Post 9/11 conspiracy editorials here [Archive]

chipmunk stew

21st August 2006, 07:38 AM

SMITH magazine
"Korey Rowe: The Loose Cannon of 9/11"
Michael Slenske
http://smithmag.us/2006/08/10/korey-rowe-the-loose-cannon-of-911/

This is an interview with Korey Rowe. Some choice quotes:

“I’ve got four movie studios [including Paramount and Miramax] beating down my door to make the final cut,” says Rowe, who’s now got offices from California to London to handle his growing company.

Loose Change happened by accident. The whole thing started out as a fictional screenplay about me and Dylan and another friend of ours finding out 9/11 was an inside job. It started out as a comedic action film with us being chased by the FBI and all that. But when Dylan started researching the screenplay he found out the attacks really were an inside job, so we made it into a documentary. I see myself as a person who’s a buffer between conspiracy theorist and military informant, so I thought my help on Loose Change would make it a better quality piece, something more mainstream people who aren’t into conspiracies could really watch and take in. I call it the gateway drug because it can take someone totally green to the information—who believed Muslims carried out 9/11, that the World Trade Center was brought down because of jet fuel, and that the Pentagon was hit by a plane—you put them in front of this movie and 80 minutes later they are going to question it at least. Bottom line: they’re going to question it. It makes people think. It made me think, so I wanted to make other people think.

Slenske:The Blair Witch Project also looked real to people who were in on the documentary preceding it. It totally worked. The first time you watch it, it grabs you. But Loose Change isn’t meant to be fictional. It’s a watchable film, but what do you expect people to do with it?
Rowe: What I encourage people to do is go out and research it themselves. We don’t ever come out and say that everything we say is 100 per cent. We know there are errors in the documentary, and we’ve actually left them in there so that people discredit us and do the research for themselves—the B52 [remarked to have flown into the Empire State Building], the use of Wikipedia, things like that. We left them in there so people will want to discredit us and go out and research the events yourself and come up with your own conclusions

We’re not about making money on the whole thing—we’re about getting information out. That’s why we’ve turned down seven figures, more than once, from people looking to buy our film and put it in theaters—because they don’t care about it.

Gravy

21st August 2006, 08:08 AM

SMITH magazine
"Korey Rowe: The Loose Cannon of 9/11"
Michael Slenske
http://smithmag.us/2006/08/10/korey-rowe-the-loose-cannon-of-911/
Thanks Chipmunk. Post comments there, everyone. I did.

chipmunk stew

21st August 2006, 08:25 AM

SMITH magazine
"Korey Rowe: The Loose Cannon of 9/11"
Michael Slenske
http://smithmag.us/2006/08/10/korey-rowe-the-loose-cannon-of-911/

Also reprinted on AlterNet:
http://alternet.org/story/40476/

WildCat

21st August 2006, 03:46 PM

The Chicago Tribune had an editorial on 9/11 conspiracies today:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0608210173aug21,0,6104962.story?coll=chi-newsopinion-hed

chipmunk stew

23rd August 2006, 06:09 AM

Crazy Chainsaw's intriguing experiments:
http://www.mauinews.com/story.aspx?id=22618

shuize

27th August 2006, 06:07 PM

Here's the link to Maddox:

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=911_morons

referenced in this thread:

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=60671&highlight=Maddox

Brainster

27th August 2006, 08:02 PM

Here's a review of Barrie Zwicker's ("Go Air Force!") book, Towers of Deception (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060826.BKLEVI26/TPStory/?query=9%2F11) as well as the comic book version of the 9-11 Commission Report.

But what I do have great difficulty believing is that the "perpetrators" are intelligent enough and, I suppose, quite evil enough, not only to concoct such a grand strategy, but to carry it off so deviously that only Zwicker and his allies can discern its true nature. I have just as hard a time believing that this sometimes entertainingly obsessive screed has proved anything at all.

WildCat

28th August 2006, 03:04 PM

Another opinion piece in the Chicago Tribune today, this one (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0608280199aug28,0,6428063.story?coll=chi-newsopinioncommentary-hed) quite scathing. I love this line:
The conspiracy nimrods, of course, won't be there alone. Mainstream media nimrods also will attend in great numbers. TV anchors will solemnly speak of "disturbing new questions" about Sept. 11 and break to interviews with charla-tans, incompetents, nut cases and the gullible, all united as fools.

eta: the author's blog. (http://dennisbyrne.blogspot.com/)

Brainster

29th August 2006, 09:53 AM

Here's another good one (http://www.thnt.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060828/COLUMNISTS/608280416), with the best explanation yet as to why the film was called Loose Change:

You need merely type "9/11 conspiracy" into an Internet search engine to become swept into this seductive web of nonsense. The creators of films like "Loose Change" (perfectly titled because it doesn't add up to much) and Web sites like www.911Truth.org pick through the details of one of this nation's darkest days with the paranoid verve of mad patriots, convinced they are uncovering the truth behind their worst fears.

chipmunk stew

29th August 2006, 10:02 AM

Here's another good one (http://www.thnt.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060828/COLUMNISTS/608280416), with the best explanation yet as to why the film was called Loose Change:

Based on how they respond to criticism and reason, talking sense to people like these serves as much purpose as licking a bald man's head to solve algebraic equations.

:dl:

Brainster

30th August 2006, 02:45 PM

Mark Steyn tackles the nutbars (http://www.macleans.ca/culture/books/article.jsp?content=20060904_132517_132517) and reviews the Popular Mechanics' book.

Debunking 9/11 Myths does a grand job of explaining such popular conspiracy-website mainstays as how a 125-foot-wide plane leaves a 16-foot hole in the Pentagon. Answer: it didn't. The 16-foot hole in the Pentagon's Ring C was made by the plane's landing gear. But the problem isn't scientific, it's psychological: if you're prepared to believe that government agents went to the trouble of researching, say, gay rugby player Mark Bingham's family background and vocal characteristics so they could fake cellphone calls back to his mom, then clearly you're not going to be deterred by mere facts. As James B. Meigs, the editor-in-chief of Popular Mechanics, remarks toward the end of this book, the overwhelming nature of the evidence is, to the conspiratorially inclined, only further evidence of a cover-up: "One forum posting that has multiplied across the Internet includes a long list of the physical evidence linking the 19 hijackers to the crime: the rental car left behind at Boston's Logan airport, Mohammed Atta's suitcase, passports recovered at the crash sites, and so on. 'HOW CONVENIENT!' the author notes after each citation. In the heads-I-win-tails-you-lose logic of conspiracism, there is no piece of information that cannot be incorporated into one's pet theory."

rwguinn

31st August 2006, 10:58 AM

Rocky Mountain News: CT's show their colors...
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/opinion_columnists/article/0,2777,DRMN_23972_4957231,00.html

Graham2001

31st August 2006, 05:56 PM

Rocky Mountain News: CT's show their colors...
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/opinion_columnists/article/0,2777,DRMN_23972_4957231,00.html

What's even more interesting is that one of the 'scholars' seems to have realized that CD cannot be improvised:

One of the "Scholars for 9/11 Truth" did write me a long, patient letter in which he urged me to investigate the collapse of Building 7 with a view to discovering "the culprits responsible for setting up the explosive charges. It was obviously done well in advance of 9/11 - it's impossible to configure and set up a building of this size in a day; the job would take a professional company several months to accomplish."

No names, but the 'long, patient letter' bit does not sound like Fetzer, any ideas who?

Brainster

1st September 2006, 06:41 PM

AM NY has some superficial coverage, more of a feature story (http://www.amny.com/news/local/groundzero/am-loos0901,0,4383055.story?coll=am-topheadlines) than an editorial. Quotes by Bermas and Les Jamieson.

Brainster

1st September 2006, 10:29 PM

Here's a terrific NY Times article (http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2006/09/01/news/conspiracy.php) as found in the IHT. The writer does a great job of debunking controlled demolition:

The demolition theory has managed to endure what would seem to be enormous obstacles to its practicality. Controlled demolition is done from the bottom of buildings, not the top, to take advantage of gravity, and there is little dispute that the collapse of the two towers began high in the towers, in the areas where the airplanes struck.

Moreover, a demolition project would have required the walls of the towers to be opened on dozens of floors, followed by the insertion of thousands of pounds of explosives, fuses and ignition mechanisms, all sneaked past the security stations, inside hundreds of feet of walls on all four faces of both buildings. Then the walls presumably would have been closed up.

All this would have had to take place without attracting the notice of any of the thousands of tenants and workers in either building; no witness has ever reported such activity. Then on the morning of Sept. 11, the demolition explosives would have had to withstand the impacts of the airplanes, since the collapse did not begin for 57 minutes in one tower, and 102 minutes in the other.

Well worth the read!

Brainster

3rd September 2006, 07:24 PM

Good overall article, firmly coming down on the skeptic side (http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060903/11conspiracy.htm) while presenting reasonable balance.

SLC (blog and movie) gets a mention as do Abby and Gravy, unfortunately not by name:

A blog and movie called Screw Loose Change both specialize in snarky commentary about Loose Change's flimsy evidence. On a recent Saturday at ground zero, bickering between the 9/11 Truthers and their critics, who have also taken to showing up weekly, grew so heated that they were broken up by a police officer.

Also note the title bar: 9-11 conspiracy theorists may be gaining ground, but they are selling the big lie.:D

T.A.M.

3rd September 2006, 08:15 PM

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1531304,00.html?internalid=AOT_h_09-03-2006_why_the_9/11_co

A great article from Times.com...Really sums up the "allure" of the 9/11 Consipracy world, but then tells us...how "unglorious" the actual truth is...a great read.

TAM

Pyrrho

4th September 2006, 08:24 AM

Fred on Everything

http://fredoneverything.net/PFO.shtml

Brainster

5th September 2006, 07:13 AM

Solid overall article (http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/worldwide/story/0,,1864657,00.html); get this ending which is clearly intended as a punchline:

"We're academics and we're rational, and we really believe Congress or someone should investigate this," says David Gabbard, an East Carolina education professor and 9/11 scholar. "But there are a lot of crazies out there who purport that UFOs were involved. We don't want to be lumped in with those folks."

Too late, David.

chipmunk stew

5th September 2006, 07:28 AM

This is amusing...
http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/9-11/
I find it horribly inappropriate.
Side note: any reason why it's available in the UK before the US?

Brainster

5th September 2006, 08:25 AM

The Independent runs a piece (http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1311190.ece) on several family members of 9-11 victims and how they're coping. Mostly straightforward, but one of them has become a 9-11 Denier:

Today, he has withdrawn from those groups, however, to concentrate on a project he expects to take up the rest of his life: documenting and writing about the conspiracy that he believes was really responsible for the felling of the twin towers.

"I spend all my time researching 9/11," he admits. "Today, there are no ifs or buts in my mind that this was an inside job. The US government orchestrated it with the help of MI6 and Pakistan and Mossad. What they are telling us is bull----. The hijackers were patsies and Osama bin Laden was set up."

Brainster

5th September 2006, 08:29 AM

The San Francisco Chronicle runs a longish piece (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/09/03/INGR0KRCBA1.DTL) on the 9-11 Denial Movement:

Some conspiracy theories are fantastical (CIA agents orchestrated the attacks; Israel planned them.) -- the epitome of preposterous beliefs that start with a conclusion and work backward to find evidence. Each new month brings a deluge of crackpot theories, but a growing number of people say there are too many improbabilities -- too many illogical holes -- in the government's version of what happened.

chipmunk stew

5th September 2006, 11:05 AM

An article from spiked uses Killtown as a prototypical CT:
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/1604/

It finishes with a quote that many of us at JREF are familiar with:
Blaming previously unimaginable events on a sinister world elite somehow allows people to make sense of events, and to fill in a great void of doubt and uncertainty. Scepticism can be a good thing. But when it comes to the mad mythmaking about 9/11, it is worth remembering the words of the late American scientist Carl Sagan: ‘If your mind is too open, your brains fall out.’

carlvs

5th September 2006, 12:01 PM

This is amusing...
http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/9-11/
I find it horribly inappropriate.
Side note: any reason why it's available in the UK before the US?
Actually, it did come out in the US under the name "The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation." Slate.com ran excerpts from the book last week.

I don't know why you objected to the format - I thought is was rather clever.

chipmunk stew

5th September 2006, 12:17 PM

Actually, it did come out in the US under the name "The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation." Slate.com ran excerpts from the book last week.

I don't know why you objected to the format - I thought is was rather clever.
Thanks for the heads up.
http://www.slate.com/id/2147309
Seeing the whole thing, it comes across as more tasteful. My first impression, based on the excerpts from the first chapter, was distaste. Maybe it was the "BLAMM!!" and "R-RRUMBLE..." that turned me off. I didn't realize how much more there was to it.

edit: Oh yeah--welcome!

Brainster

6th September 2006, 01:35 PM

A little too sympathetically (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=403757&in_page_id=1770) for my taste:

Around 75 top professors and leading scientists believe the attacks were puppeteered by war mongers in the White House to justify the invasion and the occupation of oil-rich Arab countries.

Quotes from three of the "Scholars" (Jones, Fetzer and Barrett); only one from a debunker.

Blackadder_no

7th September 2006, 04:36 AM

Jerusalem Post has an article titled The lie that just won't seem to die: Jews behind 9/11 (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154526000478&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull)

"The thing to remember about conspiracy theories is that they are profoundly psychologically comforting. They give sense and meaning to the world. Nothing is arbitrary or accidental or coincidental."

brodski

7th September 2006, 04:50 AM

A little too sympathetically (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=403757&in_page_id=1770) for my taste:

It's the Mail, you're never going to get in depth analysis, it's like "the Sun" only with fewer tits.

Blackheart77

8th September 2006, 05:30 AM

What a jerk. And he keeps flip flopping on issues anyway. I discount every word he ever wrote. Anyway, it seems by current media coverage that we will soon be hearing the sounds of indictments. Yay! It's almost over. Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are dead, but Silverstein doesn't have a clue.
********************************
Killtown Posted: Jul 6 2006, 07:25 PM

Veteran

Group: Members
Posts: 2,482
Member No.: 8
Joined: 10-February 06

QUOTE (Vu_Entendu @ Jul 6 2006, 10:58 AM)
Fix my english rather. at least you'll be useful here.
About your point
2) At this moment, left stabilizer was just blended with the background helped by motion blur, color, angle and bad compression, it's normal.
3) are you nuts? there is clearly the mark of the right wing! The wing's tip is just finer.

No, no no, you are wrong and you want to get us WRONG with no valuables arguements. Killtown, you are discrediting yourself, too bad .
Stop playing scientist, "CSI" is just a tvshow

Killtown's reply:
1) How do you say "Are you always this much of an *******?" in your country? Do they teach manners in your 3rd world country?
2) This shot shows the left tail missing too:

***************
I am pretty sure this is JDX also, by the style of writing.
ByeBye

chipmunk stew

8th September 2006, 05:55 AM

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14723997/

Some days the 9/11 truth movement resembles an Italian coalition government -- dissolution is a certainty. Honegger and Griffin believe bombs brought down the twin towers but have little truck with make-believe planes. There's a faction that says the Mossad did it and another that says that's insane, and maybe anti-Semitic.

Where are we going here? There's a Journal of 9/11 Studies, documentaries, CDs and DVDs. Is conspiracy thought getting codified?

Brainster

8th September 2006, 07:07 AM

JREFer and SLC blogger extraordinaire James B has an editorial (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/284271_anticonspire08.html) in the Seattle P-I:

As the anniversary of these tragic events approaches, many will remember the victims, and many a tear will be shed for them. But a significant group of people wants to hijack their memories and falsify their history for their own motivations. It is the responsibility of this nation, its people and its media to insist that the truth be told, and their memories not be sullied.

Kudos to James!

Brainster

8th September 2006, 10:12 AM

I was interviewed in this one (http://www.liberation.fr/transversales/grandsangles/203107.FR.php):

L'expert immobilier de Phoenix Pat Curley «adorerait» lui aussi voir ces vidéos. Mais il doute de l'efficacité de toute preuve tangible sur les conspirationnistes. «Une fois qu'ils ont basculé, il est impossible de les convaincre», constate-t-il. Mark Fenster approuve : «C'est comme un débat entre un croyant et un athée. Il n'y a pas suffisamment de base commune.» «Si une preuve ne soutient pas leur théorie, elle fait forcément partie du complot, reprend Pat Curley. La seule chose que vous puissiez espérer, c'est empêcher ceux qui sont en train d'enjamber la palissade de passer de l'autre côté.»

Rough translation, using Google Language Tools and my high school French:

The real estate expert from Phoenix, Pat Curley, "would love" to see these videos [the reputed Pentagon videos from the hotel, the gas station and Virginia Department of Transportation]. But he doubts the effectiveness of any tangible evidence on the conspiracy theorists. "Once they're hooked, it's impossible to convince them otherwise." Mark Fenster approves: "It's like a debate between a believer and an atheist. There is not sufficient common ground." "If a piece of evidence does not support their theory, it becomes part of the coverup," replies Pat Curley. "The only thing you can hope for is to prevent those who are sitting on the fence from passing over to other side."

chipmunk stew

8th September 2006, 10:22 AM

Finally listened to the Talk of the Nation piece:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5782277

Brainster

8th September 2006, 04:25 PM

The Bird (a Phoenix New Times Columnist named Stephen Lemons) tears into the Arizona 9-11 Deniers (http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/issues/2006-09-07/news/Bird.html?src=news_rss) group.

"Don't portray us as a bunch of wackos," 9/11 "truth" activist Kent Knudson warned this Walter Winchell of warblers during a recent interview. "We have our facts. We have evidence. We have witnesses. The government has nothing."

