply to Michael Shermer's ten reasons to doubt them:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. The debunkers refuse to engage the arguments advanced by the truthers. They call them names and ridicule them, but ignore the facts and reasons they present.
2. The debunkers have a personal stake in preventing the truthers from being believed. Shermer is Jewish and some of the truthers say Israel was involved in 9/11. See: Jews did 9/11, Nov. 1, 2010; http://jewishcrimenetworkdid911.blogspot.com/
3. The technical experts support the truthers, not the debunkers. There are over 1500 scientists, architects, engineers, pilots, and firemen, etc. who do not believe the official story, e.g., http://www.ae911truth.org/
4. People who have information about what really happened are murdered, "suicided," threatened, or paid to stay silent.
5. Follow the money. The people who made billions off 9/11 were the same people who had to be involved in the conspiracy.
6. The people who are accused of doing it, bin Laden's gang, lacked the means to do it. They were not technically competent and could not have pulled it off.
7. The people who are accused of doing it are the enemies of the people the evidence and the money trail suggests did it.
You challenge #2. The indications of Mossad involvement appear to be quite real. The "dancing Israeli" were in
Arab garb, that the first remark the driver made when the van was apprehended was, "We are not your enemy. We have the same enemy--the Palestinians".
And the video footage of Palestinians who were cheering (which was archived from a past celebration there) that was broadcast on 9/11 indicate a comprehensive attempt to blame 9/11 on Palestinians.
See http://www.blacklistednews.com/index.php?news_id=11547 and
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/11/19/release-of-the-%E2%80%98dancing-israelis%E2%80%99-coincidence-or-blackmail/ for the most recent article about this.
And, of course, many of the neo-cons had joint US-Israeli citizenship.
I have written about indications of Israeli involvement and sought to debunk the claim that 9/11 research is anti-Semitic in an article entitled, "Is 9/11 research 'anti-Semitic'?", which is archived at
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Is-9-11-Research-Anti-Sem-by-Jim-Fetzer-090615-95.html
Since there is evidence that implicates Israelis in the events of 9/11, surely it is not wrong to point it out or to observe that, since this author is Jewish, he may have personal reasons for obfuscation.
"Underwriters Laboratory had certified the steel up to 2,000�F for three to four hours. . . ."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou've said this several times, but the steel had a spray-on foam fireproofing. When the planes hit, this fireproofing was blown off, leaving the steel unprotected against the fires. In an experiment performed by the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center, an unprotected steel beam collapsed after spending only a few minutes in an open flame.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_jim_fetz_080421_9_2f11_and_the_neo_con.htm
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this9/11 and the Neo-Con Agenda
We cannot support the troops by “staying the course” when the Commander-in-Chief is marching them over a cliff.
—Jim Fetzer (15 April 2008)
I speak in praise of Ron Paul, who believes in the Constitution and in ending these illegal and immoral wars, which the Bush administration obviously does not.
There is a crucial link between the anti-war movement and the 9/11 truth movement, because exposing the truth about 9/11 destroys the justification for those wars.
We are told not to discuss conspiracy theories, but if 19 Islamic fundamentalists hijacked four planes, outfoxed the most sophisticated air defense system in the world, and perpetrated these atrocities under the control of a guy off in a cave in Afghanistan, then 9/11 involved a conspiracy.
If we can’t talk about conspiracies, we can’t talk about 9/11. Why would this administration want to suppress public discussion of 9/11? To conceal the truth about the war or to conceal the truth about 9/11?
Lies about the War
We were told big lies about the war, including, first, that Saddam was responsible for 9/11. But during a press conference, Bush himself had to admit that Saddam had “nothing” to do with 9/11.
We were told, second, that Saddam was in cahoots with al Qaeda. But several investigations have revealed that not only was Saddam not in cahoots with al Qaeda, but he was actively tracking down its leaders to incarcerate or even kill them.
Moreover, honest generals have told us al Qaeda is not responsible for more than 10% of the opposition to US presence in Iraq and that our presence there is the greatest recruiting tool al Qaeda possesses.
In fact, an admiral—who may face imminent demotion—was quoted in The New York Times (11 April 2008) observing that no more than 40-50 foreign fighters were entering the country each month. How great a threat can that represent?
Political hacks tell us differently. Compare what General William Odom, who is retired, has said, with the words of General David Petraeus, who is not.
Third, we were told that Osama bin Laden was responsible for 9/11. But our FBI—our own FBI!—has acknowledged that it has “no hard evidence” connecting Osama bin Laden to the events of 9/11.
You thought there was “a confession tape”? But in his first video, ... the only one that appears to be authentic, Osama said that he had nothing to do with 9/11 and that the killing of innocent women and children is contrary to the tenets of Islam.
more
asylum31 quoted: "Underwriters Laboratory had certified the steel up to 2,000 F for three to four hours. . . ."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHe replied: "You've said this several times, but the steel had a spray-on foam fireproofing. When the planes hit, this fireproofing was blown off, leaving the steel unprotected against the fires. In an experiment performed by the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center, an unprotected steel beam collapsed after spending only a few minutes in an open flame."
Well, I've said it several times because it is true. Your rebuttal -- the suggestion that "an unprotected steel beam would collapse after spending only a few minutes in an open flame" -- is the most ignorant remark I have ever heard in relation to the 9/11 attacks.
You can find an extended discussion of these matters in DEBUNKING 9/11 DEBUNKING (2007) on pages 152-163. The book can be found on-line at the following URL:
http://books.google.com/books?id=CMZ12AxBOh8C&pg=PA160&lpg=PA160&dq=Kevin+Ryan,+UL+certification&source=bl&ots=jxegnUkKg2&sig=NVAktPCxOhQopk3QzAj00Lbvtao&hl=en&ei=LrgPTfTrM5SinQfcy73qDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CFcQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=Kevin%20Ryan%2C%20UL%20certification&f=false
Of course, I have summarized the key points in my "Why doubt 9/11?", which you obviously doubt yourself. Here are the key points that you appear unable to appreciate:
Most of the jet fuel, principally kerosene, burned up in those fireballs in the first fifteen seconds or so. Below the 96th floor in the North Tower and the 80th in the South, those buildings were stone cold steel, unaffected by any fires at all other than some very modest office fires that burned around 500 degrees F, which functioned as a massive heat sink dissipating the heat from building up on the steel.
The melting point of steel at 2,800 degrees F is about 1,000 degrees higher than the maximum burning temperature of jet-fuel-based fires, which do not exceed 1,800 degrees under optimal conditions; but the NIST examined 236 samples of steel and found that 233 had not been exposed to temperatures above 500 degrees F and the others not above 1200.
Underwriters Laboratory certified the steel in the buildings up to 2,000 degrees F for three or four hours without any significant effects, where these fires burned neither long enough or hot enough—at an average temperature of about 500 degrees for about one hour in the South Tower and one and a half in the North—to weaken, much less melt.
After such a sunning remark, I have to ask: How old are you? Why are you posting here?
Fetzer is unable to answer to the substance of the criticism against him, so he just tries to change the subject with more lies.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo recap: for several years, Fetzer, you have been making the claim that the towers came down in 10 seconds, when you know full well that they came down in 13+.
You have not only been confronted with proof of the 13+ second durations, from the Naudet video and seismo readings, but you've even gone so far to use the video and seismo as evidence in other factual claims, while continuing to make the 10 second claim knowing that it is false.
When will you retract your lie, Fetzer?
Another one of your lies, Fetzer:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Slide #15. The 707 and 767s that purportedly hit the towers were very similar in their mass and fuel capacity. Had they hit at their cruising speed, the 707--whose cruising speed was higher--would have done more damage than a 767."
A 767 is TWICE the size of a 707.
The World Trade Center was calculated (ON PAPER) to withstand a 707 striking at 150MPH.
The planes on 9/11 were travelling faster than 450MPH.
So, twice the mass, three times the speed (squared) makes for eighteen times as much kinetic energy going into the towers.
And this is what you call "similar."
Why did you decide to be such a pathological liar, Fetzer ?
I was using that post as an example. Calling someone a Jew (especially if they are an atheist, and formerly a Christian) because they have a differing opinion is pretty high up on the list of anti-semitic things to do. And since this type of behavior is pretty rampant among "truthers", it doesn't surprise me that the claim exists. Now, it certainly can't be applied to all "truthers" - rmdragon is proof to that effect - but it can be to others, and that's why it has been.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs to his other points,
1. That bjebje and ocschwar have been here since the beginning, engaging in arguments, proves the first part wrong, and that you've called us all "shills" (even though I've done nothing but provide facts which debunk your claims) proves that the name-calling doesn't solely exist on one side.
3. This is a logical fallacy argumentum ad populum.
4. There really isn't any evidence backing this claim. But, to put the icing on the cake, have you been murdered or paid to be silent recently?
5. There are thousands more people who would have had to be involved who didn't make billions.
6. Many of the hijackers had been to college and all of the pilots had had flight training to some degree.
7. It's no secret that al-Qaeda and the U.S. were enemies, with the '93 WTC bombings, the U.S.S. Cole bombing, embassy bombings and several other incidences.
Well, unfortunately for you, what I said isn't a suggestion. It's a fact. An unprotected steel beam, suspended in a fire, collapsed after approximately five minutes in an experiment that was conducted by the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center. I should point out that the results of their experiment are repeatable, should you ever get the inkling to put your money where your mouth is.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm 23 years old. I've been debunking 9/11 "truthers", such as yourself, for about 6 years. I've never made a dime off of my work. I'm here to point out all the mistakes and errors in your arguments. Admit it, if it weren't for bjebje and I, you'd still be going around saying you had a passenger manifest instead of a victims list, wouldn't you? So, now I have to ask, how old are you? Why are you here?
As we see, Fetzer will not address some simple questions about his claims. The truth has never been the goal nor the point for him. Fetzer's good buddy and denier-in-arms, David Ray Griffin, is no different.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishey guys (gals?)...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm still around and reading but I am so far behind on trying to catch up to posts... sorry about that.
I'd like to give a shout out to asylum31... thanks(I think) for not lumping me in with all the truthers. Also I applaud you for being a 23 year old being on the ball with the debunking stuff for as long as you have been. I really hope you're right.
I was thinking the other day, and this might fire some of you all up.. but let's just say for S&G's that the truther ends up being right! ( it would probably even surprise him if it happens.) for purposes of this thread let's even say it was Jim ( sorry Jim ). There was a smoking gun and he found it. some new never before seen, air tight whatever that absolutely proves elements of the goverment create 9/11 as a false flag. Bjebje cannot even deny or debunk it. it that's solid... Jim's and just for good measure, final piece of the puzzle proves the towers fell in 10 secs.(insult guy would probably explode. j/k) but Jim's got it.
