Friday, December 29, 2006

Mad Conspiracy Theories vs. Rational Inquiry

I have no idea what exactly happened on 9/11. How could I -- I am groping around in a dark room trying to figure it out.

Why? Because the government's story is absurd. If you think the lights are on and you can see fine about 9/11, then with all due respect, you are still being deceived by the government's ludicrous conspiracy theory. More on that below.

The burden of proving the government's story wrong is not on citizens, who have a right to have the law enforced by their public servants. It is not for me or any other citizen to explain what exactly happened. We are forced as citizens to research this issue as best we can, because of officialdom's complicity or cowardly acquiescence in the official conspiracy theory.

Some citizens have learned to work quite well in the dark. By 2003 at the latest, they had developed and published the basis for criminal investigations. These people, which include Gerard Holmgren, Jared Israel, Rosalee Grable, Jeff King, and Nico Haupt, developed many of the facts now being selectively published, often without attribution, by those who entered the field after it became safe to question 9/11. Gerard Holmgren is perhaps the best and most comprehensive of these original researchers, and his work credits and hyperlinks to others' work.

If you want to quit groping around in the dark, which you must be doing if you have the mind to recognize the obvious lies and the heart to care, I think this essay by Gerard Holmgren is a great place to start your serious consideration of the 9/11 crimes:

Watch out for Mad! Conspiracy Theories: Paranoid Fantasies About 9/11
By Gerard Holmgren

http://members.iinet.net.au/~holmgren/mad.html

When you are done laughing, and grinding your teeth, read this :

Manufactured Terrorism - The Truth About Sept 11
By Gerard Holmgren

http://members.iinet.net.au/%7Eholmgren/manufactured.html

Mr. Holmgren suggests starting with the second of these, but the first is a good way to get your critical faculties going, and the first shows that those with the burden of proof have told an absurd story. It is an ironically entertaining read as well, and as close to funny as you can get when talking about mass murder.

His entire website should be read by any serious researcher, and properly cited. It is my hope that brave and honest politicians, prosecutors, and law enforcement officials will read this website and do something about the 9/11 crimes. I still have hope our republic is not so far gone that the "Mad Conspiracy Theory" described by Holmgren stands as "history," and not so far gone that the horrific and ongoing 9/11 crimes go unpunished.

Start at his home page, which explains all the materials on his website:

http://members.iinet.net.au/%7Eholmgren/intro.html

The "disinformation" section is directed more at the so-called "9/11 Truth Movement," and has some very interesting writing. Congressman and prosecutors with subpoena power shouldn't have to bother with this internal mess, but "Disinformation and the art of Critical Thinking" is a good and quick read to understand what citizen researchers have had to put up with while the authorities ignored 9/11.

Citizen researchers would benefit from reading all the articles there. Holmgren may be a bit harsh, but he raises very serious questions about the ethics and critical thinking of many in the "truth" movement. From what I can see, Holmgren has been attacked for his positions, for sticking to his positions, and for asking other people to clarify their own positions, and these attacks have not been in the spirit of open debate and inquiry.

I would prefer that talk of "disinformation" go away, and that people would just evaluate each others' arguments on the merits. Maybe this can happen now. Nevertheless, I think Holmgren's "disinformation" section is a valuable history for new researchers to read. It is as well- documented as all of his work, so you can decide for yourself whether his suspicions as to motives are justified.

About the term "citizen": Gerard Holmgren is a citizen of Australia, but his country has been greatly affected by 9/11, as has the entire world. Citizens of all countries have the right to know what happened, and the intelligence services of many of their countries surely know more they are not telling. Peaceloving citizens of all countries share a common interest in having the 9/11 criminals brought to justice.

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Portland Indymedia is censoring me re 9/11

In the last couple of weeks, I have had some strange experiences with censorship by Portland Independent Media Center (P-IMC), which began when I published comments here under the name Ningen:

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/12/350679.shtml?discuss

In short, it began when I questioned P-IMC for shunting 9/11 researcher Gerard Holmgren's comment to a hidden "discussion" section, and resulted in my comments being moved to that section. My comments questioning their actions were not published at all. Since then, my comments about any subject have been shunted to the "discussion" section after vetting, or not published at all.

None of my later comments have been controversial. I acknowledge that my comments at the link above were somewhat heated, but I felt strongly that the article was wrong in labeling certain researchers as "disinformation," and did not like someone telling me what is an approved line of 9/11 inquiry.

Yesterday I published my "Open letter to a 'conspiracy theory' expert" as an article, not a comment. It was somewhat of an experiment, as I knew my posts were being intercepted and subjected to human review, and did not expect it to be published. To my surprise, after a long delay, they published it here:

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/12/351284.shtml

But now P-IMC will not allow me to publish a response to a comment about an article they "allowed" me to publish. It has been many hours and I have sent it several times, so it is reasonable to assume it is being censored.

My comment is a reply to "historian." who made some statements I disagree with --- that Professor Fenster's book was funded by the CIA, and that in any case, he cannot be believed because he is a lawyer.

The comment is similar to the article that started all this censorship, in that includes a baseless accusation that someone is speaking as an agent of the government. I very much oppose such accusations, unless there is solid evidence of that, because such accusations can be aimed at anyone, and they interfere with rational inquiry and debate.

Now I cannot make a polite comment about a reaction to my own article that I disagree with, and which borders on defamation.

Is it Portland IMC's policy to allow defamatory articles and comments to be published and then censor the responses?

Is this "open publishing," which they claim is the heart of Indymedia?

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/static/openpub.shtml

I have not violated any of the editorial policies here:

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/static/edpolicy.shtml

Why am I being treated this way?

Who is vetting my publications, and under what standards?

I have read P-IMC for years, and thought it was the best IMC. I have posted a few articles there over the years, and commented dozens if not hundreds of time. Never were my contributions subject to review, and they were posted automatically within a few minutes.

Is it because I questioned their actions, or because of the content of my work?

This is creepy. It seems my trust in Indymedia was misplaced.

Because Portland Indymedia will not publish my reply to "historian," I will publish it here:

Thank you for your ideas
Ningen

That CIA document is very interesting. Thank you. I thought propaganda against American citizens was illegal, though I don't know when that law was passed. I would like to see the memo on 9/11 - maybe in 20 years.

I agree with the CIA on this point that physical evidence is more reliable, assuming it has not been fabricated or tampered with (a big assumption):

"b. Critics usually overvalue particular items and ignore others. They tend to place more emphasis on the recollections of individual witnesses (which are less reliable and more divergent--and hence offer more hand-holds for criticism) and less on ballistics, autopsy, and photographic evidence. A close examination of the Commission's records will usually show that the conflicting eyewitness accounts are quoted out of context, or were discarded by the Commission for good and sufficient reason."