Nothing but, like, some science 'n' stuff.

He also mentions SLC:

Thing is, it's easy to regurgitate a tangled fur ball of distortions about 9/11. Disproving them almost requires a Ph.D. in structural engineering. Fortunately, the editors of Popular Mechanics are on the case, as well as blogosphere balloon-poppers like screwloosechange.blogspot.com. In a March 2005 cover story, PM first addressed the conspiracy claims, and recently followed up with a more extensive investigation in its new book Debunking 9/11 Myths, with a foreword by our own Senator John McCain.

Superb article, written with a biting wit that makes it a pleasure to read!

The Bird also wrote a terrific piece (http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/Issues/2006-04-27/news/Bird.html) months ago solely focusing on Loose Change.

Brainster

8th September 2006, 07:00 PM

Another gentleman I never thought I'd be praising (http://www.thenation.com/docprem.mhtml?i=20060925&s=cockburn), but glad to have him on our side:

You trip over one fundamental idiocy of the 9/11 conspiracy nuts in the first paragraph of the book by one of their high priests, David Ray Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor. "In many respects," Griffin writes, "the strongest evidence provided by critics of the official account involves the events of 9/11 itself.... In light of standard procedures for dealing with hijacked airplanes...not one of these planes should have reached its target, let alone all three of them."

The operative word here is "should." One central characteristic of the nuts is that they have a devout, albeit preposterous, belief in American efficiency, and hence many of them start with the racist premise that "Arabs in caves" weren't capable of the mission. They believe that military systems work the way Pentagon press flacks and aerospace salesmen say they should work. They believe that at 8:14 am, when AA Flight 11 switched off its radio and transponder, an FAA flight controller should have called the National Military Command center and NORAD. They believe, citing reverently (this from high priest Griffin) "the US Air Force's own website," that an F-15 could have intercepted AA Flight 11 "by 8:24, and certainly no later than 8:30."

Unfortunately the rest of the article is subscription only; I'll see if I can find it elsewhere.

Brainster

9th September 2006, 08:17 AM

Another gentleman I never thought I'd be praising (http://www.thenation.com/docprem.mhtml?i=20060925&s=cockburn), but glad to have him on our side:

Unfortunately the rest of the article is subscription only; I'll see if I can find it elsewhere.

Here's the rest of the article (http://www.mikemalloy.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=43027) as posted on a message board.

Brainster

10th September 2006, 10:41 AM

Not surprisingly, it gets a thumbs-up (http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/books/five_years_after_9_11__tinfoil_hats_attack_postopb ooks_michelle_malkin.htm):

Popular Mechanics patiently bats down the paranoid delusions of Bush-bashers and terrorism-deniers who have seized on flimsy evidence and cherry-picked quotes and misquotes to bolster their cockamamie theories.

Brainster

10th September 2006, 01:45 PM

This one seems vaguely familiar (http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1157838636861&call_pageid=968332188854&col=968350060724); it may be a reprint or reworking of an earlier story.

In Hamilton, Frank Greening, a retired Ontario Hydro physical chemistry scientist, followed the conspiracy debate and developed a computer code to recreate the rate of collapse of the towers.

He expected his study would lend credence to the conspiracy theorists, but to his surprise, it showed that trauma at upper levels could indeed bring down the buildings in the manner and rate that occurred.

"I too wondered how these buildings could collapse in such an amazing fashion," says Greening in a telephone interview. "How could a building come down from the top-down like that?"

He tried to separate political motives from the science and is now convinced the conspiracy theorists who speak in scientific terms "are dragging science through the mud" while gaining unjustified credibility with the general public.

"A lot of what they are saying is science fiction. But if you package it in a certain way, it can be quite convincing."

carlvs

10th September 2006, 10:01 PM

Not just the right are angry about these "conspiraloons." Despite what it seems, there are quite a few on the left who are also disturbed by these goings on.

Case in pont - I Just came across this article (sorry I can't place the direct link just yet):

www [dot] worldnewstrust [dot] com/content/view/120/lang,en/

Favorite part:

"Just last week Al-Jazeera (not exactly an apologist for U.S. aggression) aired an old video, which allegedly showed Osama hanging out with a few 9/11 perpetrators. Will the conspiracy pushers now try to convince us that Al-Jazeera is in cahoots with Fox News?

Indeed this administration, like so many before it, needs to be stopped at once. But we certainly don’t need conspiracy theories to make the case."

chipmunk stew

11th September 2006, 04:15 AM

I Just came across this article:

www.worldnewstrust.com/content/view/120/lang,en/ (http://www.worldnewstrust.com/content/view/120/lang,en/)

...

azazal

11th September 2006, 06:57 AM

Another site that takes a mocking approach towards the LC crowd, worth it for the opening story: http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/911truth.html

chipmunk stew

11th September 2006, 07:12 AM

Popular Mechanics takes on Dylan & Jason. Amy Goodman hosts:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/11/1345203

Brainster

11th September 2006, 10:12 AM

Great article by MKH (http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/Column.aspx?ContentGuid=10a14922-33ff-4ab1-917f-c91980d3f32b&page=full&comments=true):

Avery and his cohorts’ research, theories, and “evidence” are so laughable that it can be easy to laugh off the movement itself. That was my reaction to this crowd until I took the time to watch “Screw Loose Change,” this weekend. “Screw Loose Change” is an extensive, three-hour-long debunking of Avery’s claims, which allows you to view Avery’s film along with a powerful presentation of all the evidence he distorts and omits.

Until I watched it and really let the Avery crowd’s accusations sink in, my reaction to the 9/11 Truthers was to say, “wow, they’re crazy. Moving on.” But I shouldn’t have moved on. I should have stopped and looked at the Truthers and listened to them a lot sooner.

She links Markyx's video and our blog as well.

Brainster

11th September 2006, 02:56 PM

Great article by Andrew Cline (http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Mjc2MjZmOTI2YzM0M2ZjOTUwZWU4YWRiMjRlOTVjZGM=).

The support of “academics” such as Griffin has lent much credence to the conspiracy mongers, but how credible are these academics? Last Wednesday Britain’s Daily Mail published a story claiming: “The 9/11 terrorist attack on America which left almost 3,000 people dead was an ‘inside job,’ according to a group of leading academics.” But the group in question, Scholars for 9/11 Truth, of which Griffin is the most prominent member, is in no sense a “group of leading academics.” It is a collection of like-minded crackpot theorists who happen to have some connection to academia.

Gord_in_Toronto

11th September 2006, 03:10 PM

The Skeptics Society and Michael Shermer weigh in. Good article by Phil Mole. Covers the major points together with some philosophizing on CTers.

http://www.lists.opn.org/pipermail/org.opn.lists.skeptix/Week-of-Mon-20060911/003261.html

Note the references. :D

chipmunk stew

11th September 2006, 03:24 PM

Brainster

12th September 2006, 07:39 AM

On how he became a member of the New World Order (http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/conspiracy_cranks_opedcolumnists_james_b__meigs.ht m):

For a 104-year-old magazine about science, technology, home improvement and car maintenance, this was pretty extreme stuff. What had we done to provoke such outrage?

Research.

Brainster

12th September 2006, 11:07 AM

By Will Sullivan (http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060911/11conspiracy.htm), who interviewed me and I believe met with Gravy and Abby at GZ a couple weeks ago.

The decision to place Jones on leave marks a departure from traditional standards of intellectual freedom, says Robert O'Neil, a law professor at the University of Virginia and the director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression. University faculty are generally punished for making bizarre claims only when such claims relate to their area of expertise, suggesting a lack of competence in their chosen field.

Because he is an electrical engineering professor, for example, Arthur Butz at Northwestern has not been punished for his vocal Holocaust denial. The same would probably not be true of a professor of modern European history. But BYU's explanation for Jones's review cites his accusations about government involvement—which are outside his area of expertise—not the quality of his research into the collapse's physics, the discipline in which errors would suggest a lack of fitness to carry on his job.

Interesting article. I would actually agree with those who say he should not be punished for his 9-11 musings except for one thing: BYU is a private institution. In my mind it's their right to hire or fire him as long as they follow their own procedures for doing so.

chipmunk stew

12th September 2006, 11:31 AM

By Will Sullivan (http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060911/11conspiracy.htm), who interviewed me and I believe met with Gravy and Abby at GZ a couple weeks ago.

Interesting article. I would actually agree with those who say he should not be punished for his 9-11 musings except for one thing: BYU is a private institution. In my mind it's their right to hire or fire him as long as they follow their own procedures for doing so.
I don't agree with punishing him for his musings, but he could and should certainly be punished for his physics-related 9/11 research. As we well know, it's shoddy at best, dishonest at worst. Either way, it would seem punishable.

sophia8

13th September 2006, 01:09 AM

Skeptic Ginger

13th September 2006, 02:29 AM

Popular Mechanics takes on Dylan & Jason. Amy Goodman hosts:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/11/1345203

This quote pretty much sums it up:"JAMES MEIGS [of Popular Mechanics]: You know, this is a wonderful example of how conspiracy theories work. Any time there’s a little bit of doubt, a little bit of area where we don't know everything, then the answer immediately is, well, someone must have blown it up. It’s a form of argumentation that’s also used by creationists. If they can find one little gap in the evolutionary record, they say evolution’s a hoax. Or Holocaust deniers -"

I wonder if my anti-war friends who have tremendous respect for DN will get over their nonsensical belief in Loose Change? I am so pleased DN put this debate on their program.

jon

13th September 2006, 03:01 AM

This (http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news559.htm) is the view of 9/11 CTs from SchNEWS (http://www.schnews.org.uk/). It's a radical, lefty UK group that is reliably anti-government. So their sceptical view of the CT is really surprising.
And I hadn't known that David Shaylor had gone so far over into Icke territory.

Thanks for posting that - that's good to see :) Not sure it's that surprising - schnews have generally stayed a long way from the tin foil hats etc...and there are those of us who are lefty and anti-government but not into tin foil hats and lizard aliens ;)

Interesting about Shayler - anyone seen more info about this elsewhere?

Jon

Ersby

13th September 2006, 03:34 AM

G-K-4

13th September 2006, 07:36 AM

Here are three or four more from the left side of the spectrum:

Matthew Rothschild, in The Progressive (democratic socialist?)
"Enough of the 9/11 Conspiracies, Already"
http://progressive.org/mag_wx091106

At bottom, the 9/11 conspiracy theories are profoundly irrational and unscientific. It is more than passing strange that progressives, who so revere science on such issues as tobacco, stem cells, evolution, and global warming, are so willing to abandon science and give in to fantasy on the subject of 9/11.

The 9/11 conspiracy theories are a cul-de-sac. They lead nowhere. And they aren’t necessary to prove the venality of the Bush Administration. There’s plenty of that proof lying around. We don’t need to make it up.
------------
Infoshop News (anarchist)
"Debunking the 9/11 Movement"
http://www.infoshop.org/texts/debunking911.html

Infoshop is contributing to ongoing efforts that seek to challenge and debunk the conspiracy theorists. We encourage people to engage in critical thinking, not just about government officials but about the critics as well. While it's important to question the authority of government and experts, it's also important to be skeptical of DIY experts and authorities in the conspiracy movement.
------------
Louis Proyect, The Unrepentant Marxist [blog] (Marxist, apparently)
"Loose Change"
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2006/09/01/loose-change/

Dylan Avery was an 18 year old high school senior on September 11, 2001. After inadequate grades kept him out of the film school department at Purchase College, he decided to strike out on his own. He started out with the intention of making a fictional film, but decided to make a documentary after being convinced that the conspiracy theorists were correct. All I can say is that this is a waste of obvious talent.
------------
Joshua Frank, BrickBurner.org (progressive? radical? I'm not sure)
"How the 9/11 Truth Movement Ignores Reality"
http://brickburner.blogs.com/my_weblog/2006/09/how_the_911_tru.html

What’s the Truth Movement doing about the hundreds of thousands of poor non-violent drug offenders who are rotting in US prisons, or the thousands more who are decaying on death row? What are they doing for the teenage girls who slave away in sweatshops piecing together our clothes and sneakers? What have conspiracy theories ever proven, anyway?

sophia8

13th September 2006, 08:43 AM

Thanks for posting that - that's good to see :) Not sure it's that surprising - schnews have generally stayed a long way from the tin foil hats etc...and there are those of us who are lefty and anti-government but not into tin foil hats and lizard aliens ;)

Interesting about Shayler - anyone seen more info about this elsewhere?

Jon
Try this thread (http://www.nineeleven.co.uk/board/viewtopic.php?t=3573) from the "British 9/11 Truth campaign".Zionists control the planet according to ex-spook David Shayler who phoned into the James Whale show this week to chat to his mate, the equally insane Alex Jones.

In what at times sounded like an amicable shouting contest the three egos battled it out to share their bonkers theories with the listening public with Jones parrotting his usual New World Order speculation whilst Shayler and Whale tossed in their own nutty warblings when they could get a word in.
Jones stated how we know for a fact that Diana and David Kelly were murdered, that 9/11 was an inside job and that the 7/7 bombings were a state operation organised by Agent Provocateurs. Falling short of providing any evidence for these theories Shayler appeared to agree with every word he said and then, not to be outdone added his own little bombshell at the end.
According to Shayler the reason Euan Blair was taken ill on his recent jaunt with his dad was very likely because he'd been poisoned as a threat to Blair should he not continue to play the game.

G-K-4

13th September 2006, 11:28 AM

rwguinn

13th September 2006, 02:37 PM

This one points out maybe some of the "Why" on theories--anger directed wrongly....

http://www.koat.com/columnists/9817241/detail.html

Arus808

13th September 2006, 04:33 PM

this is actually a link to the audio that was done by Bill Handel this morning:
http://a1135.g.akamai.net/f/1135/18227/1h/cchannel.download.akamai.com/18227/podcast/LOSANGELES-CA/KFI-AM/Handel0913068830A.mp3

He addresses the 9/11 conspiracies and makes mention of Loose Change.

Brainster

13th September 2006, 06:57 PM

Solid article by Sarah Ferguson (http://www.villagevoice.com/blogs/powerplays/archives/002835.php):

Now the conspiracy crowd is using the missing WMDS and numerous other omissions and distortions pushed by the Bush administration to justify all sorts of crackpot theories.

I love the picture that accompanies the article as well. Note Jones finally explains who's behind it all:

"The sleeping giant has arisen—we won’t be silenced," declared Jones. He went on to explain to the media how the decision to stage a new Pearl Harbor on 9-11 was made not by Dick Cheney and the neocons, but was dictated from on high by David Rockefeller, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, Queen Elizabeth of England, and the other financiers of the secretive Bilderberg Group that controls world resources from behind the scenes.

Sounds like he's been talking to former LaRouchie Webster Tarpley.

Gord_in_Toronto

14th September 2006, 05:18 PM

I heard this last night on "The National" CBC TV's cross-Canada news broadcast and had to wait for the transcript to be posted to day.

Conspiracy mongering is a vicious instrument Sept. 12, 2006 ;

He may be Newfoundland's best-known journalist. Rex Murphy presents informed, insightful and sometimes biting commentary on The National, focusing topics in the news. Rex's Point of View is sharp, provocative and pointed. And whether or not you agree with him, he makes you think! We often make room for rebuttals on a subsequent program, so your contributions are appreciated. [/QUOTE]

Some selected quotes below. You have to read the whole thing to see what he really thinks. :eye-poppi

For some people, any official explanation of an event is always and only a synonym for a cover-up.

For such types, reality is a labyrinth of shadows and speculation, nothing is ever as it seems.

On a pop level, this is the world that finds an audience of millions for the lukewarm stew and plastic history of Dan Brown's fatuous Da Vinci Code and has tentacles that reach towards those true believers in the mystic power of New Age crystals, spirit channelling, of people who talk to trees and fully expect the bored trees to talk back to them.

Lately, there has been a whole whirlwind of broken logic and wishful thinking, malice and misinformation trying desperately to dress up as truth.

The overarching theory is that Bush and the neo-Cons, not bin Laden, not al-Qaeda, not Mohammed Atta and his virgin-hungry suicide team, but slow-witted George and his puppet masters, that they are the real villains, that the president and his plotters murdered 3,000 of their own citizens.

I do not know why we give any oxygen to these extraordinary libels. Detestation for George Bush may qualify a person for many things, but it is not a degree of metallurgy, just as anti-Americanism is not a branch of physics.

These theories that suggest a sitting president and his advisors would murder their own citizenry are a calumny, as lunatic as they are contemptible. They come from the imagination of hate, the pernicious concoctions of minds allergic to reality, and are beneath the dignity of reasoning human beings.

For "The National", I'm Rex Murphy.

You tell 'em Rex!

Gord_in_Toronto

14th September 2006, 08:28 PM

I heard this last night on "The National" CBC TV's cross-Canada news broadcast and had to wait for the transcript to be posted to day.

He may be Newfoundland's best-known journalist. Rex Murphy presents informed, insightful and sometimes biting commentary on The National, focusing topics in the news. Rex's Point of View is sharp, provocative and pointed. And whether or not you agree with him, he makes you think! We often make room for rebuttals on a subsequent program, so your contributions are appreciated.

Missed the edit window, [Rude Word].

URL is:
http://www.cbc.ca/national/rex/rex_060912.html

Orphia Nay

15th September 2006, 01:06 AM

Just came across this in the Chronicle of Higher Education (http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=j1dxcwnt8x627gjyg5jn728rfkn21t9l).

"Professors of Paranoia?