What he going to do? call the police? alert the media?
take a a taxi to the U.N.? and what are the conspirators going to say? yep you got us! And that will be that?
The ramifications for the debunker being right is nil. The truther has got a lot to worry about in his own world. Yet people still follow the truther path.
And how come truther theories are dismissed as "there's no way that could happen because to do that you'd need XYZ. Yet, it's the debunker that knows what's needed for the con theory to work and who's to say that's correct? he'd have to be omniscient and omnipresent as well. ( sort of in repsonse to asylum31's #5 point) Those are some just general thoughts.
and speaking of generals, my discussion with bjebje from way back when about the pentagon video release... quick follow up- you are right about the withholding til after the trial 2006. but from sept 12,2001 until when ever it was submitted for criminal evidence. it was not offered... and there had to be a FOIA filed to even get that ball rolling. If the video is aswe eventually saw it. why was all of that needed? if everyone is playing fare. at some point shortly after 9/11 why didn't they go "and here's the video of the plane that hit our building. you can't really see much except this explosion at the end." I guess their reasoning for not doing so is just military intelligence at work.
a few more thoughts in my next post...
next post...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI've mentioned in previous posts the conspiracy is more evident, when takes a look at the larger picture.
I've mentioned, in my opinion it has to have certain checklist of factors: timing, benefits,resources etc.
bjebje and others have countered. that yep those are ingredients for any con theory. (I'm just paraphrasing the whole thing.. I'm tired)
Then Bjebje mentions the Titanic. That sets up an interesting example I've been mulling.
I mentioned this before.. It seems to me 9/11 was "inside job" because BP Gulf disaster seems to not have been. So let's use the titanic as an example. :)
here's my criteria for the con theory-
a group of people with a self serving agenda have the means to accomplish it in secret. This is evidenced by convienient coincidences in relation to the group, Timing of events to support the success of the group or action. and payoff of completed agenda- the closer the timing the greater the indict.( i might have explained this better in an aearlier post)
You might argue that these are generalized assertions of any con theory and I would agree with you. That's what makes it a con theory. so now at least the claim of con theory is validated. I can apply this criteria to 9/11 pretty easy. fits all the "9/11 con theories"
I cannot take that same theory and apply it to the sinking of the titanic and have the same effect as the outcome from 9/11. Whitestar line interests never profited nor anyone else associated with the it. certainly Istmay never profited. There was no motive to remove the titanic nor any realistic means.
although much like 9/11 there were varying eyewitness acounts of what happened, even how it sank. and like 9/11. theories of how it sank have evolved and even discarded over time. Even after the wreck was discovered
there are still theories being refined with new evidence. so "truthers" like Jim who've been at it for 9 years and "sinkers" are still working on HOW exactly it sank.
But- not an inside job. I reach the same conclusion
When I apply this to other "big events" BP gulf spill, Katrina, obviosuly by my own logic.. not inside job. I apply this to other Con theories- fake moon landing? no. paul macarthy dead? no.
JFK? not going there.. but Yes, it applies. just like 9/11 happens to have huge amounts of con theory associated with it. also in common,fundemental shift of power to the advantage of the those most capable of pulling it off. also political shift of american interests. hey look at that more convient coincidences.
next post...
fianlly,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthe two main areas given to con theory based on my criteria seem to match.
if my con theory was flawed anything could have a con theory associated with. (Penquins setup up the icebrg to sink the titanic) or further validate other con theories.
but the only ones that seem to fit the criteria arethe ones most associated with con theories.both are associated with shifts of power and war and specialized interests. both who benefited from the outcome had the ability to arrange things. and both have an unsual amount of convient circumstances.
So maybe in there somewhere there might be valid conspiracy???? We're left to quibble over "the how'd they do that" much like scientists theorize over how the titanic sank.
was it a big gash? little punctures? poor iron? it broke in two on the surface, or it broke apart under water? all valid theories at one time- until the next evidence surfaces or theory evolved.
We're willing to dismiss the 10 second reference in 9/11 report as "simple sloppiness" but it must have come from somewhere? was it a typo? was it a generalization? or "oversight" why was it there in the first place? should the comission had been more careful of presenting their facts consistantly? does the fact tht they haven't bothered to correct it mean they don't care to? what other "oversights of information" are in there also? if such inconsistancies occur, then is any of valid? if it's an error due to "rushing" isn't that alittle not good? etc.
( I'm not looking for specific rebuttle to these questions- just trying to make a point)
Thanks for reading!
In relation to asylum31, I have rediscovered an old paper of mine (from 2006, I would guess) that does more justice to some of his questions: http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/Why-NIST-hasn%27t-Answered-its-own-Questions.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere I am going to cite the NIST responses and my comments on them for several of the issues at least for the time being. The first part is NIST's own answer to these questions. The NOTEs are my comments about those replies.
3. How could the WTC towers have collapsed without a controlled demolition since no steel-frame, high-rise buildings have ever before or since been brought down due to fires? Temperatures due to fire don't get hot enough for buildings to collapse.
The collapse of the WTC towers was not caused either by a conventional building fire or even solely by the concurrent multi-floor fires that day. Instead, NIST concluded that the WTC towers collapsed because: (1) the impact of the planes severed and damaged support columns, dislodged fireproofing insulation coating the steel floor trusses and steel columns, and widely dispersed jet fuel over multiple floors; and (2) the subsequent unusually large, jet-fuel ignited multi-floor fires weakened the now susceptible structural steel. No building in the United States has ever been subjected to the massive structural damage and concurrent multi-floor fires that the towers experienced on Sept. 11, 2001.
NOTE: This simply ignores (a) most of the fuel was consumed in those massive fireballs upon impact, (b) the fires were oxygen-starved, as the billowing black clouds indicated, (c) they were burning far below 1,000 degrees C, probably on the average closer to 250 degrees C, which was (d) far too low to have caused the steel to weaken, much less melt. Indeed, (e) even if the fires had been as hot as 1,000 degrees C, they did not last long enough to bring about effects of that kind. Compare the 13 February 1975 fire on the 11th floor of the North Tower, which burned hotter (around 1,000 degrees C) and longer (more than three hours), enveloping the core and destroying 65% of the floor, yet none of the steel--in particular, the trusses--had to be replaced. That is as close to a crucial experiment (confirming controlled demolition while refuting the official account) as could be arranged insofar as the buildings are no longer standing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this4. Weren't the puffs of smoke that were seen, as the collapse of each WTC tower starts, evidence of controlled demolition explosions?
No. As stated in Section 6.14.4 of NIST NCSTAR 1, the falling mass of the building compressed the air ahead of it--much like the action of a piston--forcing smoke and debris out the windows as the stories below failed sequentially.
These puffs were observed at many locations as the towers collapsed. In all cases, they had the appearance of jets of gas being pushed from the building through windows or between columns on the mechanical floors. Such jets are expected since the air inside the building is compressed as the tower falls and must flow somewhere as the pressure builds. It is significant that similar "puffs" were observed numerous times on the fire floors in both towers prior to their collapses, perhaps due to falling walls or portions of a floor. Puffs from WTC 1 were even observed when WTC 2 was struck by the aircraft. These observations confirm that even minor overpressures were transmitted through the towers and forced smoke and debris from the building.
NOTE: This might have been true if the floors had actually collapsed as the government maintains, but they were blown up from the top down. Judy Wood, a mechanical engineer, has compared them to two gigantic trees that are turning to sawdust from the top down. The massive energy required to pulverize concrete flooring, turn office furniture into tiny particles, and disintegrate living things has no source on the official account. Steel beams are being blown outward and even upward while this massive cloud of toxic dust envelopes the structures. Yet, in some footage, such as seen in "9/11 Revisited", you can see some of the floors being blown apart before the dust cloud obscures the blast.
5. Why were two distinct spikes--one for each tower--seen in seismic records before the towers collapsed? Isn't this indicative of an explosion occurring in each tower?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe seismic spikes for the collapse of the WTC Towers are the result of debris from the collapsing towers impacting the ground. The spikes began approximately 10 seconds after the times for the start of each building's collapse and continued for approximately 15 seconds. There were no seismic signals that occurred prior to the initiation of the collapse of either tower. The seismic record contains no evidence that would indicate explosions occurring prior to the collapse of the towers.
NOTE: This is false. There were seismic recordings of .7 and .9 on the Richter scale that, according to a new study that appears on st911.org ("Seismic Proof: 9/11 was an Inside Job"), actually preceded the impact of the aircraft by 14 and 17 seconds, which resulted from massive explosions in the subbasements that were observed by custodians in the buildings, including William Rodriquez, who was in the North Tower and saw a fellow custodian with most of the skin blown off his body as well as other effects of these explosions, which appear to have had the purpose of dislodging the 47 core columns from the bedrock. This would appear to be conclusive evidence that the structures were not destroyed by the combined interaction of jet-plane-impact/jet-fuel-fires/and pancake collapse.
6. How could the WTC towers collapse in only 11 seconds (WTC 1) and 9 seconds (WTC 2)--speeds that approximate that of a ball dropped from similar height in a vacuum (with no air resistance)?
NIST estimated the elapsed times for the first exterior panels to strike the ground after the collapse initiated in each of the towers to be approximately 11 seconds for WTC 1 and approximately 9 seconds for WTC 2. These elapsed times were based on: (1) precise timing of the initiation of collapse from video evidence, and (2) ground motion (seismic) signals recorded at Palisades, N.Y., that also were precisely time-calibrated for wave transmission times from lower Manhattan (see NCSTAR 1-5A).
As documented in Section 6.14.4 of NIST NCSTAR 1, these collapse times show that:
"... the structure below the level of collapse initiation offered minimal resistance to the falling building mass at and above the impact zone. The potential energy released by the downward movement of the large building mass far exceeded the capacity of the intact structure below to absorb that energy through energy of deformation."
continue
"Since the stories below the level of collapse initiation provided little resistance to the tremendous energy released by the falling building mass, the building section above came down essentially in free fall, as seen in videos. As the stories below sequentially failed, the falling mass increased, further increasing the demand on the floors below, which were unable to arrest the moving mass."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn other words, the momentum (which equals mass times velocity) of the 12 to 28 stories (WTC 1 and WTC 2, respectively) falling on the supporting structure below (which was designed to support only the static weight of the floors above and not any dynamic effects due to the downward momentum) so greatly exceeded the strength capacity of the structure below that it (the structure below) was unable to stop or even to slow the falling mass. The downward momentum felt by each successive lower floor was even larger due to the increasing mass.