Fenster's resume is linked from here:

http://www.law.ufl.edu/faculty/fenster/resume.pdf

I see no reason to think he is a CIA asset, or to say that even if he is. [I would change this -- if he were, that would be noteworthy. My point is that I see no evidence of that and such speculation is not good.] It might be interesting to know if he got a grant for the book and from where, but the book is finished. His ideas are out there and he is being quoted in the media, so his ideas should be refuted where wrong.

He wrote the book while in law school, but I think it is based on his prior work in communications and popular culture. Saying his work cannot be believed because he is a lawyer is not very persuasive. I think that in general, accusations that a person is not acting with sincerity are not useful and serve mainly to disrupt rational inquiry. Arguments have to be addressed on their merits. I'm sorry to use your comment to make this point, and I am not at all saying you are doing that, but I think it is an important point.

Update: I published this piece at Seattle Indymedia, where I am apparently still welcome:

http://publish.seattle.indymedia.org/en/2006/12/256896.shtml

I added this as a comment:

I just realized Portland IMC is also censoring me by not moving my article to its 9/11 topic page, where it obviously belongs and where it would be visible longer.

I consider myself part of the "People's Investigation of 9/11" described at that topic page, and agree with this statement there by Portland IMC:

"Keeping an open mind to examine all information, wherever it may lead, and courageously pursuing basic investigative questions such as who had motive, who had means, and who benefitted are the means to uncover the truth."

I'm wondering whether this principle is being applied, and if I am being censored because I think that questions about what hit the World Trade Center towers should be pursued.

I was not pushing this question at Portland IMC, but merely responding to someone who says that anyone asking such questions must be a government agent, which is ridiculous and defamatory.

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Professor Fenster declines to respond

Professor Fenster has declined to comment on my open letter to him, published earlier:

http://ningens-blog.blogspot.com/2006/12/open-letter-to-conspiracy-expert-mark.html

He has responded to me privately but will not give me permission to post his responses.

He has shown no indication that he has thought seriously about the questions raised by those he brands "9/11 conspiracy theorists," and I stand by my position that he has acted irresponsibly.

I have not told Professor Fenster my real name, which I realize is a bit unfair. However, as someone who has written that "[e]mploying the term 'conspiracy theory' serves as a strategy of delegitimation in political discourse," he should understand why I wish to remain anonymous.

As a victim of the "strategy of delegitimation" Fenster describes and has contributed to, I do not feel it is unfair to express my criticisms here.

The content of my letter should be more important than my identity. This forum is open to Professor Fenster should he wish to post a rebuttal.

Monday, December 25, 2006

Whose eyes? Whose ears?

"The American people know what they saw with their own eyes on September 11, 2001. To suggest any kind of government conspiracy in the events of that day goes beyond the pale.” Robert Gates, Secretary of War, former director of SAIC and VoteHere.

I wasn't there. I only saw televised images and heard televised sounds.

I know law, and I know decency. I will decide what is within those bounds.




Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Open letter to a "conspiracy theory " expert

Professor Mark Fenster of the University of Florida School of Law has written a book entitled "Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture."

The introduction to his book can be read here:

http://www.upress.umn.edu/ConspiracyTheories.html


Professor Fenster is often asked for his opinion on the "9/11 conspiracy theorists," most recently in today's Tampa Tribune, where he is quoted as follows:

"Conspiracies are part of every political culture," says Mark Fenster, a University of Florida law professor and author of the 2001 book "Conspiracy Theories: Secrets and Power in American Culture."

The Scripps Howard poll may reflect disillusionment over Iraq, Katrina and political scandals, he says.

"You ask people if they believe the government could have been behind 9/11, and they say, 'I wouldn't put it past them.'"

Fenster says similarities exist between the effects of the JFK assassination and 9/11 attacks. The whole country watched both events. Images were seared into people's brains through television.


http://www.tbo.com/life/MGB42ZJXWVE.html

He is also quoted by Scripps Howard here:

"What has amazed me is not that there are conspiracy theories, but that they didn't seem to be getting any purchase among the American public until the last year or so," Fenster said. "Although the Iraq war was not directly related to the 9/11 attacks, people are now looking back at 9/11 with much more skepticism than they used to."

http://newspolls.org/story.php?story_id=55

Professor Fenster was also interviewed by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Radio. A critique of his comments on CBC Radio by Michael Keefer, Professor of English as the University of Guelph, is here:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=KEE20060829&articleId=3090

The critique raises points similar to mine. After praising Fenster's work, Keefer says:

But I can’t help wondering why Professor Fenster thought himself qualified to comment on current historical and materials-science research into the events of September 11, 2001, and why he thought it appropriate to conflate this kind of research with the popular-culture paranoia on which he is indeed an expert.

Maybe because Fenster has no problem with participating in the delegitimation of inquiries into 9/11, which his own research shows is the purpose of the term "conspiracy theory." Keefer is too polite in my opinion -- I think Fenster's actions are highly irresponsible.

Fenster's CBC Radio interview, which I have not yet listened to in full, is here:

http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2006/200608/20060818.html


(Notice how CBC Radio begins with satire about NASA losing Apollo tapes -- "it's time to re-open that old TV studio." Yes, of course, all "9/11 conspiracy theorists" think the moon landings were faked. Hah hah. Isn't the murder of over 3,000 people a barrel of laughs?)

Based on what I've heard so far, I see that deconstructing Fenster's comments on CBC Radio will have to wait, and now return to his comments in the Tampa Tribune.

Fenster's comments above may seem innocuous, as he has not compared 9/11 to UFOs or Holocaust denial. However, he assumes that his studies of the Illuminati, the Turner Diaries, millennialism, the X-Files, and similar phenomena are inherently applicable to citizens' concerns about the crimes of 9/11. This is not only offensive, it is highly irresponsible.

Although he does not invoke the more distasteful or outlandish theories here, instead comparing 9/11 only with JFK, Fenster understands that the term "conspiracy theory" is an insult that "groups its victim with such unsavory characters as militia members, Oliver Stone, computer hackers, and the John Birch Society, and accuses him or her of believing in a secret, omnipotent individual or group that covertly orchestrates the events of the world." Fenster understands that the term "conspiracy theory" is used "as a strategy of delegitimation in political discourse." Thus, what he does here is worse, as he groups both 9/11 and JFK in with the Turner Diaries, Illuminati, and X-Files, and he does it knowing the effect this will have.

Knowing the effect of the term "conspiracy theory," one would expect Fenster to be more careful about using the term, particularly about as grave an issue as 9/11. He may think the questions about the official story of 9/11 are completely irrational, but has not published anything on the substance of these questions. Even for the conspiracies he discusses in his book, Fenster disavows any attempt to provide "the most logical explanations of the plots on which conspiracy theorists obsess."

I may be obsessed with finding a logical explanation for the events of 9/11, but that does not make me a "conspiracy theorist." It makes me a thinking, caring citizen. If the official explanation made any sense whatsoever, I could live with some gray areas.

Given that Fenster is an expert on the effects of characterizing a position as "conspiracy theory," it is fair to hold him, of all people, to a higher standard of care before characterizing a position as a "conspiracy theory."