Academics give a scholarly stamp to 9/11 conspiracy theories

By John Gravois"

It disparages Steven Jones & Fetzer, and I love this bit about Alex Jones:

That night, the first keynote address was delivered by Alex Jones (no relation to Steven), a radio personality from Austin, Tex., who has developed a cult following by railing against the New World Order. He is a bellicose, boyish-looking man with a voice that makes him sound like a cross between a preacher and an announcer at a cage wrestling match.

"It energizes my soul at its very core to be here with so many like-minded people," he began, "defending the very soul of humanity against the parasitic controllers of this world government, who are orchestrating terror attacks as a pretext to sell us into even greater slavery."

"If they think they're gonna get away with declaring war on humanity," he thundered, "they've got another think coming!"

The audience was a mix of rangy, long-haired men with pale complexions, suntanned guys with broad arms and mustaches, women with teased bangs, serious-looking youngsters wearing backpacks and didactic T-shirts, and elderly people with dreadlocks. But everyone seemed to get behind what Alex Jones had just said. In fact, they went absolutely wild with cheers.

Alex Jones then plunged into a history of what he called "government-sponsored terror." In this category, he included the Reichstag fire of 1933, the sinking of the USS Maine, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, and a shadowy, never-executed 1962 plan called Operation Northwoods, in which the Joint Chiefs of Staff approved false terror attacks on American soil to provoke war with Cuba.

Then he got to matters closer at hand. He mentioned the Project for the New American Century, the think tank of prominent neoconservatives that wrote a report in 2000 called "Rebuilding America's Defenses," which includes a line that many 9/11 Truthers, as they call themselves, know by heart: "The process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor."

To Alex Jones and to those in the audience, this was as good as finding the plans for September 11 in the neoconservatives' desk drawers.

Edited to add: I wasn't sure if the article had been posted in this forum elsewhere, but I thought it belonged in this thread, even though it's not an editorial.

chipmunk stew

15th September 2006, 07:39 AM

http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2006/09/14/911-the-wingnuts-v-the-sheeple/

RU Sirius sponsored a debate on the topic not long ago. This is his meditation on the experience. Interesting read.

Those who believe that 9/11 was an inside job are wingnuts — rank amateur investigators and their sycophantic followers. They can’t tell a rumor from a piece of evidence, or a piece of evidence from conclusive proof.

Those who believe that 9/11 was not an inside job are sheeple — brainwashed dupes who have a psychological block against accepting unpleasant facts.

Graham2001

15th September 2006, 09:31 AM

George Galloway, Respect Party MP for Bethnal Green and Bow (socialist)

I don't have a text link for you, but I am referring specifically to the September 10, 2006, edition of Galloway's call-in radio show on talkSPORT. He criticised 9/11 conspiracy theories in general, knocked down assertions from many callers, and even got very offended by a couple of them. Galloway had debunking support from blogger Richard Seymour of "Lenin's Tomb".

I'd expect the Dishonorable Member for Bethnal Green and Bow to oppose 11/09/01 CTs, if only because I suspect that he has a direct line to AQ and knew (along with 'Sir' Bob Geldof) what was going to happen on 7/7...

I'll add here that I have no proof of the above and unlike CTs I have no intention of making any up, nor broadcasting this beyond the statment above.

brodski

15th September 2006, 11:21 AM

I'd expect the Dishonorable Member for Bethnal Green and Bow to oppose 11/09/01 CTs, if only because I suspect that he has a direct line to AQ and knew (along with 'Sir' Bob Geldof) what was going to happen on 7/7...

I'll add here that I have no proof of the above and unlike CTs I have no intention of making any up, nor broadcasting this beyond the statment above.

Those are pretty wild accusations, which you make without evidence. Do you often accuse people of complicity in mass murder based on hunches which you have pulled out of your arse?

Sword_Of_Truth

15th September 2006, 01:08 PM

The Al-Queada connection is a bit of a stretch (and by "a bit" I mean "a bit") but Galloway has recently OK'd the assasination of Prime Minister Tony Blair (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/05/26/politics/main1662767.shtml).

Brainster

15th September 2006, 01:13 PM

By Cox & Forkum. Discussion of the cartoon and a bigger version is here (http://www.coxandforkum.com/archives/000935.html).

jon

15th September 2006, 01:17 PM

I haven't got much time for Galloway, but if you read the article you link to more closely, Galloway stated that

It would be entirely logical and explicable, and morally equivalent to ordering the deaths of thousands of innocent people in Iraq as Blair did," the monthly GQ magazine quoted Galloway as saying.

However, if he knew anyone was planning such an attack, Galloway added, he would tell police.

This is not OKing Blair's assassination, just saying that such an assassination would be explicable.

At any rate, I'm not convinced that if someone *does* believe that Blair deserves to die they're connected to Al Qaeda - after all, there's may reasons why people might hold this belief.

Brainster

16th September 2006, 09:31 AM

Diana Johnstone hits more on motivation (http://www.counterpunch.org/johnstone09152006.html). Here's an interesting observation:

The targets and the message.

The al Qaeda hypothesis: The choice of 9/11 targets contained an eloquent message that was perfectly understood in most of the world. The World Trade Center stood for America's economic power in the world, and the Pentagon its military power. Assuming the targets were chosen by bin Laden and his associates, they were meant to show that this overwhelming power was in reality vulnerable, and could be dealt a deadly blow by only a few determined men ready to sacrifice their lives.

The Bushite conspiracy hypothesis: All along, the Bush explanation for the attacks is that "the terrorists hate us because we are free, they want to destroy our freedom".

She goes on to point out that if the Bush Administration had really been behind the attacks, wouldn't the targets have been chosen to symbolize that, suggesting that the Statue of Liberty and packed football stadiums would have been more appropriate.

Brainster

16th September 2006, 10:38 PM

Solid article from the Pulitzer Prize-Winning columnist (http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/columnists/leonard_pitts/15522667.htm):

I don't propose to spend time debating whether Sept. 11 unfolded as the official record says it did. If eyewitness accounts (''I happened to look up and I saw this airplane not more than 50 feet up coming right at us,'' Alan Wallace, a witness at the Pentagon, told The Washington Post), cockpit voice recordings (''Please, please don't hurt me,'' a voice on United Flight 93 pleads), cellphone calls (passenger Thomas Burnett told his wife, ''I know we're all going to die. . . . I love you, Honey'') and common sense (if the planes were not crashed, what happened to them and their passengers?) are not enough to make the case, I can't imagine what would.

Regnad Kcin

18th September 2006, 11:29 AM

Mr. Fetzer is introduced to logic, reason, and facts (not that it's likely to have any effect):

http://americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=5865

Brainster

18th September 2006, 03:49 PM

But still get into trouble for originally scheduling it (http://www.palmbeachpost.com/search/content/opinion/epaper/2006/09/15/a14a_911myth_edit_0915.html):

It's nonsense, of course. In early 2005, an article in the magazine Popular Mechanics shredded the conspiracy theories. So, since Democrats - not to mention a number of Independents and Republicans - have many credible reasons for disagreeing with President Bush's response to 9/11, why would Democrats want to look so incredible by indulging debunked conspiracy theorists? Why would County Democratic Chairman Wahid Mahmood call the screening part of the "educational process?" By that standard, a documentary supporting Holocaust denial would be part of the "educational process."

Brainster

20th September 2006, 08:22 AM

By Ed Feser, touching on philosophy (http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=092006B), history and pop culture.

Now as the philosopher David Stove has argued, the modern tendency toward hyper-skepticism seems largely to be the result of a massive overgeneralization from a mere handful of cases where common sense turned out to be mistaken. Another philosopher, Michael Levin, has given it a name: the "skim milk" fallacy, the fallacy of assuming, in the words of Gilbert and Sullivan, that "things are seldom what they seem, skim milk masquerades as cream," so that common sense can in general be presumed to be mistaken. To be sure, where phenomena remote from everyday human experience are concerned - the large-scale structure of spacetime, the microscopic realm of molecules, atoms, and so forth - it is perhaps not surprising that human beings should for long periods of time have gotten things wrong. But where everyday matters are concerned - where opinions touch on our basic understanding of human nature and the facts about ordinary social interaction - it is very likely that they would not, in general, get things wrong. Biological and cultural evolution would ensure that serious mistakes concerning such matters would before too long be weeded out. The detailed reasons for this are complex, but when spelled out they provide the basis for a general defense of tradition and common sense of the sort associated with thinkers like Burke and Hayek.

I also love this part:

The absurd idea that to be intelligent, scientific, and intellectually honest requires a distrust for all authority per se and a contempt for the opinions of the average person, has so deeply permeated the modern Western consciousness that conspiratorial thinking has for many people come to seem the rational default position. And it also explains why even mainstream outlets like Time and Vanity Fair, while by no means endorsing the views of the conspiracy theorists, have tended to treat them with kid gloves, as if they were harmless and well-meaning eccentrics instead of shrill and hate-filled crackpots.

Highly recommended!

Brainster

20th September 2006, 05:09 PM

Better writer than most of his buddies, but the same nutty outlook (http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_1211.shtml):

Out here on Broadway, it seemed like we were taking a first step. I turned to the left and there was the bank of Brown Brothers Harriman, as bold as day. As the chants continued, I turned to a marcher and said, “That’s the bank Prescott Bush and his father-in-law George Herbert Walker used to finance the Nazis.” And the marcher turned back and said, “Right, with the Union Bank and the Fritz Thyssen German Military Industrial Complex.” I said, “Roosevelt shut them down in 1942, seized their assets,” and the marcher said, “Under the Trading with the Enemy Act.” Right. There was no dumb stare, no dropped mouth. He knew. They knew. And those that didn’t, listened, heard.

jon

21st September 2006, 12:15 PM

Apparently Shayler denies Schnews' story - see here http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/09/350415.html On the one hand, Shayler's statement did seem almost too good to be true; on the other hand, Schnews are normally pretty competant, and you wouldn't expect them to be daft enough to publish a false account of a public meeting (which lots of witnesses would be able to contradict). So, I'm not sure if Shayler does believe in aliens...

On the other hand, maybe I should apply a CT logic to this: Shayler denies that he believes in the aliens, therefore They now control him and are forcing him to deny the Truth :D Oh, and I've found a forum post with a 'witness' of shayler chatting about aliens - http://www.breakfornews.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=810&view=previous&sid=d85384580390f9470eb735ebf35d3820 So that's further proof...

sophia8

22nd September 2006, 02:23 AM

Ack. After deciding that SchNEWS is worth reading regularly, I now find they've fallen for the "mobile phone companies are covering up the troof about microwave radiation" (http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news561.htm) crap.

Steven Howard

22nd September 2006, 08:54 AM

Local columnist Tom Hennessy: "Casting Doubt on Sept. 11" (http://presstelegram.com/tomhennessy/ci_4377848).

Personally, I think it's a bit too sympathetic to the deniers. But what I'm really interested in is this bit:

This week I received an e-mail from a man claiming to be a retired Army sergeant in Texas. I do not know him, but he wrote asking my support for his plan. It is to build a duplicate World Trade Center tower in the desert, then crash an airliner into it. The idea is to see if the tower would collapse. If it doesn't, he says, it would prove that explosives were set inside the building.

So he says.

Have we heard of this guy before?

Kryptos

22nd September 2006, 11:12 AM

Conversations at Ground Zero: How Far We Have Fallen (http://www.counterpunch.org/jw09222006.html)
by JoAnn Wypijewski, Counterpunch

they have absolute faith in the military capability of the United States, despite the evidence of Iraq. They have absolute confidence in the machinery of state to do WHAT IT MUST DO to protect "us". I haven't heard such paeans to the power of NORAD since I talked to military flaks for Space Command while researching the technological absurdity that is missile defense.
...
the people in the black T- shirts all spoke about how much time the bureaucrats had to act, "and they didn't!! Why?"
Because government is slow, because the military is slow, because **** doesn't work? They just laughed at me, shook their head at such naivete: "Just promise me this, do the research..."

-Kate

G-K-4

23rd September 2006, 10:32 AM

Highly recommended!
I wouldn't recommend it. There are some nice points against conspiracism, but it's based on some misunderstandings.

For starters, it seems that Feser is some kind of promoter of the Catholic Church. I don't really see where that fits in, except where he (rightly) makes fun of "DaVinci Code" believers. He also seems to have a hang-up regarding medieval Europe. Okay, but Feser could have gone back only to the Enlightenment, since today's conspiracists' forefathers were the opposition to the Enlightenment.

Also, in this piece Feser conflates coercive authority with intellectual and experiential authority. They aren't the same thing. He also keeps referring to "authority, tradition, and common sense" (1) as if they are the same thing, and (2) as if conspiracists don't cite their own versions. Remember, a lot of these folks are farther to the Right than you are, Brainster, and they grow out of (and appeal to) a kind of resentful populism that has its own brand of "authority, tradition, and common sense". Visit any Patriot Movement website and you'll start to get an idea about what they mean by these things.

Feser also claims that moderns fool themselves into not thinking that they "blindly" accept claims by factual authorities. That's certainly an overstatement. He may be right about some Modern Era people, but there are others who rely on experts in a reasonable way. For example, I accept the claims of the vast number of the world's structural engineers because I know that I could learn the field myself, just like they did, and I would arrive at the same conclusions. They aren't likely to lie because their claims are based on facts that are observable and comprehensible by (almost) anyone, and not on any sort of revealed "Truth" reserved for special people. (This latter view seems to be how many conspiracists see things.)

Brainster, I also find it odd that you would cite a website (Tech Central Station) that is used to raise doubts about global warming. As with 9/11 conspiracism, that's another area where the self-described "skeptics" are just being dense.

However, I do like the sheep-and-towers image. That's a keeper.

Brainster

23rd September 2006, 05:06 PM

I wouldn't recommend it. There are some nice points against conspiracism, but it's based on some misunderstandings.

I recommended it because it had a very interesting take, and one that I hadn't seen before.

Brainster, I also find it odd that you would cite a website (Tech Central Station) that is used to raise doubts about global warming. As with 9/11 conspiracism, that's another area where the self-described "skeptics" are just being dense.

This thread is for well-written and interesting editorials about 9-11 conspiracies, and the article qualified. I must have missed the part where they must come from sources that aren't "dense" according to you. Could you list some of the other "dense" publications that you don't want me recommending?

jon

24th September 2006, 05:34 PM

Some more on Shayler and 9/11 truth. There's been a New Statesman article on Shayler and Machon (http://www.newstatesman.com/200609110028). The article gives the sense that Shayler's got some rather, um, interesting beliefs: "the line between these middle-class campaigners' apparently "scientific investigations" and old-fashioned conspiracy-mongering seems uncomfortably thin. One of their leaflets has a web address for David Icke, the former sports presenter-turned-"Son of God" who thinks the world is run by a race of reptilian humanoids. Shayler says: "There is a Zionist conspiracy; that's a fact. And they were behind 9/11." Machon intervenes diplomatically: "Not everyone in the campaign shares that view."

Then things really go off the rails. I ask Shayler if it's true he has become a "no planer" - that is, someone who believes that no planes at all were involved in the 9/11 atrocity. Machon looks uncomfortable. "Oh, **** it, I'm just going to say this," he tells her. "Yes, I believe no planes were involved in 9/11." But we all saw with our own eyes the two planes crash into the WTC. "The only explanation is that they were missiles surrounded by holograms made to look like planes," he says. "Watch the footage frame by frame and you will see a cigar-shaped missile hitting the World Trade Center." He must notice that my jaw has dropped. "I know it sounds weird, but this is what I believe." "

slingblade

25th September 2006, 02:16 PM

Can we post editorials we wrote ourselves? I had an assignment in Editorial & Commentary Writing, and I wanted to share it, get some feedback. Actually, I have to write two editorials, same topic, different formats. I chose Trooothers, presented in one-sided and two-sided formats.

Here, or in a new thread?

chipmunk stew

25th September 2006, 02:21 PM

slingblade

25th September 2006, 02:54 PM

Okay, thanks!

I've never written an editorial before. This is the first one; I'm still writing the second. This one is supposed to present just one side of an argument or issue. The "we" used here is the editorial or Victorian "we":

Asking the Right Questions

The twin towers of the World Trade Center, as well as WTC 7, were brought down in a pre-planned controlled demolition, triggered by the crash of the airliners which were not, as reported, filled with passengers, but were instead empty, remote-controlled military drones outfitted to look like commercial aircraft.

The Pentagon was not hit by an airliner, but by a Cruise missile, also outfitted to resemble a commercial jet by giving it superfluous, break-apart wings and a paint-job which would conveniently leave just enough minor wreckage behind to convince experts it really was a plane.

Flight 77 did not "crash" in Shanksville, Penn., but was instead another empty, remote-controlled drone which had gone dangerously off-course and had to be shot down by American military. The passengers, however, are still alive and in hiding somewhere, having been rerouted to an airport in Cleveland and deplaned before the doomed aircraft took off again for Washington, D.C.

All of these things were done at the behest and direction of the American government, which under George W. Bush decided it needed "another Pearl Harbor" to supply a pretext and spur American support for a war with Iraq. The president wanted this war for the oil, of course, and to avenge his father and the insults the senior Bush suffered as president during his own war with Iraq.

If none of this sounds familiar to you, it is time to emerge from whatever hole you've been hiding in lately and hie thee to the Internet, which is all abuzz with the above, and more. The "evidence" is everywhere: if you want to know the truth about Sept. 11, plug "truth 9/11" into a Google search box and goggle at the hundreds of 9/11 conspiracy theory websites which purport to know that which your government conspires to this day to hide from you, the trusting (read: gullible) American public.

Those who own nose plugs, and don't mind swimming a cesspool of ignorance, can visit some of these so-called "Truther" sites and evaluate their offerings for themselves. In fact, we think you should. Familiarity with the skewed arguments these sites present is the only way they will ever be countered. We must know what's being said on all fronts, so that we can seek the truth by asking the right questions of both the Truthers and our government.