From video evidence, significant portions of the cores of both buildings (roughly 60 stories of WTC 1 and 40 stories of WTC 2) are known to have stood 15 to 25 seconds after collapse initiation before they, too, began to collapse. Neither the duration of the seismic records nor video evidence (due to obstruction of view caused by debris clouds) are reliable indicators of the total time it took for each building to collapse completely.
NOTE: The laws of physics cannot be violated by buildings or other structures. They were not falling in a vacuum. The rate of free fall for an object dropped from the top of a 110 story building encountering only air resistance on the way down would have been equal to or greater than 12 seconds. The buildings cannot have "collapsed" at a speed faster than free fall in the air even if there was no resistance at all provided by the 110 floors because explosives were used to remove lower floors before higher floors impacted with them. The only way for this effect to be attained if is the floors were being destroyed faster than the building would have collapsed under the force of gravity alone. The speed of the buildings' "collapse" provides conclusive proof of controlled demolition.
7. How could the steel have melted if the fires in the WTC towers weren't hot enough to do so? OR 7b. Since the melting point of steel is about 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature of jet fuel fires does not exceed 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit and Underwriters Laboratories (UL) certified the steel in the WTC towers to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit for six hours, how could fires have impacted the steel enough to bring down the WTC towers?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn no instance did NIST report that steel in the WTC towers melted due to the fires. The melting point of steel is about 1,500 degrees Celsius (2,800 degrees Fahrenheit). Normal building fires and hydrocarbon (e.g., jet fuel) fires generate temperatures up to about 1,100 degrees Celsius (2,000 degrees Fahrenheit). NIST reported maximum upper layer air temperatures of about 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,800 degrees Fahrenheit) in the WTC towers (for example, see NCSTAR 1, Figure 6-36).
However, when bare steel reaches temperatures of 1,000 degrees Celsius, it softens and its strength reduces to roughly 10 percent of its room temperature value. Steel that is unprotected (e.g., if the fireproofing is dislodged) can reach the air temperature within the time period that the fires burned within the towers. Thus, yielding and buckling of the steel members (floor trusses, beams, and both core and exterior columns) with missing fireproofing were expected under the fire intensity and duration determined by NIST for the WTC towers.
UL did not certify any steel as suggested. In fact, in U.S. practice, steel is not certified at all; rather structural assemblies are tested for their fire resistance rating in accordance with a standard procedure such as ASTM E 119 (see NCSTAR 1-6B). That the steel was "certified ... to 2000 degrees Fahrenheit for six hours" is simply not true.
continued
NOTE: This response trades upon an equivocation. If UL certified "assemblies" whose principal components are steel, then the claim that UL had certified the steel is justified. The temperatures only averaged about 500 degrees F, far, far below those specified as required for the steel to even weaken. Steel is an excellent thermal conductor, which means that it would have required raising the temperature of major portions of the whole structure to initiate any effects of the alleged heat. Moreover, most of the jet fuel was consumed in the massive fireballs that occurred upon impact. That means it was no longer available to sustain the fires alleged. The UL had certified the steel in accordance with standards that required it to be capable of sustaining temperatures up to 2,000 degrees F for three to four hours before it would even significantly weaken. (I have in the past used the figure of six hours; Kevin Ryan has corrected me.) Denying the NIST had alleged the steel had melted becomes extremely interesting insofar as massive pools of molten metal were discovered in the subbasements three, four, and five weeks after 9/11. That phenomenon is inexplicable on the government's account, but would be an expectable effect of the use of powerful explosives. This "answer" offers an example of linguistic deceit and deception.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this8. We know that the sprinkler systems were activated because survivors reported water in the stairwells. If the sprinklers were working, how could there be a 'raging inferno' in the WTC towers?
Both the NIST calculations and interviews with survivors and firefighters indicated that the aircraft impacts severed the water pipes that carried the water to the sprinkler systems. The sprinklers were not operating on the principal fire floors.
However, there were ample sources of the water in the stairwells. The water pipes ran vertically within the stairwells. Moreover, there would have been copious water from the broken restroom supply lines and from the water tanks that supplied the initial water for the sprinklers. Thus, it is not surprising that evacuating occupants encountered a lot of water.
continued
Even if the automatic sprinklers had been operational, the sprinkler systems--which were installed in accordance with the prevailing fire safety code--were designed to suppress a fire that covered as much as 1,500 square feet on a given floor. This amount of coverage is capable of controlling almost all fires that are likely to occur in an office building. On Sept. 11, 2001, the jet-fuel ignited fires quickly spread over most of the 40,000 square feet on several floors in each tower. This created infernos that could not have been suppressed even by an undamaged sprinkler system, much less one that had been appreciably degraded.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNOTE: The massive fire in the North Tower on 13 February 1975 had led to the installation of more sophisticated sprinkler systems and other measures that enhanced the buildings' capacity to withstand fires. Not only were persons in the buildings looking out the impact holes but the windows on the buildings remained intact. If the fires had been as hot as NIST maintains, then those windows could not have remained intact. The NIST account cannot be correct.
9. If thick black smoke is characteristic of an oxygen-starved, lower temperature, less intense fire, why was thick black smoke exiting the WTC towers when the fires inside were supposed to be extremely hot?
Nearly all indoor large fires, including those of the principal combustibles in the WTC towers, produce large quantities of optically thick, dark smoke. This is because, at the locations where the actual burning is taking place, the oxygen is severely depleted and the combustibles are not completely oxidized to colorless carbon dioxide and water.
The visible part of fire smoke consists of small soot particles whose formation is favored by the incomplete combustion associated with oxygen-depleted burning. Once formed, the soot from the tower fires was rapidly pushed away from the fires into less hot regions of the building or directly to broken windows and breaks in the building exterior. At these lower temperatures, the soot could no longer burn away. Thus, people saw the thick dark smoke characteristic of burning under oxygen-depleted conditions.
continued
NOTE: This is a nice example of conceding a point while denying that you have conceded it. The billowing black clouds of smoke were indicative of oxygen deprived fires, which were burning at temperatures way below those that could be attained under ideal conditions in the presence of pure oxygen. This undercuts the whole NIST account, since if the fires were burning at temperatures far, far below those required to even weaken, much less melt, steel, then it cannot be the case that the steel weakened, much less melted, as an effect of those fires. This is another case of shifting the location of the question to separate it from the issues to which it is directly related, such as questions 7a and 7b.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this[I seem to have lost the distinction between "7a" and "7b", which I will attend to tomorrow. Notice, in particular, that 6 deals with the time of fall, where NIST repeats its own conclusion that the South Tower (WTC-2) collapsed in 9 seconds and the North (WTC-1) in 11. I would hope tis puts the end to the insanity of denying that the buildings were destroyed in about 10 seconds, which is an average of the two.
I use the official figures, incidentally, because they are impossible times for a collapse to occur, especially for structures that, in the South, were stone cold steel below the 80th floor and, in the North, below the 94th. This constitutes what is known in the law as an "admission contrary to interest" when a suspect in a crime makes an assertion that tends to impugn his innocence.
There is more to this document, at least parts of which I will post tomorrow. But the ones that seem to me to be most relevant to the discussions on this thread are those I have already posted, namely:
3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. Some of the others, such as 1 and 2, are also relevant to the impact of the planes with the buildings and the possibility that they were taken down by controlled demolitions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFetzer is unable to answer to the substance of the criticism against him, so he just tries to change the subject with more lies.
To recap: for several years, Fetzer, you have been making the claim that the towers came down in 10 seconds, when you know full well that they came down in 13+.
You have not only been confronted with proof of the 13+ second durations, from the Naudet video and seismo readings, but you've even gone so far to use the video and seismo as evidence in other factual claims, while continuing to make the 10 second claim knowing that it is false.
When will you retract your lie, Fetzer?
"NOTE: This is a nice example of conceding a point while denying that you have conceded it. The billowing black clouds of smoke were indicative of oxygen deprived fires,"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBULLSHIT. Any fire involving chlorinated plastics will have billowing black smoke. There are lots of chlorinated plastics in every office building.
"which were burning at temperatures way below those that could be attained under ideal conditions in the presence of pure oxygen."
BULLSHIT. Fires involving chlorinated plastics get plenty hot.
I see now where question 7 should be divided into 7a and 7b as follows:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this7. 7a. How could the steel have melted if the fires in the WTC towers weren't hot enough to do so? OR 7b. Since the melting point of steel is about 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature of jet fuel fires does not exceed 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit and Underwriters Laboratories (UL) certified the steel in the WTC towers to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit for six hours, how could fires have impacted the steel enough to bring down the WTC towers?
Since the fires burned neither hot enough nor long enough to cause the steel to weaken, much less melt, the NIST was never able to justify the "point of initiation" of its theory of collapse. Moreover, the key paragraph of its answer to question 6, namely:
"In other words, the momentum (which equals mass times velocity) of the 12 to 28 stories (WTC 1 and WTC 2, respectively) falling on the supporting structure below (which was designed to support only the static weight of the floors above and not any dynamic effects due to the downward momentum) so greatly exceeded the strength capacity of the structure below that it (the structure below) was unable to stop or even to slow the falling mass. The downward momentum felt by each successive lower floor was even larger due to the increasing mass."
clearly describes what, by any reasonable standard, qualifies as a "pancake collapse". Since every floor was designed to support 20 times its expected live load (that is, 20 times its dead load plus the furnishings, office equipment and personnel that would occupy them), there was never any justification for any floor, had it under-
gone a collapse, to cause any of the floors below it to also collapse. That is simply a myth.
Moreover, since the fires were converting matter into energy (smoke, heat, and other small particles), the mass of the building was diminishing as long as the fires were burning. The longer they burned, the less mass that the lower floors had to support. And if the fires had burned hot enough to cause the steel to lose half its capacity to support, since they were built with a safety margin of 20, they would still have had 10 times more carrying capacity then they needed.
Chuck Boldwyn has calculated that, if we regard the top 16 floors of the North Tower as one unit of downward force, the lower floors of the North Tower represented at least 199 units of upward force, where I leave it as an exercise for the student to determine whether one unit of downward force would overwhelm 199 units of upward force.
or several years, Fetzer, you have been making the claim that the towers came down in 10 seconds, when you know full well that they came down in 13+.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou have not only been confronted with proof of the 13+ second durations, from the Naudet video and seismo readings, but you've even gone so far to use the video and seismo as evidence in other factual claims, while continuing to make the 10 second claim knowing that it is false.
When will you retract your lie, Fetzer?
My replies to 266 and 267:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this_______________________________
266. ocschwar 09:22 AM 12/21/10
Fetzer is unable to answer to the substance of the criticism against him, so he just tries to change the subject with more lies.
To recap: for several years, Fetzer, you have been making the claim that the towers came down in 10 seconds, when you know full well that they came down in 13+.