Fenster's view of "conspiracy theories" is typical of "progressive" intellectuals: such theories are pathological responses to secrecy and power by the ignorant masses, who are too unsophisticated to understand "the relations of production and ideological structures of domination." Noam Chomsky, Chip Berlet, Alexander Cockburn, and Michael Albert make very similar arguments, blaming 9/11 conspiracy theorists for diverting the left from the worse crimes of capitalism. I'm still waiting for Chomsky to explain what would be a worse crime than 9/11, "even if it were true."

I wrote Professor Fenster the letter below, initially intending to send it to him. I have decided to post here instead, and will email him the link should he wish to respond.

---------------------------------------------

Dear Professor Fenster:

I think 9/11 was likely an "inside job." I've never read the Turner Diaries and I don't watch the X-Files. I don't think the Zionists or the Illuminati did 9/11. Christianists scare me more than Islamists. I think Ruby Ridge and Pine Ridge were both handled wrongly by the FBI. Am I a "conspiracy theorist"?

I have seen you quoted several times in articles about "9/11 conspiracy theories," most recently in the Tampa Tribune. I've not had a chance to read your book, but reading the introduction at your website, I see that your argument is more complex than has been portrayed in these articles, and seems based on laudable ideals of participatory democracy.

As quoted in the Tampa Tribune, however, you either engage or are used in the very strategy of delegitimation that you describe in your book. As an expert in communications, you know the effect of characterizing questions about the official story of 9/11 as "conspiracy theories." You express concern about the disabling effects of "conspiracy theories" on political activism, while allowing your ideas to be used to disable the political activism of millions of Americans and to characterize their concerns as "marginal and extreme."

I question whether your "disillusionment" theory is applicable at all to questions about 9/11. Sure, it may be true that Iraq, Katrina, and scandals like Enron and Abramahof have made the American people more open to consider the criminality and indifference to human life of the current regime. If the American people knew more about the EPA's lies about the safety of New York's air post-9/11, and the emerging damage to rescuers' health that has resulted, they might be even more dis-illusioned.

On the other hand, it could be that rational suspicion about 9/11 is independently contributing to the anger that shows up in Scripps polls. Citizens' belated realization they are being lied to, and their growing willingness to question these lies. may be due to the wearing off of the trauma of 9/11 and the lifting of its chilling effect on free speech and free thought. As a doctor of philosophy you must know that correlation is not causation.

You suggest that there is no rational basis for belief in government complicity in 9/11, and that these beliefs are driven only by "disillusionment." I say that removal of illusions has allowed a more rational and objective view of the government's statements and actions.

The lack of substantive proof and dizzying leaps of logic you describe are indeed important - they apply to the official explanations of what happened on 9/11. Government complicity in at least a coverup is self-evident. It is wrong to shift the burden of proof to the American people, who lack the information necessary to "prove" government complicity and are ill-served by both the press and academia in getting that information.

Given the expertise for which you are invited to comment on the "9/11 conspiracy theories," and given that you show no special understanding of the issues surrounding 9/11, is it unfair to say that the only responsbile comment for you to make as an expert is that we should be very careful not to use the term "conspiracy theory" to characterize questions about 9/11?

Your thesis is that secrecy engenders "conspiracy theories," and you have written as a lawyer about the need for more robust enforcement of open government laws. Do you have any concerns about government secrecy surrounding 9/11, which was even criticized by members of the 9/11 Commission? Did you state those concerns in your interviews, and if so and you were quoted incompletely or out of context, did you object?

It is clear that you reject a priori the possibility of government complicity in 9/11. This is illogical, and given your excellent intellectual training, I can only attribute it to the psychological handicaps of your position in what you call "the relations of production and ideological structures of domination." Structural critiques can as easily be applied to you, Chomsky, Berlet, and Cockburn, who do not have any special claim on "progressive" thought.

As you state, with "conspiracy theories," closure does not occur, interpretation does not stop, and the political does not become transparent.

In criminal law, closure can occur, interpretation can stop, the crime can become transparent, the perpetrators can be punished, and the community's trust in their government can be restored.

Thousands of Americans died on 9/11, and thousands more Americans and hundreds of thousands of human beings have been killed and maimed because of the post-9/11 "War on Terror," which is not over yet. These crimes are ongoing, and the perpetrators are still at large.

Your book was written in 1999, and you disavow any need to analyze the particular "plots on which conspiracy theorists obsess." Therefore, it is tremendously irresponsible for you to assume that your work on militias, Turner Diaries, Illuminati, and the like is applicable to 9/11.

JFK may have some applicability, in the sense that the comparison of this crime to the other "conspiracy theories" is also strategic delegitimation. The murderers of JFK (and RFK and MLK) are likely dead, so I am not as concerned about your lumping JFK in as the result of "scapegoating, racism, and fascism."

In relation to 9/11, a much more interesting, as well as more responsible, phenomenon for you to study is the distortions of science by government agencies like the National Institute of Technology and Standards and professional bodies like the American Society of Civil Engineers. The bar associations to which we both belong might also be an interesting subject to study. These institutions are indeed pathological in their patently absurd explanations of the 9/11 "collapses" of the World Trade Center towers, and in their acceptance of these patently absurd explanations. Structural critiques indeed have a place in considering 9/11.

Please look at the picture below, and when viewing it, please remember three things:

(1) the official explanation is that this is a picture of a gravity-driven collapse;

(2) NIST did not model this "global collapse" beyond the point that it "ensued," because they could not with any semblance of rationality;

(3) hundreds of American citizens are being killed in this picture.


Am I a scapegoater, a racist, or a fascist because I demand that the perpetrators of this crime be brought to justice? Based on what you said on CBC Radio, I will ask: Am I seeking a "black and white" answer to what is a "gray" area? Am I looking for a "villain," when the government has already provided me with one?

Please understand that I am perfectly willing to believe that radical jihadists did this without any assistance from any American government, military, or private assistance. The first question is what is "this"? If you think it is "paranoid" to ask these questions, then it seems that your fine education has closed your mind more than opened it.

Can you honestly explain this by the "stuctural inequities inherent in capitalism" and "the vagaries of coincidence and mistake"?

I will stop now, as this is turning into a rant. I trust you will think a little harder before you use the term "conspiracy theory" to characterize a position, and I hope you will consider whether or not your work is being used in pursuit of the progressive values I think we share.

I apologize for posting anonymously, but my position within the relations of production and ideological structures of domination is less secure than yours.

Or maybe I'm just paranoid.

Sincerely,

Ningen

This is not a "collapse"



I do not care how many structural engineers are too coward to tell the truth.

"There comes a time when silence is betrayal." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you are a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, you are responsible for this.