That is, after all, what these conspiracy theorists mechanically chant, as if it were some kind of protective mantra: "We're just asking questions! It's good to ask questions! What's the harm in it?"

The harm is not in asking questions: it is in asking the wrong questions, or in ignoring logical, reasonable and true answers in favor only of the sensational, administration-denouncing answers these Truthers seek and love.

The harm is not that people are listening to the Truthers, but that they are listening to only them, failing to balance what they read with logical, critical thought and more research.

The harm is that too often the matter stops there, with people believing what the Truthers say, simply because they know no better. We should be more than wary of this: we should be frightened of a citizenry which is increasingly losing its willingness to think, which is happy to know no better.

We cannot argue what we don't understand, which is the one thing the conspiracy theorists have yet to fully grasp. We cannot grasp it, either, unless and until we are willing to explore these theories and ask questions of our own. Visit the Internet. Read their questions. But make sure your search for truth doesn't end there. This issue desperately cries for balance, and we call upon responsible Americans who value the truth to supply it.

Bell

25th September 2006, 04:34 PM

I can't believe Penn & Teller aren't in this thread allready! :)
Here's the clip about 9/11 from their [rule 8] series episode about conspiracy theories. Looks like the complete shows have been taken off Google video. Probably because of copyright issues.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7501020220921158523

-=Vagrant=-

26th September 2006, 06:04 AM

A Finnish engineer wrote about "unaswered questions" in last sunday's Aamulehti. It was one of those comments to previous issue's 9/11 texts. The engineer repeat the usual claims = questions:
WTC collapsed defying the laws of physics!
Hijackers are alive!
Molten steel in the ruins!
Not all black boxes were recovered!
Etc.

I wrote a reply and it will be published next sunday.

G-K-4

26th September 2006, 07:00 AM

Alexander Cockburn has another editorial on Counterpunch. It's a follow-up to his previous piece, as well as to JoAnn Wypijewski's (which Debunk911Myths linked to above).

Flying Saucers and the Decline of the Left: A Regression in Consciousness
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn09252006.html

"I'm not sure I see the silver lining about cynicism re government," I answered. "People used to say the same thing about the JFK conspiracy buffs and disbelief in the Warren Commission. Actually, it seems to demobilize people from useful political activity. I think the nuttishness stems from despair and political infantilism. There's no worthwhile energy to transfer from such kookery. It's like saying some lunatic shouting to himself on a street corner has the capacity to be a great orator. The nearest thing to it all is the Flying Saucer craze. 'Open up the USAF archives!' It's a Jungian thing."
Cockburn also quotes some the 9/11 account of retired Pentagon employee Chuck Spinney, who I don't think I've heard of before. According to Cockburn, Spinney is known for "exposing the Pentagon's budgetary outrages".

Brainster

26th September 2006, 08:57 AM

Here's a terrific discussion (http://www.gnn.tv/articles/2577/9_11_and_the_New_Pearl_Harbor_Part_I) of the 9-11 Denial crowd in all their various forms, from Griffin to the Loosers to Justin Raimondo to Eric Hufschmid. It's quite detailed with only a few minor missteps (for example it discusses the FBI's seizure of the Citgo Station's videotape, but does not note that video was released a few weeks ago). A solid "Who's Who in 9-11 Denial".

G-K-4

26th September 2006, 10:14 AM

Here's a terrific discussion (http://www.gnn.tv/articles/2577/9_11_and_the_New_Pearl_Harbor_Part_I) of the 9-11 Denial crowd in all their various forms... A solid "Who's Who in 9-11 Denial".
I'm actually kind of surprised that GNN would carry this. I thought they were into conspiracy theories. Maybe this is just a fluke?

Still, it's good to see. Thanks for posting this, Brainster.

mickky

27th September 2006, 11:17 AM

Hilarious.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/11818067/the_low_post_the_hopeless_stupidity_of_911_conspir acies

Edit: So's my spelling...

LashL

27th September 2006, 06:45 PM

This is a lengthy but excellent article by Bill Weinberg.

Oh, and it mentions Screw Loose Change, too :)

http://www.gnn.tv/articles/2577/9_11_and_the_New_Pearl_Harbor_Part_I

Here's the beginning:
<snip>
Last September 11, a gaggle of conspiracists attempted to crash the official commemoration ceremony at Ground Zero—doing more to alienate them from the very people they purportedly seek to reach out to than if they’d planned it that way. A larger group of some 200 protesters, organized by NY 9-11 Truth, gathered outside the offices of The New York Times to condemn the failure of the media to examine their claims. But their favored chant was: “Figure it out, It’s not hard, 9-11 was an inside job!” Apart from not rhyming, the slogan sums up exactly why it is so easy for the mainstream press to dismiss them: it asserts a dogma and dismisses dissenters as idiots. It replicates what it ostensibly opposes.

The literature being distributed at the demo was even more revealing. One cluster of activists sold a book entitled 9-11, the Great Illusion: Endgame of the Illuminati. The organizers can’t be held responsible for all the lit given out at their event. But this was a small protest, and such titles give The New York Times a damn good excuse no to take them seriously.

This year, NY 9-11 Truth is distributing a four-page flyer in anticipation of the anniversary, grandiosely entitled “The Essential Truth About 9-11.” The rhetoric builds on the “Truth” movement’s demand that their agenda be placed front and center in the anti-war movement. It reads: “If you’re ready to get to the root causes of war and injustice rather than forever dealing with the symptoms, understanding the reality of 9-11 will expose the forces that have hijacked our country and our lives.” Again, it does not call for vigorous inquiry, but acceptance of a particular version of “reality”—and dismisses those who don’t buy it as unserious.

This would be appalling enough even if the “Truth” movement (never trust that word when it is rendered with a capital T) were not pretending to know more than it does or can. But, as is usually the case, arrogant condescension is linked to intellectual hubris.

ETA: OOPS - Sorry, I didn't realize that this was already linked by Brainster above. Sorry for the duplicate.

LashL

27th September 2006, 06:49 PM

I'm actually kind of surprised that GNN would carry this. I thought they were into conspiracy theories.

Me, too. I was very surprised when I saw it, and read it twice to make sure there wasn't a punchline at the end. :)

Graham2001

28th September 2006, 05:17 PM

I was just reading the GNN article and spotted this:

Quote:
The basically contradictory terrorism-denial and terrorism-apologist tendencies especially merge in what has become nearly the standard hard-left analysis of Iraq: in desperation to view the Islamist insurgents as today’s answer to the Viet Cong....

I'm glad that someone more prominent has spotted this particular travesty. As I've commented in an earlier thread the comparison doesn't work.

jon

4th October 2006, 08:38 AM

re. David Shayler's belief in aliens, I've had an e-mail from Schnews (responding to Shayler's 'rebuttal' of their article). Here it is:

Sadly no transcript - we were at the big green gathering and 'off duty' attending Shaylor's talk... This talk was generally a ramble of incoherent fragments of conspiracy, but he definitely asserted that it was holograms designed to look like planes that hit the towers, and the technology to do this was alien. He certainly discussed the theory (without ever saying he didn't believe it) that aliens have been around since pre-civilisation - and in fact turn up periodically to give the human race a kick up the technological pants, at just the right times for them to make 'progess'... and that the blond gene is 'evidence' that this is so.
He claimed that evolutionary theory would say that women had 'willed' themselves blond to become more sexually attractive (not what evol. theory says at all of course) and that this was blatant nonsense - it was because aliens had arrived and interbred with humans, and introducing the blond gene that way. of course!... thus everyone naturally blond has some part alien DNA... I kid you not. There were three of us witness to this, and our memories of these facts all concur. His talk did seem to cover all the bases and lurch from one topic to the next in haphazard fashion. He seemed like someone who'd got seriously spooked out (he relayed that he'd been hounded, intimidated and followed around by secret services etc) and inferred that he'd had a mini-breakdown after realising 'everything' he'd believed in was false, and pretty much locked himself away for a year to smoke grass and read counter-culture literature. He seems to have emerged convinced that the only things he can now believe in are things SO preposterous that they MUST in fact be true... On the surface he actually came across like a pretty sad character, however the possibility remains that he could (a) actually still be working for the 'service', tasked with spreading such nonsense that the 911 movement gets discredited or, more likely, (b) that he's sensed an opportunity to make a speaking / celeb-like media career, touring the 'alternative' scene as de facto spokesman for the 'truth-seekers' - and has decided that the best thing to do is be all things to all people - saying anything and everything to stir up interest - and please the brew-crew nuts who seemed to be heavily in attendance, a little like disciples - sagely nodding and vocally agreeing with everything he said practically before he'd even said it...

He may not have specifically mentioned Annunaki lizards, but blatantly lied on the indym piece when he said he didn't mention aliens... I only wish we had the tape...

And now he's (or Annie) accused SchNEWS of being part of the MI5 cover-up ! Poor guys really must be paranoid to think something as laughable as that..!

W6102LA

14th October 2006, 07:07 PM

From Popular Mechanics....

http'//www(dot)popularmechanics(dot)com/science/research/4199607.html

The Conspiracy Industry
BY JAMES B. MEIGS, Editor-In-Chief, Popular Mechanics
Published on: October 13, 2006

Can someone do the honors and edit the link please :)

Class

14th October 2006, 07:21 PM

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/research/4199607.html

:)

W6102LA

14th October 2006, 07:23 PM

Thanks :)

Brainster

25th October 2006, 12:14 PM

Following up on his Rolling Stone piece linked above, Matt points out that much of the 9-11 Conspiracy woo is recycled nonsense (http://www.alternet.org/story/43418/?cID=270425) from the Oklahoma City bombing.

Some hilarious stuff in this article, including Nico Haupt begging Taibbi to hit him, and reflections on the stupid stuff that Deniers do, like:

Conspiracy theories are always full of this kind of "it's just common sense" rhetoric, i.e. you can't throw an ice cube through the side door of a Buick, so clearly the Titanic was not sunk by an iceberg... Similar appeals can be found throughout 9/11 literature. One of my favorites comes from David Ray Griffin, who in his book The New Pearl Harbor posited that if the falling top-section of the second tower had paused just a half-section each time it collapsed a floor beneath it, it would have taken 40 to 47 seconds to fall, and not the "near-freefall" 11 seconds or so that it actually took.

Which is true. It's also true that if the top-section had paused for three seconds on each floor, it would have taken, not 11 seconds, but three minutes to fall! And if it had paused five minutes on each floor, you could have watched the whole first half of Ghost Dad on the fifteenth floor before you died! And so on. Griffin never explains why he thinks the building should have paused a half-second on each floor, but that's why he teaches theology, not engineering.

Highly recommended!

Shaun from Scotland

26th October 2006, 10:22 AM

Diana Johnstone hits more on motivation (http://www.counterpunch.org/johnstone09152006.html). Here's an interesting observation:

The targets and the message.

She goes on to point out that if the Bush Administration had really been behind the attacks, wouldn't the targets have been chosen to symbolize that, suggesting that the Statue of Liberty and packed football stadiums would have been more appropriate.

I completely agree with this. If you ask someone outside the USA, "Name something you will see in America?" a huge percentage would say "The Statue of Liberty". I think its only rival would have been the WHite House. The SOL is totally iconic and much more a symbol of the USA than the WTC. But then, I would guess it would be a lot easier to hit 2 massive skyscrapers than a comparitively much smaller statue.

PerryLogan

26th October 2006, 11:26 AM

Also, the Towers seem an unlikely traget for international bankers.

In many conspiracy scenarios, the evildoers behind it all are international bankers. It seems unlikely, however, that international bankers would have allowed a plan which would close down Wall Street.

Brainster

28th October 2006, 08:02 AM

The space cadetress narrator/producer of 9-11 Mysteries reveals that she's every bit the nut (http://www.ocweekly.com/news/news/where-theres-smoke-theres-no-fire/26080/) her film makes her seem like:

So what happened to the people who got on those airplanes and haven’t been seen or heard from since?

First of all, it is important to remember the planes were under-booked. Some were only 20 percent full. There was an effort made to under-book the planes and there are reports that people tried to buy tickets on American Airlines Flight 77 and found the price had tripled that particular day. Efforts were made to discourage people from flying on those flights. There are reports that Flight 93 landed at Cleveland airport. We think there was a masking going on, a classic flim-flam magician trick. We don’t even know if Flight 11 took off from Logan. There is a chance the passengers were bundled onto Flight 175. There are reports that two of the plane’s tail numbers were still in service until recently. This would suggest the planes themselves were active. There is a possibility the planes that struck the towers were not the passenger planes we thought they were but Boeing tankers manufactured for the military.

Kent1

28th October 2006, 08:08 AM

The space cadetress narrator/producer of 9-11 Mysteries reveals that she's every bit the nut (http://www.ocweekly.com/news/news/where-theres-smoke-theres-no-fire/26080/) her film makes her seem like:

One plane had more passengers than normal. I guess they must of missed the memo. http://www.911myths.com/html/passenger_numbers.html

One plane has less than normal, one about the same. One more than normal.

Brainster

8th November 2006, 07:36 AM

This article includes a nice mention of Screw Loose Change (http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,19509-2435848_1,00.html):

Even so, debunkers love setting the record straight. For every Loose Change, there is a blog such as www.screwloosechange.blogspot.com, mercilessly skewering the 9/11 conspiracists.

Brainster

27th November 2006, 10:55 AM

Who sound just a tad nutty (http://www.pitch.com/Issues/2006-11-23/news/feature_1.html):

The mothers circling the stacks ignore Matthews. She says she's positive that she's being watched.

"I don't have some sense that they are out to persecute truth seekers," Matthews says of the phantom G-men she thinks she's seen around town. "I think they are just doing their jobs."

The Almond

28th November 2006, 01:47 PM

I've got an editorial I wrote a while ago about the nature of argument in the 9/11 conspiracy group. I've basically broken down the 4 basic types of skeptic arguments and showed how they address specific parts of the conspiracy claim. I haven't found anyone to host it yet, but folks here who operate websites are more than welcome to use it.

In reading the numerous conspiracy theories available on the web and refuting them in the methods seen here, I think it would be useful to mention the four categories of reasons why 9/11 conspiracy theories are full of crap.

The “Big Picture” argument. This argument essentially works on the premise that, if the Bush administration wanted an excuse to attack Iraq and Afghanistan, they certainly picked a terrible way to do it. If the terrorists were fictitious, why make them Saudi nationals? A smattering of Iraqi, Afghani, Iranian and North Korean citizens would have served our purposes quite nicely, providing direct, quantifiable reasons to attack each of those countries in turn. Why destroy the WTC towers in the first place? Explosives could be placed within the buildings to cause massive loss of life but no sufficient structural damage. Why hit the Pentagon? The loss of life was certainly high enough in New York to warrant any police actions after the fact. Why shoot down flight 93? If we were going to kill people in airplanes, why not shoot down 93 flights? To summarize, the big picture argument doesn’t deal directly with any claims made by either side. Rather, the skeptic asks why, and the conspiracy theorists have no good answers.
The “Evidentiary” argument. Suspicions, inconsistencies or inaccuracies in one argument do not, by themselves, prove the counter argument. For the conspiracy theory to be accepted, a sufficient body of counter evidence must be presented. If explosives blew up the WTC, one must present evidence to show where the explosives came from, how they got into the building and how they were detonated. If a cruise missile blew up the Pentagon, armory logs, firing records and the confessions of those who fired it would constitute direct proof of the incident. The evidentiary argument also encompasses those who attack the evidence directly. Conspiracy theorists are fond of excluding, manipulating and taking evidence out of context to prove their point. Pointing out fallacies of exclusion and omission in conspiracy arguments is tiring work, but it does do a tremendous amount to discredit conspiracy theorists.
The “Logical Consistency” argument. This argument, unlike the first two, does directly address the claims made by the conspiracy theorists. Their writings are riddled with logical fallacies ranging from universal affirmatives (all explosives cause explosions, therefore all explosions are caused by explosives) to straw man fallacies (the jet fuel melted the structural steel). Single logical fallacies do not prove that the argument is false, only that the conclusions are wrong. However, as conclusions are proved invalid, the argument itself loses consistency and validity.
The “Scientific” argument. Addressing the scientific and mathematical consistency of the various conspiracy theories is the purpose of the scientific argument. Indeed, the reason why conspiracy theories, essays and papers cannot get published is that the peer review process for most technical journals would weed them out. While the scientific argument may be the most conclusive, it is also the least understood. People without substantial science and mathematics backgrounds are at a loss to judge the technical accuracy of statements involving thermodynamics and structural mechanics. It should be noted, however, that the overwhelming majority of experts in those fields disagree with the conspiracy theorists and wholeheartedly support the self collapse theory.
In arguing with people, I would like to suggest that one focuses on arguments one and two. Conspiracy theorists are consistently weak when it comes to producing actual evidence of people physically placing bombs inside the WTC. Be careful to disallow any appeals to motive in place of proof. Showing that Bush had motive to fake 9/11 does not prove he did it. Also, give the big picture argument a try. Ask them why, if the government wanted to create a police state, the conspiracy theorists are still allowed to publish, discuss and even hold public conferences and debates. Not very 1982, is it? Ask them to list the organizations and people involved in this conspiracy. Once the list reaches the 100 mark, note that conspiracies as small as Guy Fawkes’s group of four are still at the mercy of whistle-blowing and open complexity. The logical consistency argument only works on people who demand that their arguments are logically consistent. This, naturally, excludes conspiracy theorists. Similarly with the scientific argument, the general public is not interested in the science or mathematics of the self collapse theory.

