The official story!

[spooked911]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuC_4mGTs98

[LARED]

1. Pure sophistry nt

[William Seger]

2. Go to the transcript and check his sources:

Other YouTube videos and "truther" sites. Why bother citing sources if that's all you've got? Well, because gullible people will fall for it.

[zappaman]

3. Gullibility is in large supply at trutherville. n/t

[terrafirma]

4. It's in the water.

I mean Kool-Aid.

[RegieRocker]

48. Nothing compared to the immense numbers who run up to the trough of

MSM and Gov propaganda and drink ravenously. There are 100 times more of these.

[spooked911]

7. WTF???

DUDE-- it's the official story! Did you even watch it?

What part was wrong?

[William Seger]

13. WTF "official story" are you talking about?

From just the first paragraph of the transcript:

> "... directed by a man on dialysis..."

Unconfirmed rumor and also irrelevant.

> "... in a cave fortress..."

That's a lie -- Bin Laden was living in Jalalabad, Afghanistan at the time of the attacks -- and also irrelevant.

> "... the most sophisticated penetration of the most heavily-defended airspace in the world..."

It was not a "penetration," of course, and there was nothing sophisticated about it -- didn't need to be -- and our "heavily-defended airspace" was designed to defend against bombers from Russia, not commercial jets.

> "... military combat-trained pilots on 4 commercial aircraft..."

Although completely irrelevant anyway, only one pilot on one plane, Charles Burlingame on AA77, was a "military combat-trained pilot" (F-4 Phantom). John Ogonowski (AA11) flew a C-141 cargo plane in the Air Force; Victor Saracini (UA175) flew an S-3A anti-submarine warfare aircraft in the Navy; and Jason Dahl (UA93) was never in the military. Besides being a lie, this claim is apparently intended to imply that the pilots should have easily fought off the hijackers, ignoring that their standing orders at the time were to cooperate with hijackers so as to minimize the chance of killing the passengers.

> "... flying those planes wildly off course for over an hour..."

The times between the hijackings and the crashes:

AA11: 32 minutes
UA175: 21 minutes
AA77: 46 minutes
UA93: 35 minutes

Of course, in each case there was some time before it was known that the plane was hijacked, so the actual times for reaction were much less.

That's just from the first paragraph, and there is no need to wade through the whole pile: The pattern of mixing exaggerations, distortions and outright lies continues unabated, all with the goal of convincing people that the "official story" is somehow less plausible than the Rube Goldberg conspiracy theories of fake hijackings and controlled demolitions of occupied office buildings. That trick only works on people who are (1) very gullible and (2) predisposed to having someone tell them that their paranoid conspiracy delusions are rational.

[deconstruct911]

27. "In a cave fortress"

"That's a lie"

DUH

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGhGHxw0mSo

[William Seger]

29. Yes, it's a lie

You seem to be confused: The OP video says he directed the attack from a cave. The video you linked talks about some people claiming he was hiding out in a cave after we invaded.

Try again.

[spooked911]

47. the full sentence

"On the morning of September 11, 2001, 19 men armed with boxcutters directed by a man on dialysis in a cave fortress halfway around the world using a satellite phone and a laptop directed the most sophisticated penetration of the most heavily-defended airspace in the world, overpowering the passengers and the military combat-trained pilots on 4 commercial aircraft before flying those planes wildly off course for over an hour without being molested by a single fighter interceptor."

1) the dialysis is actually even better supported than I thought, according to that snopes piece. Thanks.

2) the dialysis is hardly irrelevant, given that it requires hospitalization and this was a terrorist mastermind who was supposed to be in seclusion

3) the cave fortress quote is totally fair, given that is what the media were saying at the time, with diagrams and everything.

4) the hijackings, as officially portrayed, were in fact a penetration of the most highly defended airspace in the world. I'm not sure why you dispute that.

5) military trained pilots-- you are parsing the sentence to make it seem like he is saying military pilots were on all four flights, when clearly it was part of a larger construct. Nice try, but that's a weak argument at best.

6) for over an hour-- again, within the sentence, he is clearly referring to the overall scope of the hijackings, not saying a single flight was off course for over an hour.

I'm just not quite sure why you find this little speech so objectionable. It's clear we were fed propaganda about 9/11 from the mainstream media, for whatever reason, and he just packaged it up in one neat box.

I am curious, how would you write that first sentence?