It would also seem that the insurance companies involved, their attorneys, and perhaps even the federal courts have some questions to answer.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Some interesting physics links

I found a nice Flash presentation entitled "The Demolition of the World Trade Towers" which goes through the basic physics.

http://www.checktheevidence.com/911/Collapse%20of%20Towers.swf


mirrored here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ad.johnson/Collapse%20of%20Towers.swf

It's from the first post in this 987-page thread, "Basic Physics, Correct Analysis of WTC Towers Collapse."

http://forum.physorg.com/index.php?showtopic=3108&st=0

This thread is reviewed here:

http://www.studyof911.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=49&st=0&p=167&#entry167

Monday, December 18, 2006

Manuel Garcia's fancy way to say "moonbat"

The below comment was made at Spooked's website, saying correctly that "conspiratory pincher," a combination of the names of two regular commenters, do nothing but mock and never respond to Spooked's great questions and analyses.

"The whole official 9/11 story is a pack of lies, and all conspiratory pincher can do is hurl insults like a slightly-below-average 4th grader."

http://covertoperations.blogspot.com/2006/12/if-indeed-steel-framed-towers-can.html

I've been reading Manual Garcia's article in Counterpunch, "The Physics of 9/11," so I reacted to this comment as written below. My conclusion is that Garcia is a fancier version of 4th-grader commenters -- he uses intellectual snobbery to hide his tautological reasoning that assumes what he purports to prove.

http://www.counterpunch.org/physic11282006.html

I plan to support this assertion in the next week or so, but I believe my conclusion is obvious. I would appreciate if people would read Garcia's paper, find Garcia's tautology, and post it as comment. (Hint: It's in the section Physics Problem Number 1 -- Free Fall of the WTC Towers)
-------------------------------------

They're joined by Manuel Garcia in Counterpunch, with his article "The Physics of 9/11."

The only difference is that Garcia hurls insults like a way-below-average college sophomore, especially considering his Princeton education. "Conspiracy theory," Jungian "mass psychosis," "flying saucers," "Godzilla," "political immaturity," fear, ignorance, and poor education, with the obligatory unexplained reference to Occam's Razor.

After finishing his attempt at mockery and intellectual intimidation, Garcia then moves to what is supposed to be the subject of his article, the physics of 9/11. The purpose of this, he says, is to bestow rationality and political maturity on the poor, misled "conspiracy theorists."

Garcia does this with a big fancy tautology. Why did the towers fall in virtually free-fall time? Because Garcia assumes they did, and has created a fancy model that most readers of Counterpunch won't take the time to recognize assumes would it purports to prove. Garcia has a PhD in engineering and is much too erudite and sophisticated to be a victim of conspiracy theories, so the truth of his analysis is self-evident.

Manuel Garcia, Conspiracy Smasher's big brother that went to college.

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Face it -- we're all kooks

I often hear people saying that such and such a theory -- usually one questioning whether Boeings hit WTC 1 and 2 -- will discredit the "9/11 Truth Movement."

This is ridiculous.

I found a comment by a Frederic Rice at Portland Indymedia that says it quite well:

"The fact that some 911 conspiracy kooks believe that the jet aircraft were computer generated doesn't mean that they're not 911 conspiracy kooks. It just means that their willful ignorance and occult stupidity is just a bit different than the willful ignorance and occult stupidity of the other 911 conspiracy kooks. "

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/05/338880.shtml?discuss#222684

I couldn't have said it better myself.

If someone is open to considering controlled demolition, they are not going to stop just because of some other theory they think is crazy. To say so is insulting to people's intelligence. People can assess individual arguments on their merits.

If someone thinks that anyone who disbelieves the official 9/11 story is a kook, they are not going to believe controlled demolition or anything else that suggests government complicity.

I read an article in which the author suggests that New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer did not open an investigation because some unnamed "disinfo" site made Spitzer fear for his reputation if he opened an investigation. This is not plausible -- Spitzer either was willing to open an investigation or was not, and would not choose not to just because of some website.

The article also suggests that Democracy Now did not want to be associated with the author's group and would not do a show on 9/11 because they were receiving disinfo emails. This again is not plausible -- Democracy Now was either willing to do a show or not, and Democracy Now of all media would likely recognize a disinformation campaign.

http://www.septembereleventh.org/five_years_later.php

Since some will consider me a kook for questioning 9/11, regardless of whether I stay within certain "reasonable" bounds , I might as well let my kookiness run free.

Said another way -- I will make any inquiries I think reasonable, and do not want to be attacked for doing so.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Sacred Cow Noam Chomsky gored by Barry Zwicker

Interview of Barry Zwicker in August 2006. He asserts that Noam Chomsky uses propaganda techniques beginning at 41:03. His longstanding concern is that Chomsky has consistently opposed investigation of various murders - JFK, RFK, MLK, 9/11. I do find it bizarre and disturbing that Noam Chomsky says that even if 9/11 were an inside job, which is of course absurd, there are worse crimes of state we should be concentrating on. He never says what those crimes might be.

Friday, December 1, 2006

Thanks, Peggy Carter

Thanks to her, I found the article in Journal of Engineering Mechanics that I analyzed in my first blog entry.

http://ningens-blog.blogspot.com/2006/11/if-i-invited-you-here-to-check-my.html

Ms. Carter discussed it here:

http://www.911blogger.com/node/3212

This blog entry was also my first encounter with the ridiculous, unproductive attacks on people that question whether faked images were televised on 9/11.

She made a mistake in calculations, but so what? The paper is exactly the kind of material we need to be analyzing, and I think the paper proves just what she said it did. I'm sure I have made mistakes, too, and want people to point them out. If I am wrong, I want to know it. Telling me I'm an idiot or a shill for wondering about it won't work.

Ms. Carter is interviewed here, and I think she makes some great points, especially about psychological warfare and the media's military role.

http://www.blip.tv/file/84542


That reminds of the reports in 2000 of Army psychological operation officers working at CNN:

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1748

Where they there to learn or to teach? Does it matter?

Could the invasion of Iraq have occurred without the media's blind parroting of government propaganda? Does the New York Times' after-the-fact mea culpa mean anything, or is it just an attempt to restore their credibility for the next war?

Isn't the media a tool of the government , unwitting or not, for invading the sovereignty of our minds to get us to support the invasion of other countries? This is indeed psychological warfare.

Thanks again, Ms. Carter, for the great ideas.

Friday, November 17, 2006

MIT Engineer Breaks Down WTC Controlled Demolition

Jeff King goes into detail why the WTC Towers and WTC 7 were brought down by explosives.

Link to "2,996," a tribute to the victims of 9/11

http://project2996.com/blog/?page_id=2

From the website:

2,996 is a tribute to the victims of 9/11.

On September 11, 2006, 2,996 volunteer bloggers will join together for a tribute to the victims of 9/11. Each person will pay tribute to a single victim.

We will honor them by remembering their lives, and not by remembering their murderers.

If you would like to help out, either by pledging to post a tribute on your own blog, or by offering your services to promote this cause, just leave a comment here and I’ll email you the name of a victim.

Then, on 9/11/2006, you will post a tribute to that victim on your blog.