Peephole

28th November 2006, 05:41 PM

Skeptic magazine's current issue's cover story is 9/11 conspiracy. Anyone care to buy a copy and scan the article in?

http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/index.html

Sword_Of_Truth

29th November 2006, 08:28 PM

The Physics of 9-11 (http://www.counterpunch.org/physic11282006.html)

WARNING: Article contains "maths". Do not read unless you have a degree in "maths". ;)

Brainster

30th November 2006, 09:42 AM

In addition to the Physics of 9-11 that Sword of Truth highlights above, Counterpunch also has a good editorial by Alexander Cockburn (http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn11282006.html).

This won't faze the conspiracists. They're immune to any reality check. Spinney worked for the government They switched the dental records The Boeing 757 was flown to Nebraska for a rendez-vous with President Bush, who shot the passengers, burned the bodies on the tarmac and gave Spinney's friend's teeth to Dick Cheney to drop through a hole in his trousers amid the debris in the Pentagon.

maccy

30th November 2006, 10:00 AM

And, to complete the set, Counterpunch also has an account of the 5th anniversary demonstrators at Ground Zero.

http://www.counterpunch.org/jw11282006.html

It was like religion, and profoundly sad. At one point one of the black T-shirts confessed that there's nothing people can do in the face of such evil, because they killed 3,000 Americans on 9/11 and they'll have no compunction to kill their critics if they need to. What a starting point for politics, and the best argument for why people might as well go to their computer screens and just stay there. But the truth! We need to know the truth! It's a truth of fools, simple in the extreme, requiring no more than the memorization of the "unexplained" events of that day, the eye-witness anecdotes and quick-fire repetition of same to others. It's also the politics of the schoolroom, akin to the argument that if every American just sent in a dollar, we'd have $350 million to fight poverty. If every American just does the research, just demands the truth, the truth will come out, the columns will tremble, the temples fall.

Kent1

30th November 2006, 10:09 AM

And, to complete the set, Counterpunch also has an account of the 5th anniversary demonstrators at Ground Zero.

http://www.counterpunch.org/jw11282006.html

[/SIZE][/FONT]

Another one
The Thermodynamics of 9/11
http://www.counterpunch.org/thermo11282006.html
And
The Fall of WTC 7 Dark Fire
http://www.counterpunch.org/darkfire11282006.html

G-K-4

5th December 2006, 06:34 AM

Who sound just a tad nutty (http://www.pitch.com/Issues/2006-11-23/news/feature_1.html):
And here's a quote that nails it:
If you actually look at what's been said, as opposed to what's occurring, you can draw some parallels that are rather convincing.
--Jason Littlejohn
As opposed to what's occurring. At the risk of quote-mining, I have to say that Mr. Littlejohn has accidentally told us how 9/11 conspiracists do what they do.

Brainster

8th December 2006, 01:52 PM

This article (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061225/hayes) mostly takes the "9-11 Denial is a natural result of a secretive, lying administration" tack, but there is some debunking:

To the extent that there is a unified theory of the nature of the conspiracy, it is based, in part, on the precedent of the Reichstag fire in Germany in the 1930s. The idea is that just as the Nazis staged a fire in the Reichstag in order to frighten the populace and consolidate power, the Bush Administration, military contractors, oil barons and the CIA staged 9/11 so as to provide cause and latitude to pursue its imperial ambitions unfettered by dissent and criticism. But the example of the Reichstag fire itself is instructive. While during and after the war many observers, including officials of the US government, suspected the fire was a Nazi plot, the consensus among historians is that it was, in fact, the product of a lone zealous anarchist.

Peephole

22nd December 2006, 01:43 AM

Really nice article by Der Spiegel, seems like a great source for 9/11 "laymen".
Conspiracy theories such as those popularized in the Internet documentary Loose Change are all the rage. Yet they are easy to refute, using new evidence from video and audiotape recordings, statements of captured al Qaeda members and the reports of commissions investigating the events.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,451741,00.html

malha111

22nd December 2006, 10:00 AM

I like this piece by Stephen R. Shalom & Michael Albert: "Conspiracies Or Institutions: 9-11 and Beyond" (Znet, 2 June 2002).
http://www.zmag.org/content/Instructionals/shalalbcon.cfm

Brainster

2nd January 2007, 09:25 AM

By David J. Rusin (http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/01/a_conspiracy_of_ignorance.html). I like his explanation of why we need to fight these nutters:

Despite their many fallacies, the theories promulgated by Kevin Barrett and company remain a malignant force. Such historical revisionism aims to gradually chip away at our resolve to identify, combat, and ultimately defeat the grave threats now assembled against our country and our civilization. Unfortunately, it is accomplishing just that. The conspiracy theories must therefore be opposed at every turn and with every possible resource - including well-deserved ridicule.

LashL

2nd January 2007, 05:55 PM

By David J. Rusin (http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/01/a_conspiracy_of_ignorance.html). I like his explanation of why we need to fight these nutters:

Excellent article. :w2:

Gravy

4th January 2007, 05:25 PM

I've added this post by Severian here. Good stuff.

The Conspiracist Worldview and its Political Assumption
This is a useful site - publiceye.org - which deals with conspiracy theories among other political topics. It points out some of the common features of numerous conspiracy theories. And the faulty assumptions behind the worldview that claims that vast, improbably perfect conspiracies make the world go around.

Summary: Conspiracism is a narrative form of scapegoating that portrays an enemy as part of a vast insidious plot against the common good. Conspiracism assigns tiny cabals of evildoers a superhuman power to control events, frames social conflict as part of a transcendent struggle between Good and Evil, and makes leaps of logic, such as guilt by association, in analyzing evidence. Conspiracists often employ common fallacies of logic in analyzing factual evidence to assert connections, causality, and intent that are frequently unlikely or nonexistent. As a distinct narrative form of scapegoating, conspiracism uses demonization to justify constructing the scapegoats as wholly evil while reconstructing the scapegoater as a hero.

Conspiracism portal page (http://www.publiceye.org/conspire/index.html)with links to the various pages and articles on the subject

Some highlights:
Dynamics of Conspiracist Scapegoating (http://www.publiceye.org/tooclose/conspiracism.html)

Conspiracism as a Flawed Worldview (http://www.publiceye.org/conspire/conspiracism.html)

The Political Assumptions of Conspiracism (http://www.publiceye.org/tooclose/conspiracism-07.html#P99_30362)

Post 9/11 Conspiracism (http://www.publiceye.org/conspire/conspiracism-911.html)

I'd be happy to discuss any of that material with anyone who has comments on or questions about it.

Brainster

7th January 2007, 09:44 AM

Or so this writer claims (http://www.republic-news.org/archive/154-repub/154_kevin_potvin_9-11.htm).

We’ve just witnessed, if not participated in, a massive conspiracy. Tens of millions of people every winter conspire in a flat out lie to fool millions more of society’s most gullible members when they all agree to keep silent about the truth about Santa Clause. Sure, you're laughing, that’s a funny example of a conspiracy, but there it is: those who deny there could possibly be massive conspiracies involving thousands of people or even millions, are wrong.

The article mostly focuses on WTC 7. He makes some ridiculous and wild claims:

This building was the same square footage of one of the towers, half their height but twice their footprint. It was huge, one of the biggest buildings in the world, and it was not struck by a plane nor badly hit by debris from the falling towers. It may have had a diesel fire on its lowest floors, a fire that could never burn hot enough to make the steel frame of the building melt. Yet the building fell down as though every one of its steel columns, back to front and side to side in this massive building, melted and collapsed all at once. The official Congressional investigation, as well as Popular Mechanics, simply said of building seven's collapse that no known theory explains it, and moved on.

In typical Denier fashion, he gets his "facts" wrong; WTC 7's footprint was only slightly larger (47,000 SF versus 43,500 SF) than either of the towers and thus it was much smaller (1.878 million SF versus 3.8 million SF) than either of the other two buildings (rentable SF used).

Severian

9th January 2007, 10:18 PM

Skeptic magazine's current issue's cover story is 9/11 conspiracy. Anyone care to buy a copy and scan the article in?

The main article is available on the web here (http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-09-11.html)

Probably most of the content is familiar to most people on this subforum, but it seems like a good summary to me.

Brainster

10th January 2007, 01:20 PM

This one could have been written (http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_99474.asp) by Alex Jones (and probably the writer's a big fan).

The new world order is ruthless, and will eliminate nation states, religions, and borders. "In the next century, nations as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority. National sovereignty wasn't such a great idea after all." That was the prediction of Strobe Talbot, Clinton's Deputy Secretary of State, as quoted in 'Time', July 20th, 1992. The elite have carefully manufactured major events throughout history in order to bring about this new world order, 911 included. They create the problem. We, the people, react with, "Hey, you must do something about this!" They, in return, give us the solution to the problem that they created in the first place. This is the method used to bring about policy which we would otherwise reject.

PerryLogan

13th January 2007, 06:12 AM

I thought Time Magazine was controlled by the globalists. Why would they leave clues like that?

jon

13th January 2007, 07:31 AM

I thought Time Magazine was controlled by the globalists. Why would they leave clues like that?

Sometimes, when you've got a raging clue, you just can't hold it in...

Brainster

22nd January 2007, 10:11 AM

I learned from Jenga (http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2007/01/18/70347).

But even if a Jenga tower does indeed fall, it will topple over and to the side - it will NOT neatly collapse straight down without resistance into its own placement, and in a beautifully symmetrical fashion, like a certain cluster of humanity's finest feats of structural engineering in Lower Manhattan were somehow wont to do on a crisp, clear morning nearly five and a half years ago.

This is supposed to be part of a series of articles on 9-11 Denial from a University of Minnesota student newspaper. A fifth-year civil engineering (http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2007/01/22/70392#_comment) student responded:

After reading his latest column, I am starting to think that he might actually believe some of this stuff. While some of his explanations may make some sense to the average person, an engineer knows better. The following is not directed toward Mehra because he has already made up his mind and I doubt any amount of evidence will bring him back to reality. For the rest of you, I would like to point out that a Jenga tower does not have even one thing in common with the World Trade Center structures. His comparison, therefore, has no meaning whatsoever.

chipmunk stew

22nd January 2007, 10:57 AM

I learned from Jenga (http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2007/01/18/70347).
But even if a Jenga tower does indeed fall, it will topple over and to the side - it will NOT neatly collapse straight down without resistance into its own placement, and in a beautifully symmetrical fashion, like a certain cluster of humanity's finest feats of structural engineering in Lower Manhattan were somehow wont to do on a crisp, clear morning nearly five and a half years ago.
This is supposed to be part of a series of articles on 9-11 Denial from a University of Minnesota student newspaper. A fifth-year civil engineering (http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2007/01/22/70392#_comment) student responded:
While the engineering student is correct that one cannot meaningfully compare a Jenga tower with the WTC, you don't even have to progress the argument that far before Mehra's crayon-scribbled analysis comes to a halt.

All you have to do is present any of several hundred videos of collapsing block towers to show that these towers more often than not do collapse essentially straight down, not, as Mehra asserts, toppling over to the side.

The typical sideways toppling of a Jenga tower is a result of the way the game is played, which typically ends with the tower being balanced on the central block at or near the base.

These are much more typical of the random structural failure that many a child has inflicted on his architectural experiments:

HqiLxJhZjzM

The Almond

22nd January 2007, 08:06 PM

I made this post a while back comparing certain aspects of a Jenga tower to the WTC tower.

http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2190955&postcount=139

What annoys me, besides the fact that wizard blew the argument off, is that someone can use a similar comparison and get it completely wrong. No, the Jenga tower and the WTC have nothing in common when talking about a realistic model of the structure. His toppling argument is moronic given that the WTC towers were mostly air, unlike Jenga towers, which are mostly wood.

Brainster

23rd January 2007, 10:12 PM

Predictably he starts out (http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/liverpoolecho/news/echonews/tm_headline=9%2D11-was-an-inside-job-says-shayler%26method=full%26objectid=18513424%26siteid =50061-name_page.html) by denying he's a no-planer:

He has even been quoted (out of context, he protests) in a magazine saying: “Yes, I believe no planes were involved in 9/11 . . . The only explanation is that they were missiles surrounded by holograms made to look like planes . . . Watch the footage frame by frame and you will see a cigar-shaped missile hitting the World Trade Centre.”

Then of course he admits it:

“What I am still saying is go onto the internet and look at the footage . . . people have had a go at me saying there were no planes but there is little evidence to show that jets went into the buildings. I’m entitled to say they didn’t and something else did . . . You can make some accurate calculations from Newton’s laws of motion.”

Dylan's Mockumentary gets a mention, albeit with a slightly garbled title:

Short Changed, a documentary about 9/11 made by a group of Americans, will be shown at the Casa and then followed by talks by Shayler and Machon on state terrorism and the aims of the 9/11 Truth Movement.

And humble? Shayler makes Uriah Heep look like a braggart:

Shayler, who worked in MI5’s political and counter-terrorism departments in the early 1990s, says: “I’m not trying to blow my own trumpet but the credibility I add to the movement is enormous.”

Well, you know how that is; he's credible to the no-planers but how much does that MI5 background help him among the "respectable" Deniers? How long before they start muttering that he's a government plant?

Matthew Best

26th January 2007, 02:01 AM

There's a piece about "Loose Change" in today's Guardian, which you can read online here (http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,,1998430,00.html)
.

jon

26th January 2007, 05:24 AM

There's a piece about "Loose Change" in today's Guardian, which you can read online here (http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,,1998430,00.html)
.

Thanks. Have written a letter to the editor - any comments before I submit it?

Dear Sir,

Ed Pilkington's article 'They're all forced to listen to us' is problematic for a number of reasons. Firstly, there are a number of inaccuracies in the article. Pilkington claims, incorrectly, that Loose Change has been shown on Irish state TV: RTE was planning on airing Loose Change next month, but has now decided that the film is not suitable for broadcasting. Pilkington's interpretation of US opinion polls is also very misleading: while a significant number of Americans apparently do believe that US officials did not do enough to stop the 9/11 attacks, this does not mean that they agree with the more ridiculous claims made by Loose Change (for example, that no plane hit the Pentagon).

Secondly, the article gives much too much credibility to the claims made by Loose Change. For example, Pilkington refers to "Flight 77, which supposedly flew into the Pentagon". This suggests that the claims made by Loose Change are on a par with the eyewitness and physical evidence of Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon; one wonders if The Guardian would treat other far fetched conspiracy theories in a similar way - for example, would an article on David Irvine refer to 'the Holocaust, in which millions of Jews were supposedly killed'?

Firestone

26th January 2007, 05:26 AM

Thanks. Have written a letter to the editor - any comments before I submit it?

Dear Sir,A very minor point: it's David Irving.

jon

26th January 2007, 05:50 AM

A very minor point: it's David Irving.

Thanks - oops. When complaining about a paper publishing inaccuracies, you really should get the names right :D

jon

26th January 2007, 09:16 AM

Right, have sent off a modified version of the letter (figured a reference to moon landings would be better than holocaust, anyway) :D

Rich M

27th January 2007, 03:15 AM

To be fair, this is the Grauniad, they're fairly notorious for their typos. Everyone would have assumed the mistake was theirs!

jon

27th January 2007, 04:24 AM

They didn't publish it, anyway :( On at least one occasion when they did publish a letter of mine they did, as you suggest, add a grammatical error ;)

8den

27th January 2007, 04:40 PM

They didn't publish it, anyway :( On at least one occasion when they did publish a letter of mine they did, as you suggest, add a grammatical error ;)

Wait Jon don't despair, the review section, where the article was published, has it's own letters page, that is published weekly.

And often the Saturday Guardian doesn't reference the weekly letters column. Often it waits till monday to allow weekly journalists to response.

Wait and see if the corrections and clarifications section of the paper corrects the error in the piece.

Incidently the guardian's Corrections and Clarifications (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Only-Correct-Best-Corrections-Clarifications/dp/1843544652) section's dry wit must make it the only error correction section of a paper to make it into paperback form.

Some samples

The picture of the Horsehead nebula on our front page yesterday, was reversed. To obtain the view of the nebula that we showed the camera would need to be more than 1,500 light years away from earth.
April 9 1998

The recipe for chocolate souffle with Mars bar, page 61, Guardian Weekend, May 16, specified '85 tbsp granulated sugar'. It should have called for 85g. Apologies to anyone already seriously oversweetened.
May 21 1998

In a report on the Finance and Economics page, page 21, August 21, we referred to the £250,000 advance for Vikram Seth's prize-winning novel, A Suitable Buy. Although undoubtedly worth every penny, the book is actually called A Suitable Boy.
August 24 1998

The great crested newt shown on the front of the Society section, September 30, was, as sober inspection confirms, upside down.
October 2 1998

jon

29th January 2007, 04:22 AM

Thanks - been a while since I've looked at a paper Guardian in the week. And yeah, some of the corrections are suitably entertaining.

Flo

6th February 2007, 12:39 AM

A 9/11 conspiracy virus is sweeping the world, but it has no basis in fact (http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2006529,00.html)

George Monbiot
Tuesday February 6, 2007 - The Guardian

There is a virus sweeping the world. It infects opponents of the Bush government, sucks their brains out through their eyes and turns them into gibbering idiots.
…….
The disease is called Loose Change.
………
The film's greatest flaw is this: the men who made it are still alive. If the US government is running an all-knowing, all-encompassing conspiracy, why did it not snuff them out long ago? There is only one possible explanation. They are in fact agents of the Bush regime, employed to distract people from its real abuses of power. This, if you are inclined to believe such stories, is surely a more plausible theory than the one proposed in Loose Change.

jon

6th February 2007, 05:53 AM

great - the Guardian rather redeeming itself :)

maccy

9th February 2007, 08:26 PM

jon

10th February 2007, 05:19 AM

The Daily Mail's credulity to all things woo seems to extend to Loose Change and David Ray Griffin.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=435265&in_page_id=1811&ct=5

You can leave comments.