You have not only been confronted with proof of the 13+ second durations, from the Naudet video and seismo readings, but you've even gone so far to use the video and seismo as evidence in other factual claims, while continuing to make the 10 second claim knowing that it is false.
When will you retract your lie, Fetzer?"
______________________________
As I have repeatedly explained, NIST itself uses the times of 11 seconds for the North Tower and 9 for the South. So my use of 10 seconds is clearly "in the ballpark". I have already observed that, since the explosives were blowing parts of both of those structures upward and outward, some of them may have taken as long as 13 seconds to reach the ground, as I also observe in my NOTE to question 6.
_______________________________
267. ocschwar in reply to JimFetzer 09:25 AM 12/21/10
"NOTE: This is a nice example of conceding a point while denying that you have conceded it. The billowing black clouds of smoke were indicative of oxygen deprived fires,"
BULLSHIT. Any fire involving chlorinated plastics will have billowing black smoke. There are lots of chlorinated plastics in every office building.
"which were burning at temperatures way below those that could be attained under ideal conditions in the presence of pure oxygen."
BULLSHIT. Fires involving chlorinated plastics get plenty hot."
________________________
Since even NIST concedes the point in this passage,
"Nearly all indoor large fires, including those of the principal combustibles in the WTC towers, produce large quantities of optically thick, dark smoke. This is because, at the locations where the actual burning is taking place, the oxygen is severely depleted and the combustibles are not completely oxidized to colorless carbon dioxide and water."
Surely if there were a better explanation, NIST would have advanced it. That ocschwar wants to stretch for other utterly implausible explanations defies credulity. Even if chlorinated plastics were present in the buidings, surely they were not there is such massive volume as to produce this quantity of "optically think, dark smoke", as NIST phrases it.
I had to go look it up. here's the link I found (independent of Jim) NOTE BONUS POINTS: WTC.NIST.GOV FAQ in the address.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm
I'm actually surprised... it does state 9 seconds and 11 seconds. ( hey! 9 & 11 now that's a coincidence.)
Talk about straight from the horse's mouth. I was okay with there being a sloppy 10 sec. reference in the commission report. but here's a secondary gov. source to support it! I'm sure though, that this nothing more than a typo, they should really go back and correct these things, right?
The exact quote from NIST:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this6. How could the WTC towers collapse in only 11 seconds (WTC 1) and 9 seconds (WTC 2)—speeds that approximate that of a ball dropped from similar height in a vacuum (with no air resistance)?
NIST estimated the elapsed times for the first exterior panels to strike the ground after the collapse initiated in each of the towers to be approximately 11 seconds for WTC 1 and approximately 9 seconds for WTC 2. These elapsed times were based on: (1) precise timing of the initiation of collapse from video evidence, and (2) ground motion (seismic) signals recorded at Palisades, N.Y., that also were precisely time-calibrated for wave transmission times from lower Manhattan (see NCSTAR 1-5A).
As documented in Section 6.14.4 of NIST NCSTAR 1, these collapse times show that:
“… the structure below the level of collapse initiation offered minimal resistance to the falling building mass at and above the impact zone. The potential energy released by the downward movement of the large building mass far exceeded the capacity of the intact structure below to absorb that energy through energy of deformation.
Since the stories below the level of collapse initiation provided little resistance to the tremendous energy released by the falling building mass, the building section above came down essentially in free fall, as seen in videos. As the stories below sequentially failed, the falling mass increased, further increasing the demand on the floors below, which were unable to arrest the moving mass.”
In other words, the momentum (which equals mass times velocity) of the 12 to 28 stories (WTC 1 and WTC 2, respectively) falling on the supporting structure below (which was designed to support only the static weight of the floors above and not any dynamic effects due to the downward momentum) so greatly exceeded the strength capacity of the structure below that it (the structure below) was unable to stop or even to slow the falling mass. The downward momentum felt by each successive lower floor was even larger due to the increasing mass.
From video evidence, significant portions of the cores of both buildings (roughly 60 stories of WTC 1 and 40 stories of WTC 2) are known to have stood 15 to 25 seconds after collapse initiation before they, too, began to collapse. Neither the duration of the seismic records nor video evidence (due to obstruction of view caused by debris clouds) are reliable indicators of the total time it took for each building to collapse completely.
--
Once again Fetzer proves himself to be a liar.
Your quote:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"
I'm actually surprised... it does state 9 seconds and 11 seconds. ( hey! 9 & 11 now that's a coincidence.)"
Their quote:
"NIST estimated the elapsed times for the first exterior panels to strike the ground after the collapse initiated in each of the towers to be approximately 11 seconds for WTC 1 and approximately 9 seconds for WTC 2."
That is how long it took the first I-Beam to hit the ground. The actual collapse took several seconds longer.
insult guy- you are sparkly and cuddly and you make cute squeaky sounds when you post stuff.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou insulted me with a personal attack awhile back when I was nothing but cordial and respectful with you up to that point (and have been with everyone on this thread). Obviously you have some issues with Jim, but what you said of me I do not appreciate. I'm not trying to dodge your discussion. I await your apology to me on this matter on this thread. And I cannot respect anything you have to say until then.
if you don't feel so inclined to do so, fine by me. then just keep squeaking.
Fine, don't read my quote. Read the NIST. Read it long enough to understand it:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFrom video evidence, significant portions of the cores of both buildings (roughly 60 stories of WTC 1 and 40 stories of WTC 2) are known to have stood 15 to 25 seconds after collapse initiation before they, too, began to collapse. Neither the duration of the seismic records nor video evidence (due to obstruction of view caused by debris clouds) are reliable indicators of the total time it took for each building to collapse completely.
squeak. squeak.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease email me for my "LBJ and CIA killed JFK" file if you would like. Lyndon Johnson and the CIA murdered John Kennedy in the 1963 Coup d’Etat.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are a lot of good web links and other info in this file. I would SKIM it first and see what catches your eye. Also, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to call me at 512-306-1510. Lyndon Johnson made a dirty deal with CIA Republicans to murder John Kennedy in the 1963 Coup d’Etat. (People like Clint Murchison Sr., H.L. Hunt, Nelson Rockefeller, David Rockefeller, top Nelson Rockefeller aide Henry Kissinger, George Herbert Walker Bush and Gen. Edward Lansdale all are excellent candidates for elite sponsorship.) Lyndon Johnson and Allen Dulles may very well have been co-CEOs of the JFK assassination; with the CIA in charge of the killing of JFK, and Lyndon Johnson and (his close friend and neighbor of 19 years in Washington, DC) FBI director J. Edgar Hoover in charge of the cover up.
Clint Murchison, Sr – more so than even H.L. Hunt – was a key player in the JFK assassination because of his close ties to the inner core of US intelligence (Allen Dulles, Nelson Rockefeller, John J. McCloy), close ties to Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI, bankers Rockefellers; Murchison was even friends with key Kennedy-hater mafia godfather Carlos Marcellos of New Orleans. Not only that, Murchison, Sr. was a patient and partner of Dr. Alton Oschner, the former president of the American Cancer Society and who ran covert cancer research for the CIA. Oschner, likewise was a Kennedy-hater. John Simkin: “One of Ochsner's friends described him as being ‘like a fundamentalist preacher in the sense that the fight against communism was the only subject that he would talk about, or even allow you to talk about, in his presence.’”
When JFK was slaughtered, Russia’s Khrushchev was literally crying, fearing nuclear worried. Cuba’s Castro feared an US invasion and gave an impressive speech the next day deconstructing the CIA’s deception provocation for war. Meanwhile at Clint Murchison’s home, the family maid May Newman describes the scene: “The mood in the Murchison family home was very joyous and happy. For a whole week after like champagne and caviar flowed, every day of the week. But I was the only one in that household at that time that uh felt any grief for his assassination."
Also, I think there is a lot of truth in this:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFrom Defrauding America, Rodney Stich, 3rd edition 1998 p. 638-639]:
“The Role of deep-cover CIA officer, Trenton Parker, has been described in earlier pages, and his function in the CIA's counter-intelligence unit, Pegasus. Parker had stated to me earlier that a CIA faction was responsible for the murder of JFK … During an August 21, 1993, conversation, in response to my questions, Parker said that his Pegasus group had tape recordings of plans to assassinate Kennedy. I asked him, "What group were these tapes identifying?" Parker replied: "Rockefeller, Allen Dulles, Johnson of Texas, George Bush, and J. Edgar Hoover." I asked, "What was the nature of the conversation on these tapes?"
I don't have the tapes now, because all the tape recordings were turned over to [Congressman] Larry McDonald. But I listened to the tape recordings and there were conversations between Rockefeller, [J. Edgar] Hoover, where [Nelson] Rockefeller asks, "Are we going to have any problems?" And he said, "No, we aren't going to have any problems. I checked with Dulles. If they do their job we'll do our job." There are a whole bunch of tapes, because Hoover didn't realize that his phone has been tapped. Defrauding America, Rodney Stich, 3rd edition p. 638-639]:
I just can't resist because you are too cute and cuddly insult guy.... you complete me and I can't quit you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisyou claim Jim has been peddling these pathological lies for 9 years. he says 10 seconds you say 13+.
he sites two official and separate sources 9/11 com. report and the NIST report of where the 10 sec.
hardly a lie- as they are in there on the record so to speak at the very least a reasonable average of the 9 and 11. and of course the sloppiness quote that you refer to.
The NIST context that you point out to me has quoted 15 seconds. NOT 13 as you suggest. Please site for me in either report where it is 13 seconds. ( saying 13+ seconds is not going to be sufficient in this case). other wise that's a 2 second difference from your claim to the official report.... and you've already established that a that 3 second difference makes some one a pathological liar.
Both the NIST report and the 9/11 commission report came out in 2004, and these are the references that Jim uses; nothing earlier.
YOUR claim that he's been peddling these lies for 9 years is incorrect. at best, he's been peddling for 6 years. And since he's got 2 official sources he can point to, I'd hardly call him a liar. Whereas a claim of 13 seconds I've yet to see in either the NIST or 9/11 comm. report.
Now Jim may be ultimately off by at least 3 seconds as far as your concerned. but you're totally off by 3 YEARS (and 2 seconds) by what you've shown me in your own arguement against Jim and I.
so at the very least your math doesn't add up, or is sloppy like 9/11 comm report.
here's something else... 9 years later and this is still on the NIST website...
"The NIST investigation of the WTC 7 building collapse is not yet complete. The report on the WTC 7 collapse investigation will be released in draft form for public comment and posted on this web site as soon as it is available."
so either that gave up or they don't have all the answers yet. (yet plenty of people debunkers and truthers on Youtube seem to have already figured something the NIST hasn't yet.)