But, and this is critical, the tributes should celebrate the lives of these people–kind of like a wake. Over the last 5 years we’ve heard the names of the killers, and all about the victim’s deaths. This is a chance to learn about and celebrate those who died. Forget the murderers, they don’t deserve to be remembered. But some people who died that day deserve to be remembered–2,996 people.

Thank you,

D.Challener Roe


This is a beautiful and very sad site.

It's easy to forget these were real people.

I mean them and their families no disrespect by trying to find out what happened that day.

This is the first of the tribute websites linked to:

http://www.dcroe.com/blog/?p=183

I can't promise I will read all of them, but I will try.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

If I invited you here to check my analysis . . .

and you want to skip my philosophical musings, which I like but which could use some editing, please scroll down and begin at this paragraph in The 911-Pound Gorilla in Cato's Room:

The papers I have read and found unconvincing are Wierzbicki and Teng, How the airplane wing cut through the exterior columns of the World Trade Center, Int'l J. of Impact Engineering 28 (2003) 601-625, and Karim and Hoo Fatt, Impact of the Boeing 767 Aircraft Into the World Trade Center, J. of Engineering Mechanics, Vol. 131, No. 10 (October 2005).

http://ningens-blog.blogspot.com/2006/11/911-pound-gorilla-in-catos-room.html

Thank you!


Saturday, November 11, 2006

The 911-Pound Gorilla in Cato's Room

This article is dedicated to the reality-based community,
members of which often rightly state,
"extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."


"I should not believe such a story were it told me by Cato, was a proverbial saying in Rome, even during the lifetime of that philosophical patriot. The incredibility of a fact, it was allowed, might invalidate so great an authority." David Hume, Of Miracles.

"When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened." David Hume, Of Miracles.

"The American people know what they saw with their own eyes on September 11, 2001. To suggest any kind of government conspiracy in the events of that day goes beyond the pale.” Robert Gates, President of Texas A&M University, nominee Secretary of Defense.

We have a problem, Dr. Gates, because I am one of the American people, and do not know what I saw with my own eyes on September 11, 2001. However, my arguments below are within the bounds of your Pale, by my choice, as questions of government conspiracy are beyond the scope of my argument.

Below, I analyze two papers by structural engineers. I think they show that what appears in this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXsXp4DUUn4


could not have happened in the real world.

[Update, 2/3/2007: YouTube has removed this video, so here's a a nice compilation which contains this and other videos that I believe show physically impossible events, as explained below.]

http://www.livevideo.com/video/landing/BA654F1678EE45339FEC4BC4E597BC64/oh-my-goodness-.aspx?m_tkc=674258

Or see here for some quick flash versions:

http://www.terrorize.dk/911/wtc2hit3/

I also briefly discuss the collapses of WTC 1 and 2, official explanations of which rely heavily on an assumption that the planes penetrated the towers with enough residual kinetic energy to cut a number of the thick core columns.


Links to more videos of the second plane are available here:
http://thewebfairy.com/911/ghostplane/index.htm
http://members.iinet.net.au/%7Eholmgren/sthtower.html

Images of the first airplane impact are much less numerous and less clear, and the papers I analyze below assume the faster speed of the second plane impact. For those interested, images can be found here.

http://members.iinet.net.au/%7Eholmgren/nthtower.html

My conclusion applies to both airplane impacts - I do not believe that a Boeing 767 impacted either of the towers. As I will show, saying that they did is an "extraordinary claim [which requires] extraordinary evidence."

Hume defined a miracle as "a violation of the laws of nature." Hume went on to say that "no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish." None of the questions I raise in this article are extraordinary in the sense of violating laws of nature.

Carl Sagan, distilling Hume's view of miracles, said "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." The claims I make are not extraordinary, other than that they defy convention.

Below I posit that two physical phenomena of 9/11 - the planes slipping into the towers 1 and 2 of the World Trade Center, and the collapse of these towers at free-fall speed solely as the result of plane impacts and fire - are in violation of the laws of nature, and that experts supporting the official theories have not rationally explained these phenomena. That these experts might be testifying to falsehoods, not necessarily intentionally, is not more miraculous than the facts which these experts endeavor to establish.

The global collapse at free-fall speed of the WTC Towers, solely as a result of plane impact and fire, and the butter-knife planes that slipped into the Towers – these are the extraordinary claims. No evidence or plausible argument has been provided in support of these extraordinary claims.

When I see an image of a supernatural event, I have two choices. I can either believe in a miracle, or I can question the image's authenticity.

When I hear an explanation of an event that I know violates fundamental laws of Newtonian mechanics, that even a non-scientist like me can understand, I have two choices. I can either believe in a miracle, or I can question the explanation and consider other hypotheses.

Note that I posit no theories as to how the 9/11 events, images of airplane impacts and actual tower collapses, occurred, nor do I speculate as to who is responsible for these events. I seek merely to show that the official and academic explanations of the airplane impacts and tower collapses are incorrect. I focus on the planes, which are important to both events because they are assumed to have cut many core columns.

The papers I have read and found unconvincing are Wierzbicki and Teng, How the airplane wing cut through the exterior columns of the World Trade Center, Int'l J. of Impact Engineering 28 (2003) 601-625, and Karim and Hoo Fatt, Impact of the Boeing 767 Aircraft Into the World Trade Center, J. of Engineering Mechanics, Vol. 131, No. 10 (October 2005).

Professor Wierzbecki is about as expert as you can get in these matters, being in the Impact & Crashworthiness Laboratory of the Dept of Ocean Engineering at MIT.

In the above article, he and Teng state:
To the casual observer, it would appear that the facade of the Twin Towers did not offer any resistance at all, and that the plane's wings and fuselage slice through the exterior columns as if they were made of cardboard. . . How was it possible that the relatively weak, light, and airy airframe damaged the apparently heavy lattice of high strength steel columns? The devastating result of this encounter came as a surprise to the engineering and scientific community or at least to the present authors.

I find this statement most intriguing. My intuition as a casual observer matched the intuition of experts in this field.

Wierzbecki and Teng purport to show in their paper how the wings sliced through the exterior columns with little loss of kinetic energy. Wierzbecki and Tang's conclusion was that the process of wing cutting through the exterior columns consumed only 7% of the initial kinetic energy of the aircraft moving at 240 m/s (500 mph). (In effect, their modeling is of the South Tower impact, as the North Tower plane was said to be moving slower than that.) However, one of their assumptions was not realistic, as the wing they modeled combined the mass of the engine and wing mass into one thick box beam, which they treated as rigid and not deformable.

This is Karim and Hoo Fat, not me, saying that this assumption is incorrect. Karim and Hoo Fat model the wing without the engine mass, which is treated as impacting separately. They conclude that their modeled exterior columns could have been penetrated, but that "[a]t the top speed of the aircraft of 240 m/s, about 46% of the kinetic energy was used to damage the columns and the aircraft." They pointed out that Wierzbicki and Teng's 7% "only considered one column and a portion of the wing that interacts with this." So presumably the latter's model also shows much higher loss of kinetic energy to get those wings through the external columns.