[William Seger]

50. That paragraph -- the entire video -- contains exaggerations, distortions, and lies

... and the reason I object to it is that the only purpose of those deceptions it to lead gullible people into thinking that personal incredulity is reason enough to buy into a version of the attack that isn't just preposterously implausible but too mind-numbingly stupid for even a Hollywood "action" movie. People who claim to be astonished that planes can be hijacked and flown into buildings apparently don't have any trouble believing that the "real perps" were too stupid or too insane to plan a simple and safe "false flag" attack such as plant a few truck bombs, but instead for some unexplained reason needed to concoct a ridiculously complicated and risky hoax involving hundreds if not thousands of people and a mountain of fake evidence; that even though they were unbelievably stupid or insane, they were powerful enough to get all those people on board for a mass murder and nobody they approached had the common human decency to bust them by going to the media before the plot got off the ground or afterward; lucky enough that their Rube Goldberg scheme and fake evidence planting not only came off without a hitch but their cover-up was 100% effective, so effective that to this day not a single real "smoking gun" has been found and not a single person involved has come forward to spill the beans.

And here's a hint for you: The reason I object to this 9/11 bullshit is that it shits on the memories of the victims by attempting to exonerate their murderers and instead accuses hundreds if not thousands of innocent people of being in on the murders or helping to cover them up, without even the first shred of credible evidence -- nothing at all expect the most highly selective personal incredulity I've ever witnessed -- and this video attempts to validate that approach to dealing with the real world.

Bullshit never did anyone any good.

[spooked911]

55. Dear Mr. Seger--

I think *YOUR* denial of the obvious conspiracy and cover-up shits on the victims of 9/11-- and all Americans, for that matter. This is tiresome.

How an honest and intelligent person can see all the lies put out by the media and politicians, and the evil done by the US government, the history of lies that have led us into war, and then claim to not understand how they could run a false-flag attack to start a world-wide war that they clearly wanted, is beyond me.

You keep saying you want credible evidence, but you seem to have extremely naive views of what kind of evidence/smoking gun/proof would be available to us-- which is weird, because you don't seem like a naive person. You do understand that the perps of this conspiracy are very powerful and can mount a very powerful cover-up, or not?

[OnTheOtherHand]

57. the weakness of this argument underscores the weakness of the others

How an honest and intelligent person can see all the lies put out by the media and politicians, and the evil done by the US government, the history of lies that have led us into war, and then claim to not understand how they could run a false-flag attack to start a world-wide war that they clearly wanted, is beyond me.

How "they could" run a false-flag attack?

Not to speak for Seger, but I'm an empiricist. I'm not interested in debating what "they could" do. I'm interested in what actually happened.

It seems to me that if your evidence were any good, you wouldn't feel compelled to change the subject at Seger's expense.

[spooked911]

61. There are plenty of clues

and as I said, they also covered up the most damning stuff.



Not sure what you mean by changing the subject.

[OnTheOtherHand]

63. "clues"?

Considering your level of confidence, you damn well ought to have more than "clues."

and as I said, they also covered up the most damning stuff.

How do you know?

There is a lo-o-o-o-o-o-ong list of evidence that you are committed to ignoring or dismissing. As far as I can tell, you "know" it's all faked in the same way that some creationists "know" that the fossil record is faked.

Not sure what you mean by changing the subject.

Your complaints about Seger, the perfidy of government, the perfidy of the media....

[William Seger]

58. Thanks

... for proving the point that I just made in this post about conspiracists and conspiracy theories.

> How an honest and intelligent person can see all the lies put out by the media and politicians, and the evil done by the US government, the history of lies that have led us into war, and then claim to not understand how they could run a false-flag attack to start a world-wide war that they clearly wanted, is beyond me. (Emphasis added.)

Ah, gotta love the conspiracist's army of straw men. In case there's any doubt in your mind about this: I believe that if the word "evil" has any meaning, then Dick Cheney is an evil man, and if there is a hell, I do hope there is a "special" place for people who start wars. I believe that George Bush is a narcissistic twit who lacked the intellect to avoid being manipulated by the PNACers. I do not for one second entertain the notion that CheneyCo (a more accurate term than BushCo) was above committing a false flag attack to advance that "American Century" world-domination agenda. But what you abjectly refuse to grasp, despite my saying it over and over with no cogent rebuttal from conspiracists, is that THIS alleged "false flag" -- rounding up an unbelievable number of people to participate in fake hijackings and controlled demolitions of occupied office buildings in a manner that had never been done before -- is simply preposterous on its face. As I've said over and over, the only part of a "false flag" that needs to be a hoax is who gets blamed, and Dick Cheney is certainly smart enough to know that, even if conspiracists are not. This is the real world, but you propose a conspiracy that reads like a Mission Impossible script that was discarded for being too implausible. In addition to claiming a ridiculously and unnecessarily complicated and risky hoax when something simple would have done the job, what conspiracists are claiming is that the PNACers wanted to make it look like a terrorist attack but they were soooooo stupid that they planned something that terrorists had never done before! And at no time during the planning did someone stop and say, "Hey, guys, WTF are we doing? This is getting really messy -- something's gonna go wrong or someone is gonna talk, and we're all gonna fry! Look, why don't we just get a few or our black ops guys to plant a few trunk bombs?" But no, that didn't happen, so they went ahead with their Rube Goldberg plot and son-of-a-bitch if they didn't somehow get away with it, and continue to get away with it today.