The Mail's reporting the news to their usual high standard, then :(

btw, in terms of links between CT woo and right-wing woo, the author of this piece appears to have previously focused on writing (no doubt impeccably researched) articles on the danger that FOREIGNERS pose to the UK (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/dmsearch/overture.html?in_page_id=711&in_overture_ua=cat&in_start_number=0&in_restriction=byline&in_query=sue%20reid&in_name=on&in_order_by=relevance+date)

LashL

18th February 2007, 12:57 PM

The Guardian's Charlie Brooker on "The Conspiracy Files" to air tonight, which
sofia8 posted in another thread here (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=75079).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguide/columnists/story/0,,2013858,00.html

<snip>So, having established that a) I don't like Bush but b) I love Americans, it's time for a third revelation - namely c) I don't believe 9/11 was an inside job orchestrated by the Bush administration. Which is a pity, because I love a good conspiracy theory, and that's a humdinger.

Thing is, people like me will eventually be in the minority if the Chinese whisperers have their way. I'd like to think tomorrow's excellent documentary 9/11: The Conspiracy Files (Sun, 9pm, BBC2) will redress the balance - but I doubt it, since the story it tells (ie the real one) isn't half as exciting as the other story doing the rounds (ie the [rule8] cuckooland version).

In cool, measured tones it steadily dismantles the Loose Change conspiracy theory until there's nothing left to see besides a slightly snotty young director and a few unhinged talking heads. No rational person could watch this and come away thinking otherwise.

Matthew Best

19th February 2007, 05:53 AM

There's another bit in the Guardian's "Comment is Free" section (http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/organgrinder/2007/02/first_night_911_the_conspiracy.html) following up on last night's "Conspiracy Files" documentary. It collects three reviews from other broadsheet newspapers (the Times, the Independent and the Daily Telegraph) and then lets the world have its say. Of course the usual nonsense is on display, but it's drowned out by common sense this time.

At last, a programme/media report that showed the Loose Change dumbos as the crackpots that they are. Scratch that, allowed the Loose Change dumbos to reveal themselves as the crack-pots that they are. It was joy to see Dylan Avery's shifty little eyes twitch as he was challenged on his fictions by someone armed with the facts.
911 Truth Movement, my arse.

Flo

20th February 2007, 01:07 AM

Monbiot's at it again (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2017006,00.html)...

The great virtue of a fake conspiracy is that it calls on you to do nothing.

The 9/11 conspiracy theories are a displacement activity. A displacement activity is something you do because you feel incapable of doing what you ought to do. A squirrel sees a larger squirrel stealing its horde of nuts. Instead of attacking its rival, it sinks its teeth into a tree and starts ripping it to pieces. Faced with the mountainous challenge of the real issues we must confront, the chickens in the "truth" movement focus instead on a fairytale, knowing that nothing they do or say will count, knowing that because the perpetrators don't exist, they can't fight back. They demonstrate their courage by repeatedly bayoneting a scarecrow.

……

Like the millenarian fantasies which helped to destroy the Levellers as a political force in the mid-17th century, this crazy distraction presents a mortal danger to popular oppositional movements. If I were Bush or Blair, nothing would please me more than to see my opponents making idiots of themselves, while devoting their lives to chasing a phantom. But as a controlled asset of the new world order, I would say that, wouldn't I? It's all part of the plot.

Muckar-duva

4th April 2007, 02:27 PM

I like this piece by Stephen R. Shalom & Michael Albert: "Conspiracies Or Institutions: 9-11 and Beyond" (Znet, 2 June 2002).
http://www.zmag.org/content/Instructionals/shalalbcon.cfm

I haven't seen this til now, but it's just gorgeous.

Vincent Vega

5th April 2007, 04:11 PM

Stuff from "our side" makes me nuts:

Debunking 9/11 Myths does a grand job of explaining such popular conspiracy-website mainstays as how a 125-foot-wide plane leaves a 16-foot hole in the Pentagon. Answer: it didn't. The 16-foot hole in the Pentagon's Ring C was made by the plane's landing gear.

The plane's fuselage made a 16' wide hole in the Pentagon's outer facade. the Wings made a 80' or so long hole just below it. The C Ring hole was an altogether different hole.

Gravy

6th April 2007, 05:30 AM

Stuff from "our side" makes me nuts:

The plane's fuselage made a 16' wide hole in the Pentagon's outer facade. the Wings made a 80' or so long hole just below it. The C Ring hole was an altogether different hole.And the hole in C-ring was about 9 feet in diameter. I have seen conspiracists, such as Tom Flocco, try to pass off the C-ring hole as the plane's entry hole. That takes some real huevos. Where is that quote from?

EugeneAxeman

10th April 2007, 03:36 PM

And the hole in C-ring was about 9 feet in diameter. I have seen conspiracists, such as Tom Flocco, try to pass off the C-ring hole as the plane's entry hole. That takes some real huevos. Where is that quote from?

I believe the C-Ring hole was made by one of the engines.

There was some plane debris outside of it, including turbine bits and landing gear.

Other deluded observers have misidentified an engine entry hole at the front of the building as being the fuselage hole.

The original source for the misinformed was Donald Rumsfeld, who made a statement to the effect of, ", ..., the missile which hit the building."

That was enough to get people analyzing smokey photos and misidentifying fallen floor sections for undamaged support columns.

My pet theory for the inside job theory is that Rummy wanted to test the newly reinforced wall in order to determine if a stronger design was necessary.

He's scummy enough to make that kind of call. Hell, he was scummy enough to send our troops into Iraq to defend his contractor buddies with inadequate armor.

Still, there is really no proof of an inside job, only about 60 or so circumstances leading to a good case for reasonable suspicion.

So how does an airliner fly around for over half an hour without running its transponder after two hijacked aircraft have hit the twin towers, and still be able to traverse over 300 miles of U.S. airspace and successfully crash into the Pentagon?

What kind of circle-jerk was going on in that building, and why wasn't somebody high up fired?

The Doc

10th April 2007, 08:28 PM

My pet theory for the inside job theory is that Rummy wanted to test the newly reinforced wall in order to determine if a stronger design was necessary.

He's scummy enough to make that kind of call. Hell, he was scummy enough to send our troops into Iraq to defend his contractor buddies with inadequate armor.

I'm sorry Eugene but that is highly foolish.

There are ways to test concrete structures an assemblies under test conditions without harming anyone, and I would assume a much cheaper cost. 9/11 was a series of 4 airliner crashes. If you think that Donald Rumsfeld crashed a plane into the Pentagon to test his wall, that must mean you also think Rumsfeld crashed all the other planes.

Iraq was not Donald Rumsfeld's decision. The Iraq resolution was a vote put forward to permit the invasion of Iraq. It passed the House on October 10, 2002 by a vote of 296-133, and the Senate on October 11 by a vote of 77-23. That vote was what decided to go into Iraq.

It seems your theory is politically motivated out of a hatred for Rumsfeld and/or the Bush administration.

Think about it though. Who on earth would cause 9/11 just to test out a concrete wall which could have easily been tested under other conditions.

NeoRicen

26th April 2007, 08:15 PM

The Doc

26th April 2007, 11:04 PM

Oh, here's a picture of that 16' hole! :rolleyes:

http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/5029/07mw8vm4.jpg

tabouere

29th April 2007, 10:14 PM

The Doc

29th April 2007, 11:00 PM

The doc, i've watch your vid, nice job... But a bit funny, but I have to admit that I guess many of your points are right..... But....

I have a question : wich part(material) of the building do you think is the heaviest?

Off the top of my head I would say the steel core columns. I'm open to be re-educated on that though, as I am 100% sure on that.

There is also a written guide available, the link is in my signature. It is far more in depth than the movie I made.

tabouere

30th April 2007, 10:17 AM

I nominate The Doc for the following post:
Off the top of my head I would say the steel core columns. I'm open to be re-educated on that though, as I am 100% sure on that.

There is also a written guide available, the link is in my signature. It is far more in depth than the movie I made.

Ok, my question was not well ask, i'm sorry.

The answer is concrete.

Here's some spec :

Both towers were built out of steel frames, glass, and concrete slabs on steel truss joists. A single tower consists of 90,000,000 kg (100,000 tons) of steel, 160,000 cubic meters (212,500 cubic yards) of concrete and 21,800 windows. One single tower has a mass of about 450,000,000 kilograms (500,000 tons). The interior design of the World Trade Center contains 240 vertical steel columns, which were called the Vierendeel trusses. These steel columns maintained the tower's structure and helped to create an extremely "light"building.

here's the link without the http

hypertextbook.com/facts/2004/EricChen.shtml

And for the mass of a cubic meter of concrete the lightest is 500 kg/m3 and it can reach 1500 kg/m3

In your debunking movie, you don't contradict the fact that a big part of the concrete was blown in dust, right?

The Doc

30th April 2007, 06:46 PM

In your debunking movie, you don't contradict the fact that a big part of the concrete was blown in dust, right?

Thanks for the information regarding the concrete.

Please keep in mind, however, that the concrete was not the strongest material in the towers. Each floor only had 4" of concrete seperating it from other floors. The fact that there was more concrete than steel is irrelevant to your question.

A majority of the concrete did get crushed into dust during the collapse. I don't dispute that. However, the amount of explosives required to turn so much concrete into dust would be immense. Please note as well that there were huge chunks of intact concrete found at ground zero after the collapse.

tabouere

30th April 2007, 10:13 PM

Thanks for the information regarding the concrete.

Please keep in mind, however, that the concrete was not the strongest material in the towers. Each floor only had 4" of concrete seperating it from other floors. The fact that there was more concrete than steel is irrelevant to your question.

A majority of the concrete did get crushed into dust during the collapse. I don't dispute that. However, the amount of explosives required to turn so much concrete into dust would be immense. Please note as well that there were huge chunks of intact concrete found at ground zero after the collapse.

Don't go to too fast, I am slowly but surely develloping my point, did you see were am I going?

Let's add something... A big part of the mass of the building is made of glass. There was 21 800 windows of 21 inch each, i'm sorry, I don't find the weight of a windows, but I hope you agree with me that a curtain wall glass windows is a bit heavy.

Let's do some estimation

450,000,000 kilograms each towers composed of 90 000 000 tons of steel, between 200 000 000 and 400 000 000 tons of concrete and I guess more than 30 000 000 tons(probably more) of glass windows

For the concrete, i've find something else there add the ww w.

uwgb.edu/DutchS/PSEUDOSC/911NutPhysics1.HTM they talk about 390 000 000 tons of concrete for each towers

And don't worry I will never say that all concrete was blown in dust, it's not true and it's not required to blow the pancake theory and the progressive collapse theory.

Gravy

1st May 2007, 12:06 AM

Don't go to too fast, I am slowly but surely develloping my point, did you see were am I going?
...
uwgb.edu/DutchS/PSEUDOSC/911NutPhysics1.HTM they talk about 390 000 000 tons of concrete for each towers

So you think the (mostly 4") concrete floors comprised over 80% of the mass of the towers? Your math teacher should be ashamed.

Please start another thread if you wish to discuss this further. This thread is for posting editorials about 9/11.

Gravy

1st May 2007, 12:08 AM

And don't worry I will never say that all concrete was blown in dust, it's not true and it's not required to blow the pancake theory and the progressive collapse theory.
You are apparently not aware that NIST refutes the pancake theory. You've gotten off to a very bad start here, tabouere. If you pay attention, you can learn a lot here. If you come here with arrogant ignorance, you will learn nothing.

The Doc

1st May 2007, 12:22 AM

Gravy answered your post as I would, so there is no need for me to elaborate. Thanks Gravy.

How about you get straight to the point tabouere.

tabouere

1st May 2007, 12:31 AM

So you think the (mostly 4") concrete floors comprised over 80% of the mass of the towers? Your math teacher should be ashamed.

Please start another thread if you wish to discuss this further. This thread is for posting editorials about 9/11.

I dont think the concrete is 80% i'm pretty sure it was between 150 000 000 to 350 000 000 tons of concrete, it depend wich kind concrete is use, I was only quoting "debunkers" facts

Some Statistics
Various sites give slightly different results but the following figures seem to be generally accepted.

Steel used in the WTC: 200,000 tons (I will use metric tons, not short tons. A metric ton is 1000 kg).
Volume of steel (at 7900 kg/cubic meter): 25,300 cubic meters.

Concrete used: 425,000 cubic yards concrete = 325,000 cubic meters
Mass of concrete (at 2400 kg/cubic meter): 780 million kg or 780,000 metric tons

Dimensions: 415 and 417 meters high by 63 meters square
The "bathtub" - the sunken basement of the buildings, is 60 feet (18 meters) deep.
I will tend to use numbers on the high side since those make the best case for conspiracy theories.

Some Derived Numbers
Volume of one tower: 1.65 million cubic meters
Steel in one tower: 100,000 tons = 12,700 cubic meters
Concrete in one tower: 390,000 tons = 163,000 cubic meters
The concrete in the towers weighed about four times as much as the steel and occupied over twelve times as much volume.
Actually, a lot of the concrete in the World Trade Center was in the base. The floors were about 8 cm thick and supported by steel sheets and a truss system, so the actual amount in the towers was quite a bit less.
Mass of one tower: most people use 500,000 tons, a few use 600,000. The mass of concrete and steel above comes to 490,000 tons and doesn't count elevators, plumbing, utilities, windows and so on. 600,000 is probably closer to the mark, especially if we count internal walls and furnishings.
Bulk density of a tower: If we assume 500,000 tons, 303 kg/cubic meter. If we assume 600,000, 363 kg/cubic meter. The bulk density is about one third that of water. Seal the holes and put them in water, and they would float.
Volume of building materials in a tower: 163,000 cubic meters of concrete, plus 12,700 cubic meters of steel = 175,700 cubic meters. Add windows, elevators, and interior fittings and it's probably around 200,000 cubic meters per tower.
If the volume of building materials was 200,000 cubic meters and the total volume of a tower was 1.65 million cubic meters, then building materials occupied 12% of the volume of the tower. 88% of the tower was air. That's what buildings are for - to enclose the largest open space with the least material.
At peak occupancy there were 25,000 people in the towers or 12,500 per tower. Assuming 70 kg for an average weight, the people in each tower weighed 875,000 kilograms or 875 tons. Since people are about as dense as water (1000 kg per cubic meter), the volume of the occupants in each tower was 875 cubic meters.
A grisly statistic but a necessary one. About 10% of the total occupants of the towers were killed on 9-11. Their combined weight would have been about 175,000 kilograms and their combined volume would have been 175 cubic meters. So searchers were looking for 175 cubic meters of remains in 400,000 cubic meters of debris. Typically 7% of the mass of a human body is bone, so the total bone mass in the ruins was 12,000 kilograms out of a billion kilograms of rubble.
The harsh reality is that remains of many of the victims of 9-11 will never be found. Tiny bone fragments will be turning up on rooftops, in crevices in pavement, and other nooks and crannies for decades if not centuries.

http://uwgb.edu/DutchS/PSEUDOSC/911NutPhysics1.HTM

And I deeply think it's not that much of the weight of wtc, maybe 60% or 70%?

My point is quite simple, dust and debris will not blow the lower floor and each time a upper floor blow a lower floor, the upper floor is blown too.

If you notice there's no trace of the upper part of the building in the rubbles.

Now I leave the subject :p

If you think i'm arrogant, take a look at yourself and the others like you.

tabouere

1st May 2007, 12:47 AM

You are apparently not aware that NIST refutes the pancake theory. You've gotten off to a very bad start here, tabouere. If you pay attention, you can learn a lot here. If you come here with arrogant ignorance, you will learn nothing.

I'm sorry I forgot the NIST theory here's a little resume

2. Why did NIST not consider a “controlled demolition” hypothesis with matching computer modeling and explanation as it did for the “pancake theory” hypothesis? A key critique of NIST’s work lies in the complete lack of analysis supporting a “progressive collapse” after the point of collapse initiation and the lack of consideration given to a controlled demolition hypothesis.

NIST conducted an extremely thorough three-year investigation into what caused the WTC towers to collapse, as explained in NIST’s dedicated Web site, http://wtc.nist.gov. This included consideration of a number of hypotheses for the collapses of the towers.

Some 200 technical experts—including about 85 career NIST experts and 125 leading experts from the private sector and academia—reviewed tens of thousands of documents, interviewed more than 1,000 people, reviewed 7,000 segments of video footage and 7,000 photographs, analyzed 236 pieces of steel from the wreckage, performed laboratory tests and sophisticated computer simulations of the sequence of events that occurred from the moment the aircraft struck the towers until they began to collapse.

Based on this comprehensive investigation, 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 (which reached temperatures as high as 1,000 degrees Celsius) significantly weakened the floors and columns with dislodged fireproofing to the point where floors sagged and pulled inward on the perimeter columns. This led to the inward bowing of the perimeter columns and failure of the south face of WTC 1 and the east face of WTC 2, initiating the collapse of each of the towers. Both photographic and video evidence—as well as accounts from the New York Police Department aviation unit during a half-hour period prior to collapse—support this sequence for each tower.