"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisyou claim Jim has been peddling these pathological lies for 9 years. he says 10 seconds you say 13+.
he sites two official and separate sources 9/11 com. report and the NIST report of where the 10 sec."
WRONG. NIST says the first bits of debris falling down the sides took 10 seconds, and the actual collapse took far longer.
You need to bone up on reading comprehension. Re-read the whole paragraph of what the NIST says. Fetzer remains a pathological liar.
so we're nitpicking now, insult guy? seriously?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStill waiting to justify you claim of 13 seconds.
still waiting to justify you claim of "9 years"
Still waiting to justify your 2 second discrepancy as infallible but a 3 second discrepancy constitutes "pathological lying".
Still waiting for you to tell me why a guy who's being peddling for 9 years, is not okay, but the NIST after 9 years still can't figure out why wtc 7 collapsed, yet that's okay.
but jump on that one little issue which wasn't even the point of what I was saying and declare "WRONG."
do you have anything to say about the rest of that? or do you just OCD over the same stuff?
you are just too cute and fluffy sometimes.
No, rmdragon, this is beyond nitpicking. I'm picking lice, because your reasoning is lousy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Still waiting to justify you claim of 13 seconds."
Go look at the Naudet video.
"still waiting to justify you claim of "9 years""
I backed away from that. Okay, so Fetzer's only been peddling this lie for 5 years, he claims. What a defense...
"Still waiting to justify your 2 second discrepancy as infallible but a 3 second discrepancy constitutes "pathological lying"."
It's pathological when you make a factual claim, as Fetzer does, are confronted with proof that claim is wrong, as Fetzer was, and continue to make that claim, as Fetzer does.
"Still waiting for you to tell me why a guy who's being peddling for 9 years, is not okay, but the NIST after 9 years still can't figure out why wtc 7 collapsed, yet that's okay."
NIST hasn't published anything about WTC7, because nobody in civil engineering is even wondering about it. There was structural damage, and intense fire, and no fire supression since the water mains were severed. The building was evacuated successfully, firefighters went in, got called out, and hours later the building collapsed. Nobody died.
did I mention you are sparkly and smell like freshly baked apple tarts? 'cuz you do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI asked for 13 second claim from NIST or 9/11 commission report. This would be the same reference that Jim uses. (and from the quote you quoted from the NIST "Neither the duration of the seismic records nor video evidence (due to obstruction of view caused by debris clouds) are reliable indicators of the total time it took for each building to collapse completely."
therefore, telling me to go look at a video doesn't answer my question as it relates to NIST. if you want to propose your video is valid, then that undermines the validity of the NIST report.
so, NIST determined 15 seconds. Your 13 second claim is invalid. Unless there is a reference in NIST/9/11 report to a 13 second collapse, you are even more off base than he is. Jim at least can reference his.
It's not that i agree with Jim but I can see at least where he got them from and they are "reputable sources". I'm not arguing how he might take that information. but at least it's reliable reference for starters. He's not making it up.
"Still waiting to justify YOUR 2 second discrepancy as infallible" your reply is another example of not justifying your claim- just knocking down someone else's
Finally let me hold your hand again, if you read the quote from the NIST site regarding WTC 7 I provided They are acknowledging their report and it's not complete yet. they are even bothering to even mention it on their site. Obviously you are smarter than they are since you already have the answer. maybe you work for the NIST. If so please update the information your website to reflect what you explained to me.
talk about boning up on reading comprehension; and related to that, here's mine
the point of the 9 year claim, isn't a factual defense on Jim's part, (I'm glad you backed off of that) really it just tells me more about you.
that claim was a sweeping generalization based on incorrect data, and trying to discredit your rival. Considering you haven't offered an apology to me (twice) for unprovoked insults you've leveled on me (antagonizing & a measure of pride and arrogance on your part) and there's this quote- "Wanton disregard for truth,... someone as cavalier about about swallowing lies as you are, deserves disrespect, contempt,and derision" (well that's pretty biased.) It's about character & integrity or in your case, lack of. You are biased, judgmental, pre determined, and arrogant. Not great qualifications.
Why hould I waste time to consider ANYTHING you have to say?
"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI asked for 13 second claim from NIST or 9/11 commission report. "
I made the 13 seconds claim. I did not cite NIST. I cited the Naudet video.
you also don't read.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisrmdragon,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou're steering way off course here.
I've already provided a video link here that shows that WTC 2 took 13+ seconds to collapse.
There is really not an issue about the exact time because it is irrelevant to the entire subject matter.
Why? Because we all understand why and how the towers collapsed and once the collapse initiation started, there was no stopping it.
Now, you should concentrate on Fetzer's claims. Fetzer claims that whether the collpase time was 9 seconds, 11 seconds, or 13+ seconds, that the towers could not collapse that fast without the use of some type of aiding mechanism, whether explosives, thermite, or Judy Wood space beams.
But Fetzer cannot support his claim that the towers could not fall as they did without explosives. He just asserts that the towers could not fall that fast naturally and wants you to accept that claim.
Now that puts Fetzer in the position of contradicting the NIST reports. Do you accept the proposition that NIST could fool every structural engineer, forensic scientist, architect, physicist and chemist in the entire world? And that a mere former professor in none of those subjects could do it?
Indeed, who is Fetzer more likely to fool, thousands upon thousands of experts in the relevant subjects or laymen who have no knowledge in any of those subjects?
I've asked you to focus on the fact that Fetzer makes claims but does not support those claims. You've seen how he repeatedly refuses to address one of the claims I asked him to support.
Now, I am happy to engage you in intelligent conversation if you are serious about doing so but if not, then let me know.
Thanks.
Bj- You are right, I was distracted by the cute and fluffiness of insult guy. Thanks for pulling me back to an intelligent conversation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI do agree with you that ultimately the timing thing doesn't matter. I do agree with jim in a sense, the towers did have help. somewhere, somehow, I think they did. but I am the least qualified nor wholly omniscient to say how. So I have to look at all theories and all the facts.
"Do you accept the proposition that NIST could fool every structural engineer, forensic scientist, architect, physicist and chemist in the entire world? And that a mere former professor in none of those subjects could do it?"
I guess that's one of the core underlying issues.
not everyone, architect or engineer( 1400 or so at least.) is in agreement. if they were, i'd have no issue. But there is enough division out there within experts to at least give me pause on the matter. Fair enough? Towers falling and the time it took, isn't the make it or break it for me either.
however- I'm calling a snoopy and the red baron. Hopefully, we all have better things to do than discuss 9/11 conspiracies so close to christmas (at least me anyway). Thanks for everyone- debunker and truther on the thread, for taking the time and energy to engage me in discussion.
It's been lively and interesting. I appreciate it all.
I'm signing off from this thread, not trying to dodge any points or discussions, just picking a stopping point and walking away, for now.
Merry Christmas, if that's your thing; Happy Holidays
and most importantly...
Peace.
-Rmdragon
To sum up the comments to Dr. Shermer's article:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this- Jim Fetzer and a few others illustrated Dr. Shermer's points by example.
- Jim Fetzer repeated the same claims he has made for years.
- Jim Fetzer continues to misrepresent his claims as "evidence."
- Jim Fetzer continues to refuse to support his claims.
- After 9 years, no one has presented a scrap of evidence that "9/11 was an inside job."
- Franco is STILL dead.
- Reason lives.
In his article “The Conspiracy Theory Detector” Mr. Shermer puts forth ten characteristics that, according to him, will give you an insight or methodology for determining the truth or falsity of any theory involving a possible conspiracy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMr. Shermer asserts that he is a skeptic and is “Viewing the world with a rational eye.” However, one of the definitions for skeptic, in Webster’s New World dictionary, is “a person who habitually doubts, questions, or suspends judgment upon matters generally accepted.” Why then, does he attack the doubt and skepticism of others when they question the “generally accepted” theories put forth by the government, multi-national corporations, and the world elite. What he is doing is defending the status quo. He claims to be a skeptic. Yet, he accepts the information and conclusions presented by these same groups. He does not question them. He questions the people who have doubts about the motives and activities of these groups.
He criticizes the 9/11 Truth Movement, as is his style, and tries to make it appear as if there is no efficacy to what they are saying. I wonder if he has ever investigated the inconsistency’s and omissions in the 9/11 Commission Report? One group, Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, questions the results of the governments 9/11 investigation. These professionals have looked at the evidence and they question the government scenario because it violates what they know.
On 9/11, within a little over nine hours, three steel high-rise buildings collapsed into their own footprints at or near freefall speed. Before 9/11 no steel high-rise building, had ever collapsed due to fire. What are the odds of one collapsing, due to fire, let alone three on the same day? If you believe the official story, 9/11 was historic for more than the attack that day.
Does Mr. Shermer have a degree or expertise in building design, construction and the requisite physics, mathematics and material science needed to judge what actually happened on 9/11? Is his knowledge and expertise greater than the collective knowledge of the1300 plus professionals who belong to Architects and Engineers for 9/11 truth? If he is a true skeptic, perhaps he should question his own methodology and belief system. In any investigative endeavor, you need to consider all possibilities. Question everything, then ask yourself Cui Bono.
bamitch48,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou need to read and think more carefully. You're just illustrating Dr. Shermer's points for him.
First, you are just repeating debunked claims. Second, you are doing so by pretending to give legitimacy to questions that have long-since been addressed, answered, and/or shown to be based on faulty premises or claims HUNDREDS of times. Why?
You are, in fact, demonstrating that you are the furthest thing from a skeptic and just illustrating the true nature of denialism.
You need to start over and realize why Dr. Shermer is a true skeptic and you have shown above why you are the exact opposite.
bjebje,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis discussion thread is cute, and you are doing an admirable job at being slippery, making a lot of charges, ignoring the rebuttals, then issuing the charges again.
For example, just scanning the thread, I find your question: "Who's right: Jim Fetzer or all the engineers and architects in the world?" Then when rmdragon replied that over a thousand architects and engineers side more or less with Fetzer, you ignore that answer to your claim, and then reissue a list of nonsense bulletins:
"- Jim Fetzer and a few others illustrated Dr. Shermer's points by example.
- Jim Fetzer repeated the same claims he has made for years.
- Jim Fetzer continues to misrepresent his claims as "evidence."
- Jim Fetzer continues to refuse to support his claims.
- After 9 years, no one has presented a scrap of evidence that "9/11 was an inside job."
- Reason lives."
These can be taken one at a time to demonstrate weak and/or circular reasoning. And that is precisely what is at issue here: whether Reason amounts to following rigorous rules of method, or simply believing what sounds "reasonable". You and Shermer will not deviate from what sounds "reasonable" -- and this you define as Reason. The problem is, that isn't Reason at all, just as what is scientific isn't the particular worldview of a community of scientists but a radically agnostic scientific method.