This "theory" we're expected to believe without a shred of credible evidence because politicians lie and cover up? What kind of "logic" is that? Sorry, but the only way you're every going to sell that implausible story to rational people is with a true "smoking gun," and so far the "truth movement" continues to demonstrate that they don't even know what the term means nor understand why they need one.

[spooked911]

62. you didn't answer my question about how knowing that they could cover up what they did

Apart from that...

In case there's any doubt in your mind about this: I believe that if the word "evil" has any meaning, then Dick Cheney is an evil man, and if there is a hell, I do hope there is a "special" place for people who start wars. I believe that George Bush is a narcissistic twit who lacked the intellect to avoid being manipulated by the PNACers. I do not for one second entertain the notion that CheneyCo (a more accurate term than BushCo) was above committing a false flag attack to advance that "American Century" world-domination agenda.

OK, fine. You are on board with, say, LIHOP, then? And you are up for a new investigation?
--------

But what you abjectly refuse to grasp, despite my saying it over and over with no cogent rebuttal from conspiracists, is that THIS alleged "false flag" -- rounding up an unbelievable number of people to participate in fake hijackings and controlled demolitions of occupied office buildings in a manner that had never been done before -- is simply preposterous on its face.

Clearly that is your opinion. The fact is that, preposterous or not, such a conspiracy 1) IS nonetheless possible, and 2) explains the HIGHLY extraordinary events of that day in a more feasible way than the official story. The main problem with such a large conspiracy, that you point out, is the seemingly large number of people it involves. No?
--------

As I've said over and over, the only part of a "false flag" that needs to be a hoax is who gets blamed, and Dick Cheney is certainly smart enough to know that, even if conspiracists are not.

Hmmm. First, I don't think Cheney is THAT smart. Second, I'm not sure what you are saying by implying Cheney was running a flase-flag operation here.
-------

This is the real world, but you propose a conspiracy that reads like a Mission Impossible script that was discarded for being too implausible. In addition to claiming a ridiculously and unnecessarily complicated and risky hoax when something simple would have done the job, what conspiracists are claiming is that the PNACers wanted to make it look like a terrorist attack but they were soooooo stupid that they planned something that terrorists had never done before!

OK, first, I really don't know what your point is by "they were soooooo stupid that they planned something that terrorists had never done before!". How does the scope of the plan prove anything? And, isn't the official story that al Qaeda DID do something they had never done before? I don't follow your logic.
-------

And at no time during the planning did someone stop and say, "Hey, guys, WTF are we doing? This is getting really messy -- something's gonna go wrong or someone is gonna talk, and we're all gonna fry! Look, why don't we just get a few or our black ops guys to plant a few trunk bombs?" But no, that didn't happen, so they went ahead with their Rube Goldberg plot and son-of-a-bitch if they didn't somehow get away with it, and continue to get away with it today.

That doesn't sound like much of a rebuttal to me. All it means is that they planned it really well, and that they were powerful enough to cover it up fairly well to fool most people.
--------

This "theory" we're expected to believe without a shred of credible evidence because politicians lie and cover up? What kind of "logic" is that? Sorry, but the only way you're every going to sell that implausible story to rational people is with a true "smoking gun," and so far the "truth movement" continues to demonstrate that they don't even know what the term means nor understand why they need one.

Again, there is plenty of evidence! You didn't answer me about whether you understood how well these powerful people could cover things up.

Of course, just because there is a coverup, doesn't mean there are no clues. And the evidence is so obvious to many people, that a new term has been invented: "Made It Transparent On Purpose". MITOP. Lots of people think the perps advertised that it was an inside job in many subtle ways, so there are a lot of clues. To me, there are enough clues to make the case for inside job overwhelming.

People have been presenting clues here for years. Of course, not every clue has stood up to scrutiny, and your skepticism has helped debunk some false clues, including mine. But there are so many clues that have been ignored or never addressed or never debunked.

Look, I don't expect people to simply buy no planes or mini-nukes. Those are reasonable topics for debate. But the overwhelming evidence points to:
1) clear foreknowledge of the attacks at many levels of the government
2) multiple drills run to confuse the air defense
3) some sort of control over the hijackers or the planes (which would have been necessary for even your false-flag plot to succeed)
4) demolition of WTC 1, 2 and 7

[Flatulo]

64. "...all it means is that they planned it really well..."

That's the disconnect that conspiracy theorists seem to have with the nuances of plausibility. There can be massive orthogonalities in the narrative, but the less plausible it is, the more appealing it seems to be.