NIST’s findings do not support the “pancake theory” of collapse, which is premised on a progressive failure of the floor systems in the WTC towers (the composite floor system—that connected the core columns and the perimeter columns—consisted of a grid of steel “trusses” integrated with a concrete slab; see diagram below). Instead, the NIST investigation showed conclusively that the failure of the inwardly bowed perimeter columns initiated collapse and that the occurrence of this inward bowing required the sagging floors to remain connected to the columns and pull the columns inwards. Thus, the floors did not fail progressively to cause a pancaking phenomenon.
http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm

How they know the fire reach 1000 degrees C? How they know the Kerosene start multiple floor fire? Many data let think that's not true, of course there was fire in the twin tower but the intensity and area in fire are speculative. People were alive and not burn't on floor in fire, the smoke is black, the firemans talk about some small fires(of course they dont reach all floor) etc etc.

The Doc

1st May 2007, 12:51 AM

How they know the fire reach 1000 degrees C?

Read the report.

How they know the Kerosene start multiple floor fire?

Read the report.

Many data let think that's not true, of course there was fire in the twin tower but the intensity and area in fire are speculative.

Read the report.

People were alive and not burn't on floor in fire, the smoke is black, the firemans talk about some small fires(of course they dont reach all floor) etc etc.

Read the report.
Read 911myths.com
Read loosechangeguide.com
Read 911mysteriesguide.com
I thought you said you watched the movie I made? :confused:

tabouere

1st May 2007, 01:23 AM

Read the report.

Read the report.

Read the report.

Read the report.
Read 911myths.com
Read loosechangeguide.com
Read 911mysteriesguide.com
I thought you said you watched the movie I made? :confused:

Yep i've watch your movies and theres no single proof the fire reach 1000 degrees C and there's no single proof of a large area of the WTC in fire. 911 myths do the same as u do, they use half truth it's what we call damage control. You forgot to answer my point, dust and debris don't blow a building straight to the floor and where the upper part of the building in the rubbles?

I promise, I will do my homework and I'll read that http://wtc.nist.gov/NISTNCSTAR1-5.pdf

But for now, the bed is calling me.

The Doc

1st May 2007, 01:41 AM

Yep i've watch your movies and theres no single proof the fire reach 1000 degrees C

Read the damn NIST report. Their FAQ shows you where to look:
In 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.

Those kind of temperatures are normal for hydrocarbon fires and office fires. NIST recreated offices from the World Trade Center and set them on fire, and the temperatures reached 1,000°C

and there's no single proof of a large area of the WTC in fire.

http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/photos/docs/wp_wtc29.jpg

There are plenty of other images out there that show an even bleaker outlook that that one.

911 myths do the same as u do, they use half truth it's what we call damage control. You forgot to answer my point, dust and debris don't blow a building straight to the floor and where the upper part of the building in the rubbles?

I am having trouble understanding what you are asking. Are you saying that the lower part of the building could not have collapsed because the top part had disintegrated?

I promise, I will do my homework and I'll read that http://wtc.nist.gov/NISTNCSTAR1-5.pdf

Good.

But for now, the bed is calling me.

Sleep well.

Regnad Kcin

1st May 2007, 05:21 AM

Please start another thread if you wish to discuss this further. This thread is for posting editorials about 9/11.tabouere:

I'm repeating the above. This thread is not for general or specific discussions of the events of 9/11.

tabouere

1st May 2007, 08:42 AM

10-4 Regnad Kcin, but i'll bring Bobby bob with me.

Brainster

28th June 2007, 10:44 AM

Pulitzer Prize winner Lawrence Wright (http://www.texasmonthly.com/2007-07-01/talks.php) comments on his experiences with the fruitloops:

We know what happened on September 11. It’s not a mystery. The mystery, rather, has to do with human nature, with why people believe in things that have no evidence to support them. I’ve been dogged by conspiracy theorists since the book came out, and I’ve spent time trying to convert them back to reality.

There are at least a couple of questions from the interviewer about the conspiracy theories.

portlandatheist

21st July 2007, 10:25 PM

A great essay on conspiracy theories in general is here:
http://www.settingtheworldtorights.com/node/202
When I talk to truthers, I begin with the everlasting light bulb conspiracy and go from there.
Here is Part I of the series:
According to a recent poll in the German newspaper Die Zeit, one in five Germans believes that the U.S. government may have sponsored the 9-11 attacks. Among those under 30, the proportion is one in three. Conspiracy theories as insane as that one, or worse, currently corrupt the political thinking of the great majority of people in the world, including a substantial and influential minority in the West.

A conspiracy theory is

* an explanation of observed events in current affairs and history … which
* alleges that those events were planned and caused in secret by powerful (or allegedly powerful) conspirators, who thereby…
* benefit at the expense of others, and who therefore…
* lie, and suppress evidence, about their secret actions, and…
* lie about the motives for their public actions.

Conspiracy theories are widely regarded as characteristic of irrational modes of thinking. The very term ‘conspiracy theory’ is usually reserved for irrational explanations meeting the above criteria. For conspiracies do happen. Criminal conspiracies are proved every day in courts. Political conspiracies are discovered from time to time. If we can rationally explain a bank robbery as being the consequence of a conspiracy, why not a war? Or the world economic system? What distinguishes a conspiracy theory (irrational, by definition) from a sane opinion that a particular group of people worked in secret to bring about certain observed events for their own immoral purposes?

Here, the irrefutability of conspiracy theories is usually cited: to a conspiracy theorist, everything that happens, or could possibly happen, constitutes evidence for the conspiracy. If the alleged conspirators seem to benefit, then that is evidence against them. If they do not, then that is just evidence that the media and/or other conspirators are concealing the facts, or that something much more valuable is secretly at stake.

But there is more to it than irrefutability. There is more to it even than the tendency to invent (rather than merely reinterpret) evidence to conform to the conspiracy theory. For it is no coincidence that every (irrational) conspiracy theory is in fact false. Underlying their invalid arguments and mishandling of evidence in judging explanations, there is a pathological mistake in the conspiracy theorists’ conception of what constitutes an explanation in the first place.

Brainster

10th August 2007, 09:18 AM

James and I get profiled for our work combating the nutbars in the Phoenix New Times. Long and wonderful article (http://phoenixnewtimes.com/2007-08-09/news/the-yoda-of-9-11/1) that covers much of the 9-11 Denial Movement.

Along with co-blogger James Bennett of Seattle and SLC allies such as New York City's Mark "Gravy" Roberts, author of the painstakingly detailed Loose Change Second Edition Viewer Guide, Curley patrols a veritable Mos Eisley cantina of conspiracy mavens, kooky celebs, Holocaust deniers, nutty academics, anti-Semites, aged hippies, delusional twentysomethings, and cynical, Elmer Gantry-like opportunists, all of whom are united in their opposition to the official version of what transpired on September 11, 2001: that 19 al-Qaeda members armed with box-cutters and knives pulled off the most daring and destructive surprise attack on American soil in history.

cmcaulif

15th August 2007, 11:50 AM

Gravy:

I read some papers on the progressive collapse phenomena and analysis over the weekend, they might be useful to add to your links page along with the NIST document on progressive collapse prevention.

Practical Means for Energy-Based Analyses of Disproportionate Collapse Potential (http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=JPCFEV000020000004000336000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes)
Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities, Volume 20, Issue 4, pp. 336-348 (November 2006)
Donald O. Dusenberry and Ronald O. Hamburger

Progressive Analysis Procedure for Progressive Collapse (http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=JPCFEV000018000002000079000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes)
Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities, Volume 18, Issue 2, pp. 79-85 (May 2004)
S. M. Marjanishvili

This one gives a comparison of codes for progressive collapse and a number of other sources on studies and workshops related to the subject, I haven't checked out any of them yet though:

Progressive Collapse of Structures: Annotated Bibliography and Comparison of Codes and Standards (http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=JPCFEV000020000004000418000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes)
Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities, Volume 20, Issue 4, pp. 418-425 (November 2006)
Osama A. Mohamed,

ZENSMACK89

18th August 2007, 07:57 AM

June 26, 2002 Posted: 8:26 PM EDT (0026 GMT)
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/e...6/france.book/
French buy into 9/11 conspiracy
PARIS, France (CNN) -- Throughout the spring, and into this summer, a leading bestseller in France has not been some great work of French literature but a $17-dollar paperback called the "Horrifying Fraud."

November 25, 2003
http://www.alternet.org/story/17254/
Media Silence on 9/11
By Danny Schechter and Colleen Kelly, AlterNet.
Conspiracy theories about these events flourish because independently verified information has yet to see the light of day. More importantly no one has been held accountable for any lapses or misjudgments that left our country undefended.

Nov 10th 2004
http://www.cnn.com/POLLSERVER/result...0.content.html
Do you believe there is a U.S. government cover-up surrounding 9/11?
89% Yes

Friday, December 9, 2005
http://www.editorsweblog.org/print_n...t_card_und.php
US: media coverage of 9/11 report card 'underwhelming'?
Political reporter Tom Edsall of The Washington Post stated he was: "surprised to see ... that ... The New York Times, played the story inside. Insofar as the press drives a story, that will diminish public reaction ... The NYT has a wider national distribution than the Post. We gave the story top of the front page story, which I think is the correct play."

6th September 2006
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...n_page_id=1770
Fury as academics claim 9/11 was 'inside job'
by JAYA NARAIN
The 9/11 terrorist attack on America which left almost 3,000 people dead was an "inside job", according to a group of leading academics. Around 75 top professors and leading scientists believe the attacks were puppeteered by war mongers in the White House to justify the invasion and the occupation of oil-rich Arab countries.

http://www.iwantmedia.com/after911.html
Media After 9/11
Coverage issues, ad losses, anthrax attacks

twinstead

19th August 2007, 04:47 PM

Anybody can post news stories about anything. The true test of these articles is if they can be backed up by facts.

What part of 'you can't believe everything you read on the internet' is so hard for some people?

Zen can you with a straight face tell me you apply the same scrutiny to the articles you link to as you do to articles that support the official story?

John Blonn

11th September 2007, 09:44 AM

Nice anti-twoof editorial in the Cornell Daily Sun today...

http://cornellsun.com/node/24309

HereticHulk

15th September 2007, 05:01 PM

9/11 "Conspiracies" and the Defactualisation of Analysis
How Ideologues on the Left and Right Theorise Vacuously to Support Baseless Supposition

A Reply to ZNet’s 'Conspiracy Theory?' Section

h_ttp://ww_w.mediamonitors.net/mosaddeq37.html#_Toc11659700

Nick227

17th September 2007, 03:04 AM

I wanted to post this "conspiracy editorial" here for any comments.

Nick

A PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE CONSPIRACY THEORIST AND THE CONSPIRACY OPPONENT

Conspiracy theories which strongly threaten existing belief systems, such as 9/11, tend to polarise people into one of two positions very quickly. Typically there is little middle ground. This is because the process of "taking a position" here is mediated by the mid-brain, just below the fringes of conscious awareness. The mid-brain deals with perceived threats in the outside world. It is also known as the limbic system and it is doing most of the work here because the material being presented invariably presents quite a threat to a person's self-conscious perspective. Thus the position the individual takes is more a reaction to the material rather than a thought-out response. The upper brain, the rationalising and interpretive perspective, may well come in later but the underlying position is governed by the mid-brain, just below the level of conscious awareness.

The position taken is typically either that of the "authority-tripper/victim" or the "control freak." In outlining the characteristics of each position below I have chosen the male of the species, as it is easier to deal with one pronoun at a time. In addition, whilst both sexes get involved with conspiracy theories, it does seem to me to be more guys that get emotionally involved. In reading it should be borne in mind that these categories are not hard and fast and that this is a work-in-progress.

The "authority-tripper/victim" has the underlying belief that the world is wrong and he is right. He typically takes a victim position in life but secretly knows that one day "his time will come." He trusts his intuition but rarely takes a stand against the forces which he perceives as threatening him. Typically he bows down to authority in direct conflict, preferring to bide his time, awaiting a chance to "get back." What the authority-tripper/victim fears most is being completely defeated by the authoritarian forces he perceives around him. He will accept control but not complete control. If the scenario being presented to him implies that there is a serious risk of him having to totally give up his own power it will provoke a strong emotional reaction. He will finally be motivated to act.

The "control freak" is more pragmatic. He feels he's doing OK in society and doesn't want to upset the fragile balance his ego has formed with the forces surrounding it. He could be interested in going deeper, gaining more self-awareness, but only if it's done in a controlled manner where he can understand and agree each step of the way. His belief systems tend to be rigid, and his trust in feelings and intuition low. He likes to put everything neatly in a little box in his mind and needs to feel he can do this or underlying feelings of insecurity will rise. The control freak tends to worship objectivity, oftenperceiving it as a salvationary force which can keep his underlying insecurities at bay. When faced with ideas that threaten his rigid perspective he will demand objectivity. His core fear is losing control to his own subconscious impulses and he will use any tactic to avoid this.

Graham2001

17th September 2007, 07:18 PM

Some nice commentary on the many contradictory things the 911 'Truth' Movement believes in...

http://tinyurl.com/2pkqlw

I wonder just how many they believe before breakfast.

billyb1012

17th September 2007, 10:46 PM

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/august2006/170806stevenjones.htm

That's a rather remarkable assertion at the very end of this screed, that several of the hijackers have subsequently turned up alive. Can Professor Jones provide us with specific instances, and the supporting proof?

Slayhamlet

18th September 2007, 09:13 PM

That's a rather remarkable assertion at the very end of this screed, that several of the hijackers have subsequently turned up alive. Can Professor Jones provide us with specific instances, and the supporting proof?

It's from a few 2001 news articles in the media that were later retracted, on account of mistaken identity (as it happens, many Arabs have similar names). Of course, twoofers just allege that the retractions were coerced by the NWO.

T.A.M.

12th October 2007, 04:17 PM

Interesting article on Bin-Laden and the world effect of 9/11...

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=10&ItemID=14022

TAM:)

JollyRoger

17th October 2007, 12:04 PM

NIST Admits Total Collapse Of Twin Towers Unexplainable
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/october2007/161007_nist_admits.htm

John Blonn

19th October 2007, 10:00 AM

A pro-twoof editorial in the Cornell Daily Sun today:

http://cornellsun.com/node/25366

Please go here and comment - I would love to see his "arguments" fully and utterly savaged.

Gravy

22nd October 2007, 05:38 AM

NIST Admits Total Collapse Of Twin Towers Unexplainable
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/october2007/161007_nist_admits.htm

No, they don't "admit" that. Their computers aren't able to model collapse events after collapse initiation with finite element analysis, because of the millions of variables involved. That the towers had to completely collapse once the structure was weakened to a certain point is accepted by the structural engineering community and is supported by papers by Bazant and others. The "truth" movement is unable to point us to any dissenting papers that have been submitted to engineering journals, much less passed peer review.

Dave Rogers

22nd October 2007, 06:18 AM

No, they don't "admit" that. Their computers aren't able to model collapse events after collapse initiation with finite element analysis, because of the millions of variables involved. That the towers had to completely collapse once the structure was weakened to a certain point is accepted by the structural engineering community and is supported by papers by Bazant and others. The "truth" movement is unable to point us to any dissenting papers that have been submitted to engineering journals, much less passed peer review.

To be fair to Jolly Roger, all he did was post the title and url of an editorial piece about 9/11. The fact that the piece is dishonestly putting words into the mouth of NIST (unsurprisingly, as it originates from PrisonPlanet) doesn't IMHO make it ineligible for this thread.

Dave

Graham2001

24th October 2007, 05:57 AM

Here's a nice editorial from the NZ Herald dealing with CTs in general:

Conspiracy as the opium of the people (http://tinyurl.com/2kpnap)

And here is something from it I agree with fully:

Sociologist Frank Furedi of the University of Kent warns that this simplistic worldview of conspiracy thinking displaces critical engagement with public life and instead replaces it with a destructive search for hidden motives, for the story behind the story as a way of avoiding larger core issues.

Dave Rogers

28th November 2007, 05:02 AM

A piece on the inherent problems facing the debunker from the Philadelphia Enquirer (I think it's reprinted from the Washington Post).

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/world_us/11733477.html

More to do with debunking and general skepticism, but it touches on 9-11 conspiracy theories as well. It's an interesting point - to what extent does debunking simply reinforce the original myth?

Dave

Nephilim70

12th December 2007, 10:42 PM

Radium ( a rare element found as an end result from nuke devices going off and in smaller barely detectable doses in nature) Has been found in the Fresh Kills steel dump site where a small portion was kept.

(And the rest of this important federal crime scene was removed and sold off to China and India promptly before ANY investigation had occurred.)

I dont dare suggest anything except the truth.

They found Radium in the steel a full 4 years after the event, in fact over 36 hot spots of radium in and around NY Manhattan area was detected.

EPA Whitmans suggestion that it was it was safe to return to work 2 weeks or even 2 years is now proven to be what?

nysun dot com /article/40174

I dont dare suggest anything except the truth.

Brainster

12th December 2007, 11:08 PM

Radium ( a rare element found as an end result from nuke devices going off and in smaller barely detectable doses in nature) Has been found in the Fresh Kills steel dump site where a small portion was kept.

I dont dare suggest anything except the truth.

False. The article is here (http://www.nysun.com/article/40174).

The survey found 80 hotspots in the city, but the one-acre section of the park, which is part of the Gateway National Recreation Area, was singled out for an investigation by the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency.

So it was not the dump, but a park, and:

Investigators found small pieces of rusted metal — possibly remnants of industrial equipment — that had presumably been dumped in the park before it was taken over from the city by the National Park Service in 1972, a spokesman for the National Park Service, Brian Feeney, said.

Unless 9-11 happened back in the 1960s, I'd say this was a fairly easy debunking. Thanks for playing!

Nephilim70

13th December 2007, 02:44 AM

I don't dare bother "playing" with someone called "Brainster" I am sorry. You are obviously my intellectual superior. I will withdraw my posting and recede to the dark recesses from whence I came.