Your point #1: Of course Fetzer and others "illustrate" Shermer's points. Shermer seeks to dismiss so-called conspiracy theories, and Fetzer and others advance so-called conspiracy theories. The issue is not whether Fetzer is different from Shermer -- he is. The issue is whether Shermer correctly understands that difference.
#2: Why wouldn't Fetzer repeat the claims he has "made for years"? Should he be making other claims? Someone else's?
#3: Fetzer "misrepresents" his views as evidence. This is clearly false. Whether Fetzer is right or not, he states his views and then cites other facts, rightly or wrongly, to support those views. There is a clear difference.
#4: How can you say he fails to support his claims when you also complain about what he offers as evidence?
#5: Obviously, plenty of anomalous details about that day have been presented. The question is their interpretation.
I'll place #7 in my next post.
#7: "Reason lives". Not in your postings. First off, claiming Shermer is a skeptic is inaccurate. It reflects an ignorance of the history of philosophy. Skepticism is a philosophical attitude according to which one can ultimately know nothing. Now since Shermer passes himself off as an adherent of Science with a capital 'S', we know he bears more of a relation to post-Enlightenment scientific materialism than the mystery schools of antiquity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo let's take the weaker and more ordinary usage of one who is "skeptical": one who doubts, rigorously and therefore according to some method. Shermer does not succeed at this since he does not examine any of the so-called conspiracy theories in detail, choosing instead a taxonomical approach: grouping a lot of diverse theories together and calling them "conspiracy theory".
Imagine how useful it would be for someone who is an outsider to science -- hard in this day and age -- to lump evolution, spontaneous generation, the theory of relativity, the germ theory of disease, Ptolemaic cosmology, and the theory of ekpyrotic universes all together and name them: science. To anyone in any of those fields, or any historian who studies the extinct theories, it's ludicrous at best.
Still, Shermer does exactly this. He takes a wide range of theories, puts them together solely on the basis that they do not sound reasonable to him, and gives them a name: "conspiracy theory".
It brings us to the weakest and truest sense in which Shermer is, indeed, a skeptic. If a skeptic is anyone discerning enough to be able to tell when a theory doesn't *sound* reasonable, and then rejects it, Shermer is a bona fide skeptic. Of course, there's a better and more apt name for this practice of discernment: orthodoxy. Shermer is simply an orthodox thinker. Like the legions of Victorian scientists before him whose quaint ideas are now forgotten, Shermer adheres to a sensibility of what sounds reasonable in a particular time and place, dresses it up in metaphysical and absolutist language ("science", "skepticism"), and of course, happens to be wrong.
Now, this posting is for the peanut gallery, and not for you, bjenje, or whatever your name is. You're obviously a blowhard. But it's a unique historical moment, and tells us much about the history of science, that today, practitioners of orthodoxy who might as well be wearing robes, can fashion themselves as "scientific skeptics" and act as functionaries defending a public mythology.
<i>
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this#2: Why wouldn't Fetzer repeat the claims he has "made for years"? Should he be making other claims? Someone else's?</i>
For a simple reason: he has been confronted with proof that his claims are false. When confronted, he simply hurls insults and slinks away, to make the same claims in another venue on another day.
That is the modus operandi of the snake oil salesman, the Holocaust denier, and their ilk. Fetzer is no different.
One example:
Fetzer claims the buildings came down in 10 seconds. The Naudet video, which is available on Youtube, clearly shows they took longer. And yet he persists in making that claim.
Har! Holocaust denier?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAdmit it: You're a government spook.
The topic that should be under discussion here is not Fetzer, but an article by Michael Shermer. --This may come as a surprise to some of you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat is obvious to anybody is that Shermer's article is a puff piece. As a survey of these theories from a history of ideas perspective, or a sociological perspective, or even a pop-cultural perspective, it fails. It fails to present any new research or even any research at all on these "conspiracy theories". It simply starts with a knee-jerk reaction and then extrapolates from there.
Even if I had no belief whatsoever in any of these "theories", and had no inclination toward them one way or the other, I would see that the piece is a kind of smug "us vs. them" statement -- one designed to make those who think they are "reasonable" feel even more so, and those who seem like "kooks" appear even more so.
This type of article is symptomatic, of course; it reflects a profoundly anti-scientific point of view. It accepts Science not as a radical, even revolutionary way of encountering and discovering the world, but merely as a collection of pat, everyday, accepted views. -- But then, Scientific American is hardly on the cutting-edge of scientific reporting.
heinrich66,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are completely out of your depth. We've heard the same nonsense for almost 10 years now. Your 9/11 Denial Movement never made to square one. You've never been able to support any of your claims or get anything wrong.
You are just illustrating the same denialism practiced by every denilaist movement in history, whether it is Creationism, round-earth denial, moon landing denial, Holocaust Denial, climate change denial, or 9/11 denial.
There are a few places left where you can discuss your conspiracy theories to your heart's content without be laughed at. Try http://abovetopsecret.com/911_Conspiracies.php.
The real world of science and skepticism is beyond your ability to comprehend.
read get "anything right" above, not "anything wrong."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree completely. Although Shermer's articles create a lot of "buzz" in terms of comments, they are pseudo-scientific and bring great discredit to the reputation of Scientific American magazine. Shermer may hold some science-related degrees, but his reasoning and his presentations are extremely faulty. He does not seem to understand or seek to uphold basic principles of the scientific method in his own approach to questions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps his graduation from Pepperdine University, a notoriously right-wing school, politically, has colored his attitudes and viewpoint about the world. His stances on subjects seem more politically motivated to support orthodox, Establishment dogma than motivated by a true scientific desire to know the truth.
"Har! Holocaust denier?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAdmit it: You're a government spook."
Good going, Heinrich66, you and Fetzer are two peas in a pod. Your turn to be confronted with proof, and your turn to hurl insults instead of engaging the issue.
To recap:
Fetzer claims the towers came down in 10 seconds.
Fetzer has been confronted with proof that they took longer.
Whenever Fetzer is re-confronted with the proof, he just slinks away, to go again and make the same claim somwhere else. So, your turn now, little boy. Slink away now. Attaboy.
"The topic that should be under discussion here is not Fetzer, but an article by Michael Shermer. --This may come as a surprise to some of you. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMichael Shermer's article is about people like Fetzer.
Wow, some of these comments. They are all over the map. Some are intelligent, some stupid, some simply incomprehensible. Some follow the new and idiotic format of not saying anything, instead just listing links to you tube. Highly amusing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually, a coworker of mine, a good scientist and otherwise a solid thinker, believes not only in the 9/11 conspiracy, but also crop circles and a few others. Keep meaning to ask him if he believes contrails are chemical dumping. Yes, highly amusing.
There seems to be a phobia surrounding the word "conspiracy." It is treated almost like an obscenity by our news and entertainment media. To be a "conspiracy theorist" seems comparable to being a
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"heretic" during the Catholic Inquisition. Historians of Science may recall that Galileo was accused of being a heretic because his view of the cosmos was in contradiction to the Church's.
Shermer's dismissal of "conspiracy theorists" is comparable to the Pope's opposition to Galileo's views. It is extremely narrow-minded and intellectually naive.
"Conspiracy" in broadest sense is nothing more than two or more people working together cooperatively and covertly in opposition to the interest of one or more other persons to obtain something of value, or an advantage of power over others. Cooperative action that is out in the open and not covert is NOT conspiracy. Certain kinds of conspiratorial behavior have been made illegal, but by no means all such behavior.
A person is often more likely to attain their objective by allying with someone else with a common interest to coordinate their actions than by acting alone. Also, many times people realize that they are more likely to realize their objective by acting secretly than openly.
The world abounds in conspiratorial behavior in
this broad sense. It is not anomalous, nor is it necessarily pathological. It is merely one of the tactics people employ to get what they want in life. In fact it is a part of the fabric of life,
whether we want to acknowledge it or not.
Young siblings will conspire oftentimes to coax some some prize or reward from their parents; illicit lovers will conspire to keep their torrid affair from the other persons to whom they are committed; some unscrupulous businessmen will conspire to transact deals that enrich themselves at the expense of others who trust them to be working for the larger organization (such as market price fixing); football players conspire to grab the cooler of Gator-ade to dump on their winning coach, and so on, and so on....
If anyone cared to analyze in detail the activities of all of us on a daily basis, they would find that the world abounds in conspiracies, from the petty and innocuous to the large-scale and criminal. The
vast majority are on the innocuous and petty side of the continuum. However, about half of the criminals in our prisons are there for a crime that was perpetrated by way of a conspiracy.
The world does abound with conspiracies, and on its face, Shermer's article is only a milquetoast statement that some theories about political conspiracies are true and some are false.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe problem is no political conspiracy theory not currently accepted by the media happens to be true, according to Shermer and other debunkers. It's awfully convenient. To go from writing an article stating some conspiracy theories are true and some are false, to in practice rejecting every political conspiracy theory not promoted through mainstream consensus raises the question: how innocuous is the basic distinction being advanced in the article?
Well, the distinction itself is innocuous; but the person advancing the distinction and the practice of "debunking" are not. Ironically, the same article written by a so-called conspiracy theorist would have a certain validity.
Dear Mr. Schermer, I just read your "Skeptic" column in the December 2010 issue of Scientific American. I'd like to weigh in with a comment which seems all the more apposite now that I've also read the first 70 or so comments on your column from other readers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour list of signs that a conspiracy theory may be untrue covers a lot of ground, but to my mind leaves out a couple of important points:
11. The grimmer the purported conspiracy is presented to be, the more untrue it probably is.
12. The grimmer the attitude of the conspiracy theorist is, the more untrue his theory is likely to be.
Taken by themselves, of course, these two signs mean little. We all know of one conspiracy that turned out not only to be real, but to be grimmer than anyone could imagine -- namely, the Holocaust. Nonetheless, my dilettante's experience of conspiracy theories tells me that the farther his pet theory travels from reality, the more humorless and impassioned the theorist becomes, as if sheer force of emotion could make his theory true.
I was going to cite a rather vague example of my own involving Area 51, black-ops aircraft and UFOs, but reading through the first 70 comments on your column have unfortunately given us a far better example. Frankly, I am astounded at the lengths to which Mr. Fetzer and his friends are going to "prove" that a horrific event which unfolded in real time before a transfixed TV audience of millions, myself included, was (a) a hoax, (b) a U.S. government plot, or (c) a little bit of both. I am not surprised, however, that Mr. Fetzer's theory is so grim -- or that he defends it so grimly. From Mr. von Daniken's ancient astronauts to Mr. Fetzer's 9/11 "hoax," all "Truthers" (or better yet, True Believers) seem to have the same irritating attitude. The truth hath been vouchshafed unto them and them alone! Woe betide those who do not hearken unto them!