Is there a word for this?

[spooked911]

66. the funny thing is that I think it's the official story that's implausible

from top to bottom

[Flatulo]

68. That's what's baffling. The logistics of the OCT are so much simpler

than any of the CT scenarios.

This fact, coupled with the lack of physical evidence for the alternative scenarios that the Movement has spun, would normally cast a pall on the CTs. Yet it seems to make them all the more attractive instead.

I often wonder how things would have turned out had Gore been in office instead of GWB? I believe the attractivness of the CTs is largely based on a deeply held belief that Bush/Cheney are sufficiently evil to actually be guilty, not on the qualitiy or merits of any given CT. I see some amazing mental gymnastics being performed to get around all the objections to the CTs. Why is the CT so appealing given the difficulty of carrying any of them off? I think it all gets back to BushCo and their sheer slimeyness.

[spooked911]

86. I disagree

The logistics of barely capable pilots hitting 3/3 small targets at extremely high speed is not simple.

The logistics of a 757 plowing into the ground leaving almost no debris above ground is not simple.

The logistics of massive 2 towers turning into steel and dust is not simple.

The logistics of WTC7 falling neatly into its own footprint is not simple.

The logistics of extensive foreknowledge of the attacks and no one stopping them is not simple.

I could go on and on. but you get the idea.

These are the extremely improbable logistics of 9/11:
http://covertoperations.blogspot.com/2010/08/improbabilities-and-coincidences-around.html

As far as Bush and Cheney, I'm glad we can agree they were evil. That hardly detracts from the inside job thesis.

[zappaman]

87. You know what else isn't simple?

Life.
Less complex things happen every...oh...every second.

[OnTheOtherHand]

91. (ducks goalposts)

Flatulo's statement, which you seem to have ignored, was that the logistics of the OCT are simpler than the logistics of alternatives.

Do you really consider that it's simpler to plant mini-nukes on multiple stories of three buildings and then detonate them in a carefully synchronized sequence -- which is just part of your alternative theory, as I understand it -- than to fly planes into buildings really fast?

The logistics of a 757 plowing into the ground leaving almost no debris above ground is not simple.

That isn't "logistics" at all. In fact, your first example is the only example of "logistics," unless "logistics" is required to not stop passenger planes from flying into buildings really fast.

[William Seger]

75. To you, the "proof" that they could cover it up is that they did

... but if your question is if I agree that they could, I don't think I was vague about that: Absolutely not. I very seriously doubt that they could even put the plan into motion without getting busted, given how many people would need to be involved. "Truthers" have such a low opinion of humanity that they think career civil service and media people are just like the wicked witch's flying monkeys who just follow any orders with no sense of morals. Do you seriously believe that you are possessed of vastly superior morality compared to every one of the hundreds of people who would need to be recruited because of their positions? If so, then also consider this: Another extreme implausibility is that when putting the team together, they would need cooperation from key people already in place but somehow they didn't run into a single Democrat who was still pissed about Florida 2000 and who would have jumped at the chance to bust them, in a heartbeat. Would you have?

And anyway, you're just blowing off the point that there was absolutely no reason why they should need to cover up the alleged hoax, when there was no rational reason for concocting such a complicated and risky hoax in the first place.

But if you could really understand the point I'm making, you wouldn't be a "truther." However, I've explained to you numerous times why the absurd implausibility of "truth movement" theories doesn't prove anything, nor is it a rebuttal to any particular argument: It's just the reason why you need some damn good evidence. And I'm making that point because "truthers" don't seem to understand it; they think their paranoid suspicions and incredulity should be good enough. And as we've been discussing for years, your claims to have "overwhelming evidence" are total nonsense and wishful thinking. If you did, you wouldn't need to be arguing with William Seger in the DU "dungeon."

[spooked911]

88. I don't think standard goverment bureaucrats and media drones had much idea of what they were doing

if they were involved. They were just following orders-- they were probably told it was for the good of the country.

There are clearly very evil people in charge-- the people who run wars, torture, etc. The CIA and military big wigs.

Phil Jayhan has proposed that 9/11 was gamed out for years in advance, and the way the perps got everyone to go along is because they thought it was all a hoax, and that no one would really be killed (the victims were fictitious entities). I'm not sure about that. That scenario makes some sense, but at the same time, I think many people really died and that the perps had little to no compunction about it, just the way they have no compunction about sending young men into combat to get killed or maimed or our people dropping bombs on civilians.

And news for you-- the Democrats are totally corrupt, basically bought off like the Republicans. The few honest Dems undoubtedly know to keep their place, and not question too deeply.

"there was absolutely no reason why they should need to cover up the alleged hoax, when there was no rational reason for concocting such a complicated and risky hoax in the first place."

Well, that's a nice circular argument, isn't it?