GregoryUrich

17th December 2007, 04:37 AM

I dont think the concrete is 80% i'm pretty sure it was between 150 000 000 to 350 000 000 tons of concrete, it depend wich kind concrete is use, I was only quoting "debunkers" facts

http://uwgb.edu/DutchS/PSEUDOSC/911NutPhysics1.HTM

And I deeply think it's not that much of the weight of wtc, maybe 60% or 70%?

My point is quite simple, dust and debris will not blow the lower floor and each time a upper floor blow a lower floor, the upper floor is blown too.

If you notice there's no trace of the upper part of the building in the rubbles.

Now I leave the subject :p

If you think i'm arrogant, take a look at yourself and the others like you.

Mass and mass distribution in WTC1 here (http://www.cool-places.0catch.com/docs/MassAndPeWtc1.pdf).

beachnut

1st January 2008, 03:12 PM

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/editorials/article/0,2777,DRMN_23964_4895190,00.html
Type A's are mostly harmless. They are skeptics intrigued with the theory that 9/11 was an inside job involving government assistance or direction who are not ready to make the full-body leap into cuckooland.
&Type B's are more aggressive. They have made up their minds but arestill willing to ply their arguments on wayward journalists like me with a minimal number of insults.&Finally, there are the Type C's, the red meat conspiracy hucksters who know a despicable traitor when they spot one.
And the following is dead on!But don't try pointing out this obvious objection to 9/11 conspiracy buffs. It will only prove your part in the sickening
plot.

Zeuzzz

27th February 2008, 04:24 AM

Heres some more new items on 9/11 from only respected mainstream media;

BBC - Hijack 'suspects' alive and well - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1559151.stm

BBC - Bin Laden admission tape 'not genuine' - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2526309.stm

BBC - Could the Bin Laden video be a fake? - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/1711288.stm

Guardian UK - Why is the US government so keen to cover it up? written by Labour MP Michael Meacher, former challenger to Gordon Brown for leader of the Labour Party - http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1266317,00.html

The Independent - Robert Fisk: Even I question the 'truth' about 9/11. By award winning journalist Robert Fisk - http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/article2893860.ece

CNN - Sources: Hijackers' ex-landlord was FBI informant - http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/09/11/ar911.hijackers.landlord/

CNN - Officer: 9/11 panel didn't receive key information - http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/08/17/sept.11.hijackers/

BBC - There is a hidden agenda at the very highest levels of our government - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/events/newsnight/1645527.stm

The Daily Mail - An explosion of disbelief; fresh doubts over 9/11 - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=435265&in_page_id=1811

MSNBC (recovered) - Alleged Hijackers May Have Trained at U.S. Bases - http://prisonplanet.com/alleged_hijackers_may_trained_us_bases.html

The Daily Mail - Fury as top academics claim 9/11 was 'inside job' - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=403757&in_page_id=1770

Dave Rogers

27th February 2008, 04:43 AM

Heres some more new items on 9/11 from only respected mainstream media;

None of these are new - the most recent is from last July, and the oldest from late September 2001 - and most are news stories rather than editorial / comment. Please keep to the topic of this thread. I'm reporting your post post and asking for it, and this reply, to be moved out of the sticky thread.

Dave

Zeuzzz

29th February 2008, 10:44 AM

None of these are new - the most recent is from last July, and the oldest from late September 2001 - and most are news stories rather than editorial / comment. Please keep to the topic of this thread. I'm reporting your post post and asking for it, and this reply, to be moved out of the sticky thread.

I had not realised it was only editorials, i thought anything from respected media was acceptable to post here. And a few of them have not been posted before, but I agree, I should have checked which ones were repeated and omitted them. I just happened to find this list of articles on about 9/11, all from mainstream media, and so thought they would make a good addition, but obviously they are unwanted contributions.

Out of curiousity, what is the your for reporting my post? They are all relevant to 9/11 and there are other posts with similar news stories, I just posted a collection of them together.

Dave Rogers

29th February 2008, 11:05 AM

Out of curiousity, what is the your for reporting my post? They are all relevant to 9/11 and there are other posts with similar news stories, I just posted a collection of them together.

Off topic according to the OP and all well known stuff, but if there's stuff you want to discuss it's all worth putting into a new thread, so I was asking for it to be moved out of the stickies. Clearly the moderators didn't agree. I may have been a bit quick on the trigger here - perhaps a touch of Debunker Fatigue Syndrome.

Dave

SDC

3rd March 2008, 06:24 AM

I had not realised it was only editorials, i thought anything from respected media was acceptable to post here. And a few of them have not been posted before, but I agree, I should have checked which ones were repeated and omitted them. I just happened to find this list of articles on about 9/11, all from mainstream media, and so thought they would make a good addition, but obviously they are unwanted contributions.

Out of curiousity, what is the your for reporting my post? They are all relevant to 9/11 and there are other posts with similar news stories, I just posted a collection of them together.

Daily Mail as mainstream? Sort of. But Prison Planet? That's purest junk.

ETA: Dave was completely correct the first time. You posted a bunch of old stuff, some from respectable sources, some not. Did you use the search function?

FreeRomanian

22nd March 2008, 01:55 PM

very messy thing 9/11...

G-K-4

1st April 2008, 10:37 AM

I'm not sure if this qualifies as an editorial, but I didn't think it deserved its own thread.

David Rovics is a radical leftist singer-songwriter. Most of you won't like his politics. But he recently published a long essay on his blog about his problems with the "truthers".

"9/11 Truth Movement vs. 9/11 Truth: (http://songwritersnotebook.blogspot.com/2008/03/911-truth-movement-vs-911-truth.html)
"Or, who are these people and why do they keep yelling at me?"

Several years ago, he released a song about 9/11 called "Reichstag Fire", which apparently was appreciated by many truthers. But here, Rovics has written that, "In the song I also posed questions which I now feel have been adequately explained." And those answers don't come from the truthers.

He still has his same politics. And I think he might be just plain mistaken about a couple of things (like his apparently confusing Al Qaeda (or Bin Laden's foreign fighters) for the Afghan mujihadeen). But I thought this essay worth linking to here, especially since a large part of this essay is about media. He takes a look at how "Art Bell"-types of radio shows appeal to certain people, and how conspiracists are attacking alternative media sources that don't buy the 9/11 conspiracy theories. He even has some encouraging words about science and rationality, which one might not expect from a lefty artist!

Anyway, one more for the thread.

Graham2001

5th April 2008, 07:07 AM

This editorial from the NZ Herald is not about 9/11 but does deal with Conspiracy Theorists. It's final paragraphs explain why skeptics can never rest in dealing with these 'people'

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/466/story.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10502165

Everyone, says the legal axiom, deserves their day in court. Mohamed al-Fayed, whose son died with Princess Diana in a Paris car smash, had more than his day. The inquest into their deaths started on October 2 and for nearly six months a judge and jury in London's Royal Courts of Justice have listened to a tale of absurdity.

ktesibios

7th April 2008, 03:14 PM

From the editorial linked by Graham2001:

The normal conspiracy theorist does not then extend the plot to practically everyone who disbelieves him. This one implicated the judge in a French inquiry and two Scotland Yard commissioners as well as Diana's sister and her lawyer.Based on expeience here and other fora, I find it hard to think of a more normative behavior for the genyoowine CTer than extending the plot to practically everyone who disbelieves him.

I suspect that the editorialist hasn't had much experience of the paranoid conspiray theory industry, or else isn't the closest observer in the newspaper business.

LashL

13th April 2008, 02:44 PM

I stumbled upon this article (http://blogcritics.org/archives/2008/04/11/080144.php) online about conspiracies and conspiracy theories and critical thinking, and thought I'd post it here as it's worth a read.

tarrou

8th June 2008, 09:09 AM

A nice article from the financial times, that focuses on the different fractions in the truth movement.

teaser:
'Confusing the two groups [Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice] would be like mistaking Monty Python’s Judean People’s Front for the People’s Front of Judea: this was a major doctrinal split.'

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8d66e778-3128-11dd-ab22-000077b07658.html

(Financial Times, 8/6-2008)

Zeuzzz

4th July 2008, 10:41 AM

Some coverage on 9/11 by the BBC. Seems quite neutral. They are airing a program in a couple of days called "The Conspiracy Files: 9/11 - The Third Tower" all about building seven. Hopefully they will clear up that whole BBC knew in advance conspiracy theory.

The evolution of a conspiracy theory (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7488159.stm)

It'll be interesting to see if they address the physics of the collapse, or just spend loads of time talking about fires and the conditions before the initiation.

The Conspiracy Files: 9/11 - The Third Tower
Sunday, 6, July, 2008
2100 BST, BBC Two

BobHaulk

12th July 2008, 01:25 AM

How anyone can watch building 7 collapse and say it wasn't a controlled demolition must be blind. I take it this belief comes from the 9/11 commission who seem to not bother with the whole building 7 thing. It's ok to buy the government line though, especially when you consider the American military are off round the world killing, say 38 children at a wedding in response ;we wouldn't want the world to think america was an evil state with an unelected president who's brother counts the votes would we ?
With hundreds of thousands of dead arabs on it's hands, america should be ashamed, shame on your evil country and it's complicit child killing right wing christian and free market slave traders. It's a pity there is no god because can you imagine god asking bush and his buddies what they did for humanity in the time they were on the earth.
I know some smug git around here will say "your off topic" or "i'm ranting" but the fact is the american people, collectively are responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of people. Not just a few, but hundreds of thousands and for what ? The right of fat,barely educated americans to drive around in cars that do 5 miles to the gallon.
Maybe 9/11 happened how the government says it did, i don't know, but i do know this, millions have died as a result of americas action and that is nothing to be proud of.

BobHaulk

12th July 2008, 01:35 AM

read the link and it's just a pro war piece with disparaging comments about some of the people involved in the opposition.The land of the free don't like people to have er free speech, do they? Typical of the government line people. Always missing the point and trying to find some dude who is clearly talking rubbish to discredit anyone who thinks that there maybe more to it than meets the eye.
The kind of person who thinks the government wouldn't do this kind of thing need to ask themselves how many people died in central america, how many died in 'nam for a war that was even more ludicrous than the iraq war. American governments will kill anyone they want to for any reason they deem fit.

BobHaulk, you're fairly new here... please make sure your posts are on-topic for the thread and forum you're in. These two posts are probably better off in politics or social commentary; I'm leaving them here as a courtesy. I suggest you re-read the Membership Agreement (Look at the forum titles) to make sure you fully understand the rules of engagement here.

Nick Terry

14th July 2008, 01:13 AM

Someone obviously got harrassed by a truther - Charlie Brooker is one of the funniest writers on the Guardian and was the man behind the lethally funny tvgohome.com

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/14/september11.usa/print

So, you believe in conspiracy theories, do you? You probably also think you're the Emperor of Pluto

<LI id=contrib-shift>
<LI class=byline>Charlie Brooker (http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/charliebrooker)
The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian),
Monday July 14, 2008
Article history

Highlight

And when repeatedly pressed on that one, basic, overall point - that a conspiracy this huge would be impossible to pull off - they huff and whine and claim that unless you've sat through every nanosecond of Loose Change (the conspiracy flick du jour) and personally refuted every one of its carefully spun "findings" before their very eyes, using a spirit level and calculator, you have no right to an opinion on the subject.

Oh yeah? So if my four-year-old nephew tells me there's a magic leprechaun in the garden I have to spend a week meticulously peering underneath each individual blade of grass before I can tell him he's wrong, do I?

Par

15th July 2008, 05:22 PM

Orphia Nay

15th July 2008, 09:06 PM

I really enjoyed that article. Thanks, Nick!

progge

20th July 2009, 03:55 PM

9/11 Truth in Canada, commented by Jonathan Kay (National Post):
"An evening in Montreal with Richard Gage, 9/11 Truth Movement prophet extraordinaire"

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/04/23/jonathan-kay-an-evening-in-montreal-with-richard-gage-9-11-truth-movement-prophet-extraordinaire.aspx

Even if you are — like me — part of the majority that believes the "official theory" of 9/11, it's a mistake to ignore a movement as large and passionately championed as this one. Across North America (never mind Europe and North America), millions of people have decided that the leaders of the free world are actually murderers — or, at least, in league with murderers – who’d wantonly slaughter thousands of their own citizens as a means to advance a geopolitical agenda. Isn't that something that should interest us?

Orphia Nay

5th August 2009, 02:50 AM

http://www.opednews.com/articles/A-Conspiracy-Theorist-in-t-by-Amy-Fried-090722-729.html

Anti-twoof article at the rather twoofy OpEd News site.

Brainster

10th November 2009, 07:52 AM

My article on why the conspiracy theorists are wrong (http://svt.se/2.35188/1.1764856/the_truthers_ignore_facts_which_don_t_fit_into_the ir_beliefs?lid=puff_1764819&lpos=extra_0) and why they are dangerous has been posted on the website of the most popular debate show on Swedish television. As I said at SLC, I'd be happy to debate the gals in the accompanying picture for hours and hours on the topic of 9-11. :D

Zeuzzz

14th November 2009, 10:10 PM

wish people would get over 9/11. It happened. We dont have a clue who did it definitively. But it happened. And it influenced many political models afterwards.

What was it I was hearing on the news today that one of the people charged with masterminding the attacks was being charged in a US court soon?

Its a bit freaking late now isn't it, like 8 years afterwards? :eye-poppi

Orphia Nay

18th December 2009, 09:37 PM

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704238104574602042125998498.html

"A Conspiracy-Theory Theory"

By DAVID AARONOVITCH

It discusses a number of conspiracy theories, but goes into the most detail on 9/11.

bill smith

21st August 2011, 06:34 AM

How did you bump this thread without any post from today appearing under your name Orphia ?

beachnut

21st August 2011, 03:31 PM

How did you bump this thread without any post from today appearing under your name Orphia ?
This may be indicative of why you failed to figure out 911. You might figure this out before you figure out 911, or not. I think it is best you figure this out on your own; like an exercise or homework.

8den

22nd August 2011, 10:32 AM

This may be indicative of why you failed to figure out 911. You might figure this out before you figure out 911, or not. I think it is best you figure this out on your own; like an exercise or homework.

Or if you prefer, Witchcraft. Orphia Nay is a Witch.

Brainster

5th September 2011, 10:06 PM

A mediocre effort by the Guardian at debunking (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/05/9-11-conspiracy-theories-debunked):

This theory is partly based on a remark by the owner of the building who, fearing it was about to collapse, said firefighters inside should be brought out immediately. He used the words: "Pull it". This remark has been interpreted as slang for demolishing the building. In fact, the collapse was caused by intense fires in one of the neighbouring twin towers that spread to WTC 7, causing its steel beams to buckle and the building to come down.

It reads like it was banged out with an hour before a deadline. I don't disagree with the conclusions, just feel like this one was rushed.

Orphia Nay

8th September 2011, 01:13 AM

Two excellent articles from Slate in the past two days:

http://www.slate.com/id/2302834
http://www.slate.com/id/2302851/

ETA: And another one:
http://www.slate.com/id/2302852/

Orphia Nay

8th September 2011, 11:15 PM

Ah, I see there are now 7 Slate articles by Jeremy Stahl. Here's the lead page to the series:

http://www.slate.com/id/2302823/landing/1

think analytically

10th September 2011, 02:30 PM

I think this is both intriguing and funny. I find it interesting that structural engineers disagree as to how the buildings came down and there is much scientific debate among this although favour seems to be (in majority terms) for those who say it came down by fire but some engineers maintain it could not have. Fair enough, every1 is entitled to their view etc.

But then I saw a philosopher for the 911 scholar’s truth movement advocating that the phone calls from the planes were staged by the government. wtf. I hope he does not work in the field of analytic philosophy

think analytically

10th September 2011, 02:31 PM

SLate is good at covering this.

Check out -Farhad Manjoo's" Redefining truth in a 'post-fact society.' very interesting

think analytically

10th September 2011, 02:33 PM

good work

Like the Pen quote on the signature

think analytically

10th September 2011, 04:06 PM

This thread is intended to collect well-written editorials & commentary about 9/11 conspiracies.

Chicago Sun-Times
"Academics fill grassy knoll spot abandoned by Oliver Stone"
Richard Roeper
http://www.suntimes.com/output/roeper/cst-nws-roep08.html

Great article in the Huffington post by Tony Sobrado about political science and conspiracy theories

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/tony-sobrado/conspiracy-theory-as-poli_b_953732.html

think analytically

10th September 2011, 04:14 PM

Another great article here about the problem with conspiracy theory in terms of social systems and analysis
http://skepticfreethought.com/2011/08/the-problem-faced-by-conspiracy-theory/

LashL

17th November 2011, 08:44 AM

Miragememories

17th November 2011, 02:21 PM

Here's an article about a recent presentation given by our own Ron Craig at the University of Toronto.

"Truth hurts 9/11 truthers"

http://www.torontosun.com/2011/11/15/truth-hurts-911-truthers#disqus_thread

That was it?

You found his article compelling?

OMG C.

Most of it was spent lumping 9/11 Truth with the more outlandish conspiracy theories out there.

The story's author, David Menzies, states without a doubt that "Craig superbly dismantled every WTC conspiracy theory regarding a controlled implosion. But explaining precisely how would command this entire newspaper."

Apparently even a little explanation is too much.

Figuratively speaking, he says that Ron Craig revealed that WTC was supposedly hit by a perfect storm.

Well actually it must have been 3 perfect storms, go figure.

Oh my, he even dredged up that old spotlight on the debris hole picture as a means of showing how easy it is to discredit the findings of 9/11 Truth.

No mention of nanothermite or WTC7.

Yes that was quite a revealing story C.

As you have been known to say, "cough cough".

MM