The sad thing is that Mr. Fetzer's theory, if true, cuts the ground out from under him. If the government of his own country can commit such acts as he accuses it of in peacetime, then he can trust nothing and no one. And if, as I firmly believe, he holds such beliefs for no good reason, then he must be a very lonely man indeed to prefer his self-appointed role as Lone Hero in the Twilight Zone over living with the rest of his fellow citizens in God's good sunlight.
P.S. After reading a few more comments, I'd like to add this with regard to 9/11: Don't forget that there was in fact a conspiracy involved -- one on the part of Osama bin Laden and the loosely-knit network of terrorist groups we call al-Qaeda to inflict death, annihilation and hatred upon a great nation in peacetime for alleged sins that nation committed against the community of Islam by way of protecting one Islamic nation from the depradations of another.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisP.P.S. Not being used to posting comments like this, I may not have made myself very clear the first time around -- but "Mister T" pretty much made my the point I was aiming for in the very first comment posted here. No True Believer would ever make a joke like that, or even entertain the notion that his pet theory is false, as too many of the subsequent comments (especially from Mr. Fetzer and friends) show.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisApropos of which, a note to Mr. "bjebe": I applaud your efforts to shoot down (as it were) Mr. Fetzer's 9/11 conspiracy ideas, but I feel I must warn you against falling into the same trap as Mr. Fetzer and his friends. No amount of rational argument, however cogent, will even induce them to doubt their pet theory. It's good that you tried, especially for the benefit of any innocent reader who might be swayed by Mr. Fetzer's obvious passion and conviction; but to be blunt, after x number of times trying to shout him down you begin to sound like a crank yourself. Don't go there. It's not worth it. Anyway, people like Mr. Fetzer are entitled to their own opinion so long as they don't go around blowing up day-care centers to prove their point.
Michael Shermer lives in a fool's paradise where conspiracies are relatively rare.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe reality of conspiracies, including very large-scale ones, are plain as day and can be seen in our daily newspapers, magazines, and news media. If Michael Shermer can't see any conspiracies, he isn't really looking, or does not care to see what is in plain sight. For instance, to name a but few that spring to mind from the news stories of recent months: Bernie Madoff's multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme; the large-scale financial fraud and manipulations involving the credit rating institutions and largest financial institutions causing our latest economic recession; the health insurance industry's calculated tricks and deceptions that deny many policyholders' legitimate claims and leave them owing thousands in unmet health care costs; and the large-scale fraud carried out against the US government by defense contractors such as Halliburton, formerly led by former VP Dick Cheney. Read your favorite newspaper, magazine, or internet-based news source, dear reader, and you can undoubtedly identify many more examples of well documented, real-world conspiracies.
Going back a little further in history, prominent conspiracies in our news media include the lysine price fixing scheme of a number of large international agri-business companies, such as Archers Daniel Midland (ADM) and Ajinomoto, brought to life by Matt Damon in the film The Informant!; the hornets' nest of conspiratorial intrigues and crimes that we call "Watergate" that sent many high level government operatives to prison and forced a president to resign; the Iran-Contra scandal of the Ronald Reagan/George H. W. Bush era; the savings and loan industry debacle that involved widespread financial fraud; the BCCI bank fraud and criminal intrigues that helped Pakistan acquire nuclear arms; the BNL bank fraud and agricultural credit scandal that among other things helped enrich Saddam Hussein and keep him in power; and the huge scandal involving the Vatican Bank, Continental Bank of Illinois, American and Sicilian mafia families, the CIA, the secretive Italian P2 organization, and financial fraudsters Sindona and Calvi, et al. Not yet mentioned are the multitude of mafia murders, scams, and frauds in our country, or the coups perpetrated by our CIA to overthrow on behalf of US-based multi-national corporations democratically elected governments in Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, Indonesia in 1965, Chile in 1973, among others.
ewaguy,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wonder why there are so many of you who cannot distinguish a "conspiracy" from a "conspiracy theory."
I'd recommend you pay more attention when reading Dr. Shermer's article.
The surface of all of the large-scale, multi-actor, criminal conspiracies has hardly even been scratched by my short list in the earlier post (#307). In fact, as I pointed out in an earlier post, probably about half of the several million people presently occupying American prisons are incarcerated on charges of conspiracy, and those are the only the ones who were unlucky or incompetent enough to get caught. By definition, successful conspirators will escape detection and prosecution, and we cannot gauge just how many are of those. The public may often suspect, but the government is unable (or perhaps in some cases for high-placed criminals, unwilling) to gather enough evidence to successfully prosecute many, many more conspirators. So the number of criminal conspirators in our own country easily numbers in the low millions -- a not insignificant fraction of the U.S. population.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShermer's checklist of characteristics of conspiracy theories that are likely false is just plain rubbish.
He disparages "conspiracy theorists" because of their desire to "connect the dots," supposedly irrespective of the evidence, or when other causes could explain events. Of course, the leading conspiracy theorists in our country go by such job titles of "police detective," "law enforcement agent," or "prosecutor." The cases they investigate involve conspiracy to commit crimes of all sorts. Since eyewitnesses are often unavailable, many of the conspiracy cases in which prosecutors "connect the dots" to win convictions are built on circumstantial evidence. This despite the fact that the complexity of the circumstantial evidence, and the number of dots connected for the jury, would make Mikey Shermer's weak head spin.
Shermer's claim that a large scale conspiracy is almost impossible to successfully pull off -- that it requires super-human powers for so many people to keep secrets -- is obviously false to anyone who is a sophisticated observer of life and national and world events. Shermer has received this bit of "wisdom" from G. Gordon Liddy, one of the most notorious fools and incompetent burglars associated most famously with the Watergate break-in and the ensuing presidential scandal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is in the nature of large hierarchical, bureaucratic organizations such as our governments, private corporations, and the military in particular, to compartmentalize their operations so that lower-level people are given instructions without knowing or understanding the "big picture" or even necessarily the ultimate objective. For personally sensitive, unethical, or criminal activities, information is often given out to underlings very parsimoniously, on a "need to know basis." The people at the top of the organization often have ulterior motives and alternative goals than the ones being openly expressed. If the conspiracy scheme goes awry, the highest authorities frequently seek to evade responsibility entirely and scapegoat lower-level operatives under the rubric of "plausible deniability," or feign incompetence rather than malicious intent.
Many times co-conspirators are not bound together voluntarily, but are coerced by threats of blackmail or physical or financial harm, or seduced by a bribe of some kind. There is strong mutual self-interest among participants in keeping conspiracies from being exposed to the light of day. The whistleblower or informant often risks great personal harm to him/herself and their family: the possibility of being black-listed from future employment in their profession or field, their reputation destroyed, in financial ruin, and/or or suffering serious physical harm, or even death.
ewaguy,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou really don't know what you are talking about. You're just blowing hot air.
I wonder if Michael Shermer took notice of the recent news about former Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay receiving a three-year prison sentence after being convicted of conspiracy and money laundering. DeLay's law breaking was really not a closely guarded secret. It was something of an "in-your-face" violation that dared any prosecutor to take action against someone so prominent and powerful in national politics. When the prosecutor learned of possible violations of Texas state campaign finance law, he investigated. The prosecutor surely knew before he started investigating that DeLay would cry that any prosecution was politically motivated and he was being unfairly persecuted. Fortunately, in that case, it did not deter him from seeking justice.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo jog people's memory of what was reported by the Press: DeLay set up a front organization which rented a Washington, D. C., office to receive large corporate donations that funneled money to Texas state Republican House candidates to help illegally fund their election campaigns. The corporate donors certainly must have known they were participating in an illegal conspiracy with Tom DeLay, and DeLay's wife was the only full-time employee of this front organization that apparently had no other purpose except to launder the illegal campaign funds.
The prosecutor of DeLay investigated the suspected conspiracy. In other words, the prosecutor was, to use the pejorative term, a "conspiracy theorist." However, unlike ordinary citizens who are "conspiracy theorists" (they just look at themselves as just private researchers), the government prosecutor had the power to subpoena the front organization's financial records and compel people to answer questions under oath. He found correspondences between transaction amounts and dates to sufficiently "connect the dots" and persuade the jury to find guilt and convict Tom DeLay. This was achieved despite the evidence being primarily circumstantial. Criminal conspirators usually don't readily admit their crimes, except through plea bargaining for a lesser penalty.
Of course, DeLay's conspiracy conviction was not particularly unusual. There are many such conspiracy investigations and convictions of less politically or socially prominent people every week and every month in our country. Just within the past ten days, my local newspaper reported a story of a bank employee embezzling $183,000 of a customer's money who had recently died. There was no conspiracy in that criminal act, but some of the bank's top executives conspired to cover up the theft. The bank's security director filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the bank because the executives tried to discourage him from reporting the crime to federal and state bank regulators, and then retaliated against him when he did. Federal investigators very charitably found that the conspiring bank executives did not commit any crime, but were merely "incompetent" in trying to protect the bank's reputation. How lucky for these bank executives! One can't help but wonder whether the executives' higher social and economic status had some influence over the federal investigators' decision making.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCrimes by individuals or conspiracies of two or more people are frequently followed by a criminal conspiracy to cover-up the crime by the perpetrators and/or other ranking officials of the organization or institution within which the crime(s) occurred. One can see that in the bank embezzlement example above, as well as for much larger organizations and institutions, such as the child molestation scandals within the Roman Catholic Church impacting numerous dioceses around the world. A great many priests and clergy have for decades taken sexual advantage of children and teens. The highest ranking officials of the Church knew of this and did nothing to stop the illegal and immoral practice -- they merely shuffled the child-molesting clergy around to other parishes or dioceses to conceal the crimes. The Church's highest ranking officials believed that protecting the image and reputation of their institution was of more importance than exposing the awful truth and the reality of their corrupt rule. Thus, extremely callously and conspiratorially, they multiplied the illegal and immoral actions of their entire institution.
Motivations of institutional protection and reputation similar to those of the Roman Catholic Church's child sex abuse scandal are also evident in the cover-up of the assassination of President Kennedy. The very fact that the alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, just two days after being taken in for questioning, was in turn gunned down by assassin Jacob Rubinstein (AKA Jack Ruby) while in Dallas police custody raised a red flag to every thinking and politically observant person. The situation appeared much like the type of coup d'etat associated with so-called "banana republics" in Central and South America.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Deputy Attorney General, Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, was anxious about what kind of image of our country was being projected to the rest of the world, as well as worried about what effect the violent overthrow of our head of state might have on the political stability of the nation. He stated in a memorandum to Presidential Press Secretary Bill Moyers: "The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates that are still at large, and that evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial."