As far as discussing 9/11 here, I like to have someone to discuss it with, and this is one of the few places where I can have an active and reasonably intelligent discussion. I learn some things, and test ideas, and it's often fun. But eventually it does get frustrating running into walls like the one you've erected here, and other walls that the official story supporters have erected.

Oh well.

[William Seger]

89. "That scenario makes some sense" ?!? WTF are you smoking?

Not to me, it sure as hell doesn't make sense. In the first place, you offer no rational explanation for things like, oh, how guys rigging occupied office buildings for a demolition or piloting remote controlled planes into the occupied buildings could be led to believe it was all a "game" where nobody would get hurt. And then, you completely left out the part of the fantasy where nobody figured out it was real after nearly 3000 people were killed. Sorry, but Phil Jayhan is hopelessly delusional if that "makes sense" to him. The silliness of that hypothesis pretty much reinforces the impression that you just don't have a rational refutation of the obvious implausibility of putting the alleged large and complicated plot together.

And once again, you persist in dodging the fact that what I'm arguing is that there was absolutely no REASON for concocting such a complicated and risky hoax that REQUIRED such a complex and risky cover-up, because they could have just done something that was orders of magnitude easier and less risky and still accomplished the same alleged purpose. There's nothing circular about the argument I'm actually making; you're just misrepresenting it. As I've repeatedly said, it's really just another argument for why the hypothesis of fake hijackings and controlled demolitions is ludicrously implausible, and it appears to be a damn good one since "truthers" apparently can't come up with anything to make it sound remotely plausible. I can't think of too many other ways to say it, so if you pretend to miss it again, I'll accept that as a concession of the point.

So Democrats are totally corrupt, huh? I'm a Democrat and I'll thank you to stuff your accusation back where it came from. If this were my site, simply saying "the few honest Dems undoubtedly know to keep their place" about a mass murder would be your last post here. But you really must have had to strain to completely miss what I was saying, anyway: Any moral person would have busted Bush for attempting a mass murder, but a pissed off Democrat wouldn't even need a moral reason.

And to complete the perfect score, you missed my last point, too. If the "truth movement" ACTUALLY had the "overwhelming evidence" that you only imagine that have, then you wouldn't be flogging your poor dead horse in this "dungeon."

[spooked911]

93. I think you under-estimate what people will do when they are told

something needs to be done in the name of national security, and then the threat of death they are under once the worst comes to pass.



Anyway, since you are so sure that you could rig up a 9/11 false-flag attack without "ludicrously implausible" scenarios, let's hear your idea for how you would do 9/11.


As far as Democrats, I wasn't saying rank-and-file Dems were corrupt, just their major politicians. And is there really any doubt of this? Almost every person elected to national office is heavily controlled by special interests, you can't seriously argue otherwise. Jesus christ, you seem incredibly naive about how politicians work. You have to realize they know there are certain subjects they can't touch or they will be booted out of office in some way, or worse. Even the honest politicians will try to stay in office to do what they think is the right thing, despite crimes going on that they can't speak out about. It's not just 9/11. How many scandals have been swept under the rug over the years because the PTB need it covered up?

Lastly, I *did* understand your point.

MY POINT is that the PTB and the media have scared people away from talking about 9/11, and of course the media won't touch 9/11 in any way. The occasional story will come out showing foreknowledge, or CIA connections to the plot or a cover-up, and then it will disappear. There will be no traction in the media or in government of any story deviating from the official 9/11 gospel, no matter how overwhelming. The mainstream media have forced people like me to come here and argue with you, Mr. whoever you are.

I really don't understand why this is not screamingly obvious.

[zappaman]

94. 'I really don't understand why this is not screamingly obvious."

Again, your personal incredulity or inability to understand simple concepts is your cross to bear, not anyone else's.
You've demonstrated time and time again that real evidence means nothing to you since you already have your conclusion and reject anything that doesn't fit.

I still maintain you should see a therapist and work thru some of these issues.
Maybe after a few sessions, you will believe we went to the moon...baby steps.

[spooked911]

99. please read what I wrote

about 20 times over, and then maybe it will sink in.

Nothing I wrote in post 93 was controversial in the least.

[terrafirma]

95. Is it not possible

That there really is no overwhelming evidence of fake planes and mini nukes, and hence... No story for the media to cover?

And how sad your perception of your fellow human being is so weak and pathetic that NO ONE who rigged the towers would come forward after realizing he was just duped into slaughtering Americans. .

I guess having such a negative view of humanity helps in making you feel superior?

[OnTheOtherHand]

96. in spooked's case, maybe it just really sucks

Some folks seem highly motivated by a desire to be superior, and they trim their "facts" to fit.