Karim and Hoo Fatt's stated purpose was to determine how thick the columns, as they modeled them, would have to be made to avoid penetration by an aircraft. However, the title of the paper suggests that they are attempting to explain what happened that day, and their operating assumption is that the airplanes penetrated the towers as shown in the videos. However, they made an assumption that is quite unrealistic and very significant: they did not consider the floors.

Even without the floors, they estimated that the plane lost 46% of kinetic energy just to get through the external columns. Yet there was no explosion outside, no debris left outside, and the plane does not appear to decelerate at all. This cannot be true.

Wierzbecki states in another paper that 48% of the initial kinetic energy of the aircraft was dissipated by the floor structure, which is what the aircraft had to get through to reach the core columns. He says about 25% of the energy was dissipated in damage to the core columns.

The following calculation may not be accurate, but adding Hoo Fat's 46% just from the external columns to Wierzbicki's 48% from the floors, there is very little energy left to damage the core columns. (Wierzbicki also states that damage to the plane dissipated 23% of the initial kinetic energy, but his 23% is the reaction of the airplane not only to the external columns as in Hoo Fat's 46%, but also to the floors and the core columns.)

This just does not add up. The bottom line is that those buildings would have provided much more resistance to a Boeing 767, which would show at least deceleration, if not gross deformation, fragmentation, and fuel explosion outside the building. There is no way that plane slips in to the building like a knife into butter. In the real world, that is.

The floors are massive structures, and Wierzbicki shows in the second paper that the plane either hit one floor head-on, or hit two floors. The latter would result in more loss of kinetic energy, so he averaged the two assumptions. It should be fairly easy for FEMA or NIST to determine exactly where the planes hit in relation to floors.

This second paper is available online:

http://web.mit.edu/civenv/wtc/PDFfiles/Chapter%20IV%20Aircraft%20Impact.pdf

It is also unclear whether the models use steel of the same strength and thickness of the actual columns at the floors impacted. This information appears to have been unavailable to the authors.

Given these figures, which comport with the experiential common sense of Professor Wierzbecki and me, I do not believe that the plane slipped into the South Tower as shown on television. I also do not believe that there was much energy left to reach the core columns, and certainly not to damage them as much as was assumed in the collapse models.

I am neither a physicist nor an engineer. I cannot follow mathematical arguments, and could certainly be missing something. However, I do think I can understand their assumptions and conclusions, and draw a reasonable conclusion therefrom.

Unlike Mathew Rothschild of the "Progressive,"

http://www.progressive.org/mag_wx091106

I do not simply trust experts when what they are saying makes no sense to me. Particularly when the stakes are so high.

My reading of FEMA, NIST, and the above papers is that 800- pound gorillas of physical impossibility are being avoided with tortured arguments. For example, see NIST's FAQ:

http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm

Their answer to the question of how the towers free-fell, which is really a question of why there was so little resistance, is this:

"Since the stories below the level of collapse initiation provided little resistance to the tremendous energy released by the falling building mass, the building section above came down essentially in free fall, as seen in videos."

This is a tautology that avoids the question of why the stories below appeared to provide virtually no resistance.

They might as well say, "The buildings free-fell because they did."

There is one paper I do not understand at all: Bazant and Zhou, Why did the World Trade Center Collapse? - Simple Analysis, J. of Engineering Mechanics, Vol. 128, No. 1 (January 2002).

There is a copy of this paper online at:

http://911research.wtc7.net/disinfo/experts/articles/bazant_jem/bazant_zhou.html

I don't trust the intersticed critiques at this website, because the critic doesn't seem to realize that "plastic hinge" is a term of art, and interprets the word in its layman's sense.
But this website does have a copy of the paper.

Plastic hinges are defined here, under the heading "Stress in a beam."

http://www.answers.com/topic/bending-3

Bazant and Zhou seem to be saying that a stress wave propagated down quickly, and that multistory sections further down buckled almost immediately. I don't know exactly what they are saying, but it does not comport with my common sense belief that the building below should have provided very much more resistance than it seemed to. What I saw did not look like buckling, it looked like the building disintegrating in mid-air.

[Update: 2/23/2007 - I have since come to understand that Bazant and Zhou assumed that 3-10 floors instantly buckled with no resistance, so that the uppe block came crashing down at high velocity and destroyed the building below. This tautological assumption is not realistic, and even if it occurred, I do not believe that the entire mass, much greater, of the lower building, would have been destroyed so quickly. Moreover, the upper block disappeared early in the process, so what was the mass driving down?]
This engineer's paper finds that the building collapse would not have
continued solely as a result of gravity, but would have stopped:

http://worldtradecentertruth.com/Journal_5_PTransferRoss.pdf


I cannot follow Ross' mathematical arguments any more than Bazant
and Zhou's arguments, really, but his conclusions comport with my
common sense as to what should have happened with gravity alone.
This website, by Judy Woods, a professor of mechanical engineering at Clemson University, cogently explained the physical impossibilty of the NIST-filtered official story of free-fall collapse as the result only of airplane impact and fire:

http://janedoe0911.tripod.com/BilliardBalls.html
This professor, working with Morgan Reynolds, professor emeritus of economics at Texas A&M University, goes on to postulate what really happened at the World Trade Center on 9/11. Their theory seems far-fetched, even fantastic, but makes a lot more sense than the official story, because it explains why the buildings were pulverized in mid-air. What they describe is not extraordinary in Hume's sense of a miracle. Whatever you think of their theory, the images of the World Trade Centers on and after 9/11 are stunning, and well worth viewing in their own right:

http://janedoe0911.tripod.com/StarWarsBeam1.html


I want to see the crashes modeled with precise assumptions clearly disclosed, down to the actual thickness and grade of the steel at the impacted points, correct air speed, amount of fuel, behavior of wings, direction of fuel dispersion given the attitude of the plane going in, etc. Hoo Fat uses a Pentium IV and says the detail has to be limited as a result. If it will help, do it on a supercomputer if that is possible. But model with accurate assumptions, not assumptions the lead to the desired result. I attempted to find a detailed description of the World Trade Center design in the libraries of a large university, but was unsuccessful. I would not be capable of running models with any new data I found, but wanted to see if the assumptions in the above paper were accurate.

As one example of what seems an inaccurate assumption, Karim and Hoo Fatt modeled the fuel tanks as full, when they were probably a little less than half-full as stated in this paper:

http://web.mit.edu/civenv/wtc/PDFfiles/Chapter%20II%20Inferno%20@%20WTC.pdf

And of course, not considering the resistance of the floors is not realistic, though I suppose for the limited purpose stated by Karim and Hoo Fatt it might be sufficient.

Another expert, Les Robertson who helped design the building, said on the radio recently that he has not modeled past the point of initiation of collapse, and neither has NIST. He said Congress did not charter or fund NIST to do that. He then made a remarkable statement -- that this did not matter because the purpose was to learn how to design buildings in the future.