Further, the memo states: "Speculation about Oswald's motivation ought to be cut off, and we should have have some basis for rebutting thought that this was a Communist conspiracy or (as the Iron Curtain press is saying) a right-wing conspiracy to blame it on the Communists. Unfortunately the facts on Oswald seem about too pat -- too obvious (Marxist, Cuba, Russian wife, etc.). The Dallas police have put out statements in the Communist conspiracy theory, and it was they who were in charge when he was shot and thus silenced." Despite Katzenbach's call to cut off speculation, to Moyers and indirectly to the new president, it is clear from the above quotation that Katzenbach himself finds the supposed Communist connections of Oswald suspiciously obvious, and it implies that Oswald had been set up.
Katzenbach, again: "... The matter has been handled thus far with neither dignity nor conviction. Facts have been mixed with rumor and speculation. We can scarcely let the world see us totally in the image of the Dallas police when our President is murdered."
Mind you, Katzenbach's memo to Moyers was written on November 25, 1963, just three days after the assassination, and one day after Oswald's so-convenient murder by "night club owner" Ruby. No law enforcement agency or agencies, no matter how efficient or competent, are able to investigate crimes and reach firm conclusions in the short length of time Katzenbach desired "to cut off speculation." Moreover, there was no eyewitness to Oswald assassinating Kennedy, and the conflicting testimony of witnesses that day were many, and in the extreme. Many of the witnesses pointed to shots coming from the opposite direction than what government authorities desired to frame Oswald as the "lone nut" gunman.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKatzenbach to Moyers: "It is important that all of the facts surrounding President Kennedy's assassination be made public [Period? End of sentence? No, the sentence continues and significantly qualifies the preceding words] ... in a way which will satisfy people in the United States and abroad that all the facts have been told and that a statement to this effect be made now." In a manner that comes naturally to Washington legal "spin doctors," it is clear in the way the sentence is worded that Katzenbach is concerned about people's perception of the truth, not Truth itself. These were Cold War times when few Americans - especially conservatives - would easily accept our government's denials that Oswald had support from the Soviet Union or Cuba, which on face of the information presented to the public is precisely the direction that the facts seemed to point.
On the other hand, many Americans were suspicious of darker intrigues. It was no secret to politically savvy Americans in 1963 that the political marriage of Bostonian President, John Kennedy, and Texan VP, Lyndon Johnson, was none too happy. Johnson was at the time of the assassination embroiled in an investigation for three major corruption scandals that threatened to lead to his impeachment, or even imprisonment. Defeated presidential candidate Richard Nixon had openly speculated in a newspaper article appearing the day before the assassination that Kennedy was dropping Johnson from the ticket in his upcoming re-election bid. Many Americans clearly perceived a possible motivation by Johnson to do away with Kennedy, simultaneously grabbing power for himself and avoiding the further attention and disgrace of his corruption scandals.
seanbigay@yahoo.com sez,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Don't forget that there was in fact a conspiracy involved -- one on the part of Osama bin Laden and the loosely-knit network of terrorist groups we call al-Qaeda to inflict death, annihilation and hatred upon a great nation in peacetime for alleged sins that nation committed against the community of Islam by way of protecting one Islamic nation from the depradations of another"
LOL....that`s just your regurgitated version of the "OFFICIAL 9/11 FAIRYTALE".
I think it has been more than adequately demonstrated, here and in a million other forums on the net, that even if the CIA construct known as "al-Qaeda" existed, the "OFFICIAL 9/11 FAIRYTALE" scenario is scientifically impossible.
Another promoter of the "OFFICIAL" Story. How nice. Maybe, if you could think or reason more carefully and were able to defend your empty arguments with some solid facts, instead of the unsubstantiated, debunked claims repetition, of denial ditto-heads such as yourself, there would have been an actual investigation into 911. Unfortunately it is those, such as yourself, who impede the progress of civilization with your incessant defense of the indefensible.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDr. Shermer is a shill for those who would do harm to America and the world. Do you really think that everything the government and corporations tells you is true? Are you so naive to believe that all the people who have power in this world are good and caring and are out to make the world a better place for everyone.
Instead of trying to insult me and others with your unsophisticated, lack of any appreciable contribution to the discussion, maybe you should do some reading and learn to think critically and not let your ignorance and bias get in the way of your judgment. That is, if you do have the ability to make anything close to a rational, unbiased, thought.
As to being in denial, I would say that you are the one who is in denial. There is a book called "Political Ponerology" which you should read. It might open your eyes to some of the true aspects of the world and the people in it.
Shermer, a true skeptic? As I said before, he is a shill who promotes the status quo. That hardly qualifies him as a skeptic. It does, however, qualify him as another sheeple in the great sheeple flock.
Flame on! Don't let the wolves get you
Although the famous Katzenbach memo (referenced in my posts # 314 -315) dug up during the House Select Committee on Assassinations hearings of the late 1970's clearly demonstrates criminal cover-up activities by our federal government at its highest levels, it is unlikely Katzenbach himself had anything to do with the despicable assassination itself. He was merely showing himself to be a loyal government operative ready to protect the institution from disgrace, or possibly much worse. Since the federal government in the District of Columbia is well known as the land of the ambitious and aggressive, the memo may also have had another purpose for Katzenbach: to ingratiate himself with the country's new chief executive and position himself as the next prospective Attorney General (which he in fact became just a little more than a year later). Katzenbach surely knew that his boss, Robert Kennedy, was not a good fit as an Attorney General in a Lyndon Johnson administration.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisE. Martin Schotz summed up best the obvious: "The very simple and obvious question is, Who had the means and motive to organize a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy, frame in advance a CIA agent for the murder, use immediately all media channels to spill the frame-up of Oswald to the world, have the White House radioing Air Force One on the way back from Dallas that Oswald was it before the Dallas police had anything on him? Who can do all this and command a complete cover-up by all our society's institutions? Only one institution had the means and motive to accomplish all this, an element of the United States government that is so necessary to the 'defense' of the nation that to expose it would be unthinkable -- the answer is obvious -- high US military intelligence..... The full truth today must include an acknowledgment that the source of the assassination conspiracy was knowable and known at the time, and continues to be. The full truth requires that we acknowledge that every leading institution of this society has cooperated in covering up the President's murder."
The official national denial of the obvious reminds one of the Hans Christian Anderson tale, "The Emperor's New Clothes." The popular story portrays an innocent youth speaking Truth to Power. When all the rest of the timid townspeople are praising the beauty and elegance of the emperor's new "clothes," one unselfconscious youth blurts out the obvious truth that the emperor is naked. The story bespeaks timeless truths about our society's real tendencies.
One might be tricked into seeing a conspiratorial explanation for a prosaic event briefly. But controversies over events like 911 and the Kennedy Assassination continue for years because there are so very many disconnects and incongruities in the official stories. Conspiracy theorists have heard all of Mr. Shermer's points many times before. And they are unimpressed because they do not get to the specific ground truths. Instead they only offer misdirecting generalizations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs we say about all denialists like you, bamitch48, it must be nice to live a life unburdened by reality.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReally, you fool no one.
Michael Shermer is not only intelligent, but entertaining as well. To me, Conspiracy theories are just that; theories. How one tags information, events, groups, etc. is an exercise in semantics. What is a "conspiracy theory", anyway? Well, usually I see some people with strong feelings about some subject/event with some number of "facts", opinions, facts, hopes, the list goes on. True to every CT I have looked at they are, without exception, a lot of wishful thinking joined with lightly supported facts, and loud talk meant to intimidate anf unbelievers. Sigh. CT folks remind me of evangelicals. Short on insight, but long on "faith". And it isn't just the nuts who pop up from somewhere. I have a very close family friend who is very intelligent, degree in engineering, very well read, who has written a book supporting Sasquatch! Go figure.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMr Shermer keep up the good work and NEVER lose your sense of humor. That is an order!!! Hah!
Never argue with a anti conspiracy person since none of them have read any of the information.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnti conspiracy is a mental problem associated with people who believe they know information without ever seeing or hearing it. It is a mental problem to do with their ego and their belief they are intellectually more advanced than others, they are so smart they do not need to know the facts/evidence. Their superior intelligence allows them pass judgement on events that they have no knowledge of.
Anti conspiracists are just people who have not read any or enough information. Is there a person who has actually read the information regarding all conspiracy theories and not come to the conclusion that something is not what it seems?
Secrecy is the operating principle of European & American elite classes. Classified info, compartmentalisation, need-to-know, confidentiality--all these indifferent and neutral policies ROB US THE PEOPLE OF KNOWING THE ACTIONS AND INTENTIONS OF LEADERS. JFK, RFK, MLK, Ruby Ridge, Phila Move, Waco, OKC95, WTC93 & 2001--these are not the only secrets. "Continuity of Government" is a secret; Shadow Govt is a secret; underground enclaves are secret; astronomical changes are secret; intentions of Congress & the President are secret and what is reported is an Official Agenda and Official versions in the press. That's ALL WE the people GET, Official Versions (all of them confabulated). I spent the past couple of days chatting with a professional astronomer; and the way her job is focused on star maps, she doesn't know this Sun is magenta-yellow in color; she doesn't know the actual size of the Moon or Mars; she doesn't know planetary ORIENTATION (to set geography); she doesn't know the long history of Wormwood-Nibiru incursions. In fact, she didn't recognize the name, even. Her procedures and policies dictate ONLY CERTAIN KNOWLEDGE is acceptable in order for grants-submission to be successful. How ripe she is for the picking by secretive Elites who maneuver and manipulate the learning process! Same with anthropology, geology, medicine & nursing (BIG Pharma!), genetic "engineering," history, civics (where the Official Version says, this is a Constitutional Republic but when you look into the facts, the USofA is a CORPORATION and we are its employees!) Everywhere, lies. In finance, fraud. In church, games and simulations, but where's God? Nowhere to be found. Deceit is how our society forms and defines itself.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEmily Cragg
Simply looking at the evidence since I was a kid, this coverment lies to us the people about just about everything; they grant money to scientists to lie in their stead; they allow Scientism and scientistic and secular materialism to dominate scholarship to the detriment of truth-telling. By contrast truth telling has to do with ideals and Higher Minds. But this is why we don't know our ET ancestors, why we don't disclose ET relationships, why we confabulate terrorism and drug economies, because we no longer have any Truth within our spirits.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe know 911 was false flag CONSPIRACY; however there's more to this same same METHOD: JFK, RFK, MLK, USSLiberty, Ruby Ridge, Phila Move, Waco, OKC95, WTC93 & 2001. You see, the entire history of the USofACorp has been a sequence of violent inside job covert ops since Eisenhower turned the Oval Office over to Kennedy in 1961. All of it! And further, De Nile is not a river in Egypt.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this