My impression of spooked -- and the reason I keep getting sucked into talking with him -- is that he starts from ideas, and the belief that a lot of his ideas are rather obviously right. His somewhat low opinion of his fellow human beings is a (faulty) inference from that; he takes no pleasure in it. Sometimes he says things I think are outrageous, but basically he seems like a thoroughly decent person who believes some very strange things.

By way of very crude analogy, I've run into at least two kinds of very conservative Christians. One kind clearly enjoys the thought that other people are going to hell; the other kind clearly hates it, and is trying to prevent it. It's very weird and awkward to deal with someone who is genuinely trying to save my soul, but I can respect it in a way I can't respect someone who (despite lip service to the contrary) clearly thinks it'll be a great day when most people are consigned to eternal torment. For the good hearts in the grip of a bad idea, I wish I could convince them otherwise -- but they aren't likely to shake the suspicion that, as well-intentioned as I might be, Satan is speaking through me. Makes it kind of hard to talk.

[terrafirma]

97. Great analogy.

[spooked911]

103. I just have a realistic view of humanity gleaned from history

and from our own nation's extremely ugly history that most people want to ignore.


Yes, in the cloistered world of my suburban neighborhood and university workplace, people are "nice". It is hard to imagine mass murder and torture. But those things do happen, and they have happened over and over again in the history of mankind. Need I remind you of all the killing the US has done in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan just in the past ten years?


I don't look down on humanity -- that is just your incorrect justification or rationalization of my views.

[OnTheOtherHand]

105. predictably, you're either missing or ignoring the point

You look at the collapses of the Twin Towers and think you see obvious evidence of controlled demolition; very large numbers of qualified professionals do not. You may sincerely attribute that to their impaired capacity to "imagine mass murder and torture," but employing your attribution as an "argument" basically amounts to flipping the table and walking out in a huff.

My observation doesn't hinge on credentialism, since your physics arguments appear to be at a middle school level -- which would be excellent, if the arguments were any good.

[spooked911]

110. hmmm...

So far, we haven't gotten into any complex physics, since you can't seem to grasp Newton's third law very well in the context of two colliding floors. Also, I'm not the one who seemed to think that a collision between two bodies of equal size shouldn't slow the velocity.

Further, you seem to be missing the concept of a secret conspiracy, where people are paid-- or rewarded-- to cover up what really happened.

[OnTheOtherHand]

113. keep digging

It isn't my job to "grasp" assumptions that are unsupported or even unstated. If you can convince yourself that everyone who disagrees with you is in denial about Newton's third law, there really isn't much I can do about that.

Also, I'm not the one who seemed to think that a collision between two bodies of equal size shouldn't slow the velocity.

I called bullshit on that before, and now I'll call bullshit squared. You really should stop brazenly misrepresenting my posts. It does you no credit.

Further, you seem to be missing the concept of a secret conspiracy, where people are paid-- or rewarded-- to cover up what really happened.

It doesn't seem to be a "secret" conspiracy so much as a conveniently elastic conspiracy: anyone who sees the gaping holes in your arguments is probably part of it.

Weirder yet, you think that "almost certainly the perps 'made it transparent on purpose'" -- and are able to cover it up anyway.

[spooked911]

98. dude-- let's say you somehow did this, thinking it was done for some other reason

then you found out what you did was used in 9/11.

Would you REALLY risk your life and your family's life on exposing what you did, given the murderous demons your bosses turned out to be?

[terrafirma]

107. Yes

.

[terrafirma]

111. Because

There are certain times when you need to realize when something is bigger than yourself or even your family.

Would YOU sit by watch this unfold, watch thousands of your countrymen perish, watch the wars start... all while knowing what you knew...

... and do NOTHING?

[zappaman]

108. yes

if you were scared, you could do it anonymously on an internet chat forum.

[William Seger]

109. The incredible power that you attribute to these "powers that be"

... is really just another implausibility that your hypothesis entails, and again you're claiming the alleged perps planned this hoax with the assumption that they'd be able to intimidate every one of those participants into keeping quiet. If just one decides to take the risk of exposing the hoax, you'll fry, and killing that person wouldn't save you. You still haven't explained why the alleged perps would take that risk when there was absolutely no need for a plot that required the cooperation of all those people. As I've pointed out several times, the easiest and least risky thing to do, requiring no more than a handful of "black ops" guys that you could trust, would be to plant several truck bombs to go off simultaneously. Since terrorists already have a history of doing that, blaming terrorists wouldn't require any effort at all: virtually everyone would automatically assume it.

[spooked911]

112. I would say that truck bombs don't give enough shock and awe

There wouldn't be all those videos of planes and towers exploding. It would just be another nasty incident, but nothing like 9/11. It's unlikely they could do enough truck bombs to bring down a WTC tower, either. Too many truck bombs would surely raise too many questions, as well.