How can this be? Not only would engineers want to avoid expensive over-design based on erroneous conclusions, we all should want to know why firemen and other people died in an unexpected collapse. Are building codes to be rewritten based on this conclusion? How can not learning why "global collapse ensued" not be important? In terms of fire safety, could not an erroneous assessment of the global collapse risk cause rescue operations to be called off in an existing building in a future fire, leading to unnecessary loss of life? There are surely more reasons why understanding the real mechanism of collapse is necessary. Nonexistent criminal investigation aside, of course the public and experts need to know what really happened from a public safety standpoint.

This was in a debate with BYU's Dr. Steven Jones, here:

http://www.911podcasts.com/display.php?vid=182

Once again, it's the 800-pound gorilla in the room that no one wants to notice. Our society is like an alcoholic family dominated by the presence and denial of alcoholism. This need to deny basic facts about 9/11 distorts even science, I would submit.

Karim and Hoo Fatt state at the beginning of their paper: "Before the buildings collapsed, one can see an imprint of the fuselage, engine, and wings on the side of the buildings. This means that the wings must have perforated the buildings before exploding and starting fires within the buildings." Does it mean that? I say that it cannot mean that, and that their own paper shows that. What it does mean is beyond the scope of my argument. It should not have been relevant to their conclusions, either, but I cannot help but think that they took perforation as a verity and designed their research accordingly.

Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, says that "given the tainted legitimacy of a political system that either allowed 9/11 to happen . . . or conspired to make it happen, there is a deep, paralyzing secret harbored in the recesses of the governing processes." I agree, and would submit that this paralyzing secret compels us to accept preposterous explanations for the events of that day.

The official story is not explained by experts that are offered in support of that story. The televised image of a plane penetrating the South Tower is not explained by the experts that are offered in support of the story. I trust my mind more than I trust mediated images. The extraordinary events of three unprecedented building collapses and four disappearing planes, all in one day, must be reasonably explained.

The government has not provided a reasonable explanation for the events of 9/11, so I have had to seek an explanation for myself.

Because so much of our news and analysis is based on widely held assumptions that I know cannot be true, I experience cognitive dissonance when hearing or reading about 9/11, and the "War on Terror."

Help me, please. Prove my cognition wrong. Life would be much simpler. I want to believe my government and the media, I truly do.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Appendix A - sources consulted and a short history of the controversial
"no-planes theory" or "no-big-Boeings" theory


The foregoing is my own analysis of the above papers, but I should credit those who got me
to look at those papers in the first place. Several weeks ago, I heard a speech by Dr. Morgan Reynolds in which he asserted that there were no big Boeings that hit the towers on 9/11. My first reaction was shock and disbelief. But he mentioned a website so I read his papers on the issue, and kept looking on the Internet, where I learned that many people have been questioning the televised images of planes for several years.

These are the websites and articles which I read as background. I order them according to my understanding of when the author started questioning the planes, though this order
may be incorrect.

Rosalee Grable

http://thewebfairy.com/

Marcus Icke (I think)

http://www.911research.dsl.pipex.com/

Gerard Holmgren:

http://www.911closeup.com/index.shtml
http://members.iinet.net.au/%7Eholmgren/intro.html
Morgan Reynolds:

http://nomoregames.net/index.php?page=911

"
Spooked":

http://covertoperations.blogspot.com/

If I have left anyone out I apologize, but these are main sites I looked at.

These websites convinced me that I should go to the library and see what the experts are saying, and I found the above engineering papers. I'm sure these websites also gave me ideas that are reflected in my writing.

The rest is my work, my mistakes.


I now realize Nico Haupt has also been questioning the planes for a long time, and recently launched this website:

http://911tvfakery.blogspot.com/

Mr. Haupt also wrote the below FAQ, which talks about a debate among 9/11 researchers about whether the no-plane theory should be pursued. Apparently, some people are more concerned about how this theory will be perceived than whether it is valid, thinking that pursuing this theory will discredit the "9/11 Truth Movement."

This is not a proper criterion by which to judge whether a hypothesis should be pursued, and conclusions reported if that is what the researcher believes to be true. Those people who think,
a priori, that anyone who questions the official story is a nutty "conspiracy theorist" will not be convinced regardless of how "credible" the argument appears. Those people who maintain an open mind will consider any argument on the merits.

http://www.911closeup.com/nico/FAQ_planehuggers.html

All of this is interesting to me but should not be relevant to my argument that the expert's papers show that the planes could not have penetrated the towers as shown on television,
as there would have much more deceleration and deformation, and probably an explosion of the fuel outside the building.

Of course, I am biased in that I have long doubted the official story, even before the 9/11 Commission's report with its great number of implausible assertions or unexplained omissions. All I can say about this bias is that I attempted to find expert analyses that would disprove assertions that a plane could not have penetrated the towers as shown on television, and was unsuccessful. These expert analyses seem equally if not more biased in assuming without question facts stated in the official story or images shown on television, which is not surprising given the criticism and ridicule faced by those who question the official story.

Tenure notwithstanding, dependence on government funding, careerism, or fear of ridicule or worse could be inhibiting objective research into 9/11:

http://covertoperations.blogspot.com/2006/01/why-havent-more-scientists-and.html

Finally, my inquiries may be offensive or painful to many people, especially if they have families members that died on 9/11. I will not presume to be seeking the truth on behalf of these people, and can only apologize if I am causing pain. I am trying to find out what happened on 9/11 for myself, as it has affected me deeply. I will presume to speak for my country and its legal system, which have been profoundly affected by 9/11 and the subsequent "War on Terror." The full story, whatever it may be, has not been told, and it must be told.

Appendix B - Response to a contrary view
The scope of my argument was to prove that the images
of the second plane penetrating the South Tower do
not reflect physical reality, and thus cannot be
authentic. I make no assertions as to the authenticity
of other images. Other writers have long questioned
the televised 9/11 images, including the websites
cited in Appendix A above.

These writings, which go beyond what I am attempting
to show above, prompted a response which was published
at a website called the "Journal of 9/11 Studies."

A Critical Review of WTC 'No Plane' Theories
Eric Salter

http://www.journalof911studies.com/

also here:

http://worldtradecentertruth.com/volume/200610/Salter.pdf

Mr. Salter's main arguments are: (1) there were
too many independent observers at the scene for
faked images to have been possible; in other
words, video fakery would not be attempted
because perpetrators could not guarantee that
a contradictory video might not surface, and
(2) his analysis of a video of the second plane
shows that "the plane does decelerate as it
enters the building, losing about 12% of
its speed and 25% of its kinetic energy as
it passes through the outer wall and office
space."

My tentative responses to Mr. Salter's first
argument are:

(1) His first argument is attractive, as it
does seem hard to believe a deception could
be successful, particularly on the second
tower as so many people were watching at the
time. Nevertheless, at least as to the images
of the plane penetrating the South Tower,
nobody could have witnessed an impossible
event, in the same way that a video of an
impossible event cannot be authentic. That's
really the end of the debate for me. How this
video came to be shown on CNN is not relevant
to my argument.