[William Seger]

114. Funny, you show a surprising (and inconsisent) lack of imagination on this one

One of al Qaeda's trademarks is coordinated attacks, and I don't have any problem imagining ways that just two or three truck bombs could cause spectacular damage and cause more than 3000 deaths. Al Qaeda had symbolic reasons for attacking the WTC and the Pentagon (and I suspect the Capitol); your alleged perps would not have any need for such symbolism if all they wanted was to create outrage. Sorry, you're still falling WAY short of explaining why the alleged perps would concoct such a risky hoax when something simple would work just as well.

[deconstruct911]

115. 93 wtc bombing remember

Sorry not an option after the FBI already did that in 93.

Try again.

And yes, if it was "al qaeda" it might even be more 'coordinated'. They would have people on the ground killing FDNY etc. Do the attack mid-day just like 93 when the buildings are full. Fly the 1st plane low, not the very top when people are just getting up there. They would know after the 1st strike the other crashes would not kill as many people.

[William Seger]

116. I guess I'll have to assume that post makes sense to you

>... not an option after the FBI already did that in 93 :eyes:

[zappaman]

117. that ain't the only thing in that post that's nonsesnse... n/t

[spooked911]

118. as I said-- I think the perps wanted a huge media spectacle

Shock and awe. I just don't think truck bombs would do it.

You're absolutely right about real terrorists being able to easily kill thousands of Americans this way or some other way if they wanted to. Why don't they???

[zappaman]

119. they kill thousands yearly around the world using this method

why don't they here?
I can't say since I am no way affiliated with Al Queda.
Track down their current leader and ask him yourself.

and by the way, if 3000 people were killed, whether by truck bomb or planes, the administration still would have rallied the US into war.
so your personal incredulity that "truck bombs would (not) do it" means nothing....again.

[spooked911]

121. they don't because al Qaeda is pure BS

invented by our intelligence agencies

[William Seger]

120. You're really not trying very hard...

... to think of ways to create a "huge media spectacle" that would be orders of magnitude less risky in terms of things going wrong and/or getting caught. Sorry, but when the absurd implausibility of the hoax is added to the complete lack of credible evidence that it happened, it's not very hard to figure out why the "cover up" has been so incredibly "effective."

[spooked911]

122. I wasn't the one who was trying to think of this

you were.

[William Seger]

123. Exactly my point

You and other "truthers" seem to have put no real thought into what your alleged hoax would require, and why no such a ridiculously complicated and risky hoax was required. That might also explain why you find it so difficult to comprehend why so few people are buying it based on what you're offering as evidence.

[spooked911]

125. mmm-hmmm...

in fact I have thought about it, and overall I think my scenario is plausible and more importantly fits all the evidence.

But really the starting point for all this is not with no planes and demolition, but just how much the CIA knew about it ahead of time and so forth. It's pretty clear people in the govt knew what was coming and either let it happen or facilitated it or worse, actually ran the whole thing.

The majority of the people in the country, if pressed, will admit they believe they let it happen.

The problem is THESE people haven't thought that plan through nor have they looked at all the evidence in light of LIHOP. I actually started many years ago with LIHOP but realized it didn't explain everything.

[deconstruct911]

130. LIHOP

always struck me as too risky. The main problem I saw (aside from all the CD stuff) was they would be getting a free run at nuclear facilities. Dr.Debug's research pointed out the impact zones were no coincidence either...

[zappaman]

131. "I think my scenario is plausible and more importantly fits all the evidence."

YOUR thinking.
NO ONE ELSE'S.
See the problem?

[William Seger]

137. It "fits all the evidence"...

... that all the "inside job" evidence was covered up? :eyes:

[Flatulo]

59. Hey William, you forgot... 9/11 conspiracists also readily believe

that these brilliant perps who have pulled off the greatest crime in the history of the human race were so stupid that they decided to form a 'think tank' and formally publish their plans for the whole world to see.

That disconnect from reality *alone* makes me wonder if conspiracists are suffering from some formerly undocumented inability to mentally gloss over monumentally large inconsistencies in a narrative.

[ocpagu]

101. LOL

"9/11 conspiracists also readily believe that these brilliant perps who have pulled off the greatest crime in the history of the human race were so stupid that they decided to form a 'think tank' and formally publish their plans for the whole world to see."

If a person writes in diary that he wish another person to be dead, or tells someone he thinks that, or threats another person by saying "I'll kill you", and, eventually, that other person somehow gets killed, police would call that what the first person wrote or told is "evidence" and he would be on a suspect list.

But, if a group of powerful individuals says "America needs a new Pearl Harbor", then this same group gets great influence in a government, and then America gets a new Pearl Harbor, of course, "rational" OCT believers will see that as an "evidence" of non-involvement.

The worst blind...