Another response might be that no one could
have filmed something that was not there,
so there could no videos that prove a negative.
Granted, a video camera trained on the point at
which the plane supposedly entered might have
shown a sudden explosion, with no plane entering
just prior to that. No such videos ever existed
to my knowledge. Again, this is speculation beyond
the scope of what I was trying to show above.

A video purporting to show no plane has just
surfaced on the Internet:

http://covertoperations.blogspot.com/2006/11/first-2nd-hit-video-showing-no-plane

I have no way of authenticating this video,
and my understanding is that a real object
could be edited out as well as a fake image
could be inserted. It is interesting that
the video not only shows no plane, it also
shows no explosion or hole where the plane
was supposed to have hit. Again, I don't
really care about videotaped images,
because videos are not immutable. The laws
of nature are immutable. Absent extraordinary
evidence, of course.

Here's what videos can do these days:

http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=12115&ch=infotech


(2) Since Mr. Salter talks about witnesses
on the scene, I will say that there are people
that did not witness an airplane or thought they
saw a smaller plane or a military plane.

An example is in the above recent video where
two women thought the second plane was a military
plane and one woman is heard saying she saw the
first tower explode but did not see an airplane.

Another example of a witness who saw an explosion
but no plane is here:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0109/11/bn.01.html


Here, there is an interesting exchange between CNN
Anchor Carol Lin and a woman named Jeanne Yurman
who identified herself as a witness:

LIN: Jeanne, we are continuing to look at pictures
of this devastating scene, according to Sean Murtagh,
vice president of finance, who witnessed what he
described as a twin-engine plane, possibly a 737.
He was almost absolutely sure it was a large passenger
jet that went into that.

Jeanne, you are saying you didn't see anything
initially. You didn't see a plane approach
the building?

YURMAN: I had no idea it was a plane. I just saw
the entire top part of the World Trade Center
explode. So I turned on the TV when I heard
they said it was a plane. It was really strange.

LIN: Were you living in New York during the
World Trade Center bombing?

YURMAN: No, I wasn't.

So we have a CNN anchor citing a CNN VP of
finance, contradicted by a witness who does
not work for CNN, followed by a non-sequiter
from the CNN anchor, who does not explore
the contradiction.

[Revision: It is true that Yurman may have
simply been viewing the building from a position
that prevented her from seeing the plane. However,
a reporter should ask. Where were you standing?
Did you hear a plane prior to the explosion?
Did you hear the impact? What did you think was
"strange"?]

Whatever this is, it is bad journalism, as a reporter
should not be telling a witness what other people saw
but should be asking what that person saw. This could
be example of 9/11 group think already in operation,
or it could be an example of the intentional creation
of 9/11 group think. Of course, the woman could be
mistaken. Regardless, not everyone reports seeing
a plane at the time of the explosion of the North
Tower, which is said to have resulted from the impact
of Flight 11.

Other witness reports are discussed here, the author's
conclusion being that they do not prove what kind(s
)
of object hit the tower(s), but nor do they prove
that whatever hit was a large jet.

http://www.911closeup.com/index.shtml?ID=84


My response to Mr. Salter's second argument about
visible deceleration (slowing) of the second plane
is as follows:

(1) Other people have found no or little declaration.
See, e.g., Rick Rajter's analysis at:

http://nomoregames.net/index.php?page=911&subpage1=deceleration_WTC2_myers

(2) Even a 12% deceleration, corresponding he says to
loss of 25% of initial kinetic energy, does not fit the
loss of kinetic energy found by Karim and Hoo Fatt, as
described above. Karim and Hoo Fatt found a loss of 46%
just for the plane to penetrate the external columns,
which should have resulted in a 23% decleration. Karim and
Hoo Fatt did not include the floors, while Salter did,
describing them as "office space." There should have been
a much higher deceleration than 12%, so Salter's research
confirms that the video image does not conform to physical
reality.

Earlier, I wrote a critique of Salter's writing style,
which I thought inappropriate for a journal that purports
to be scholarly. I do not mean this as a criticism of
other articles published there, one of which I cite above.

http://covertoperations.blogspot.com/2006/11/not-so-scholarly-scholars-for-911.html

Appendix C - a new video surfaces

There is a new eyewitness video of the events of 9/11, which was taken from an apartment facing the North Tower. I have no way of knowing whether it is authentic, but it sounds and looks authentic.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7313195448410601025&q=new+9%2F11+eyewitness+video

It is very disturbing to watch, as the apartment is close to the World Trade Center. The collapses are horrific on this video, and so is the aftermath where people are walking around breathing horribly dangerous air. There are voices of three or four people who were understandably scared and horrified.

I don't know what to make of their comments about a military plane at 12:15 of the video, right after the South Tower exploded. The video cuts in at 11:46 in the middle of the South Tower explosion, right after the plane hits, so the plane is not visible in their video. It seems edited, though I suppose the camera person could have resumed filming at that exact moment. That is merely my observation.

I also find the people's observations at the beginning, starting around 00:50, very interesting. A woman states she saw a plane fly over, then she saw the building explode from inside. This suggests she was looking right at the part of the building where the first plane supposedly hit, and did not see a plane hit, but rather saw an explosion from inside the building. This contradicts the official story.

For what it's worth, this is what I think happened - explosions within the building. Something else could have hit the North Tower, though this woman does not report that, but it could not have been a Boeing 767.

In any case, eyewitness testimony on the type and size of the plane or planes is inconsistent, and generally speaking, eyewitness testimony is less reliable than physical evidence. I have seen no physical evidence that would overcome my refusal to believe that planes flew into the towers like a knife into butter. I have no other conclusions, just questions.

Appendix D - Ground Zero rescue workers betrayed

Here is a New York police officer who was permanently injured
by his rescue work in the polluted air at Ground Zero. I think
his call for more investigation into 9/11 is powerful. He deserves
a proper investigation. He also deserves more compensation for
his injuries and better medical assistance, which it seems he is
not getting.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2479540022152730536


He criticizes not only the 9/11 Commission, but also the
EPA's Christine Todd Whitman for saying that the air was safe.

He says, "I'll ask any official at the Pentagon - what the
fuck are you trying to hide?"

The Inspector General of the Environmental Protection Agency
found that the EPA lied, at the behest of the White House,
about the safety of the air in New York.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0823-03.htm

http://www.911ea.org/

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/08/09/national/main567489.shtml

Mount Sinai Medical Center recently released a report showing
high rates of pulmonary and other illnesses among rescue workers
at Ground Zero.

http://fusion.mssm.edu/media/content.cfm?storynum=298

When I think about whether my government would kill citizens or
allow them to be killed, I think of the gross disregard for human
health shown by the White House in lying to the people of
New York about asbestos and other poisons in the air after 9/11.
Once you start cost-benefitting with people's lives, where is the
limit?