[zappaman]

102. smart enough to pull off

a job of incredible sophistication, the likes of which have never been seen before in world history, yet dumb enough to tell everyone they did it, by essentially confessing years before they execute their nefarious plans.
Only in Trutherland...
:rofl:

[ocpagu]

104. LOL

again, at you.

[Flatulo]

138. Have you ever read the actual PNAC paper, or are you

just cherry picking quotes that have no ontext to them?

Your english is quite good, so you owe it to yourself to read the whole document and undestand its context.

Hint: It's about how America can benefit from its position as the sole superpower.

It is not an blueprint for a 'false flag' attack.

[OnTheOtherHand]

139. not just cherry-picking, but pretty much inventing

If that paper actually said, "America needs a new Pearl Harbor," things might have played out a wee bit differently.

Conspiracists sometimes lose the distinction between what people said and what the conspiracists deeply believe that they meant.

An example came up yesterday. The then-CEO of Diebold famously wrote in a fundraising letter for W.'s reelection campaign that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president." That's embarrassing, but not quite smoking enough, so people sometimes assert that he committed to delivering Ohio's electoral votes to Bush, or even that he committed to delivering the election to Bush. It's interesting to ponder, if O'Dell was stating an intention to steal the election, why he would do so in a fundraising letter. Further difficulties are that Diebold didn't have much market share in Ohio in 2004, and the results in the "Diebold counties" are unremarkable. (I think what O'Dell wrote is legitimately troubling, but not because it is evidence of fraud in 2004. Fact is, the documented security vulnerabilities in all this equipment are harrowing enough, and impeccably non-partisan.)

[Flatulo]

140. Conspiratists also seem to be unable to parse nuance and

assign proper weighting to information that may conflict with later information along a timeline.

For example, if I emerge from a burning building in my skivvies with my hair on fire and exclaim to the nearest reporter "Holy fuck, that building just blew up!", yet the next five years of scholarly research shows that the building was in fact struck by, oh say, a Boeing 767, the CT'er will disregard the subsequent information and base their conclusions almost entirely on the first uneducated observations.

I don't know if this is, as you suggest, a need to believe what needs to be believed to reinforce their fiction, or if it's some other mechanism at work. My uneducated opinion is that there's more to it than meets the eye.

[OnTheOtherHand]

141. I think I would have put it more generously

I recently had an experience where I read a text message as saying almost the opposite of what it actually said because of my assumptions about what it 'ought' to say. At the risk of pandering to myself, I wouldn't say that I needed to believe what needed to be believed to reinforce my fiction. I just saw what I expected to see -- although I would have been better off if I had seen what was actually there.

Of course some people seem to become strongly invested in always seeing what they initially saw. That probably has multiple causes. So, we probably agree that there is more to this than meets the eye.

[tortoise1956]

126. Are you kidding?

I'm not sure where to start. I'll just tackle a few pieces of unbelievable garbage:

First, THERE WAS NO PENETRATION. The planes all took off from U.S airports and had already been cleared to proceed before the hijackers commandeered the aircraft. they didn't fly into U.S. airspace.

Second, there were no interceptor aircraft on the ready line when this occurred because no one had considered that this kind of attack could happen inside our airspace. The assumption was that we would see someone coming from a long ways away, which would leave time to prep the interceptors, take off, and shoot the bad guys. Obviously this was a faulty assumption, but definitely not the first by our military leaders and politicians.

Third, I would like to address a point made in another post. Someone alluded to the difficulty of flying a plane at high speed into a "small target". That's ignoring the facts. The WTC towers were 207 feet on a side. The 767 that was flown into the towers has a wingspan of 158 feet, meaning that the target was more than a third larger than the longest dimension on the plane. Also, these were the tallest buildings in the city, which made it pretty easy to sight in on them from a long ways away. Finally, their height made them an easy target, compared to the pentagon, which although much larger in horizontal dimensions, is much shorter in height. Thus, the hijackers aiming at the pentagon weren't able to hit the inner Ring like they wanted to, instead impacting the out ring and drastically reducing the number of possible casualties.

Lastly, a "combat trained pilot" is not necessarily a bad ass in a personal fight. Taking into account the age of the pilots (the youngest pilot on the aircraft that hit the WTC was 38, followed by 42, 50 and 51), why do you think it would be hard for young, armed, fanatically religious hijackers to take them in a surprise attack? Besides, no one had any inkling that cooperating would cost them their life. This type of attack had never happened before.

So, you keep believing in you fairy tale if you choose. Me, I'm going to stay in the real world.

[OnTheOtherHand]

128. I think it's worth pointing out that planes were scrambled

Lots of people seem to be under the impression that NORAD "stood down." I don't know whether the planes were "on the ready line," but NORAD fighters at Otis and Langley did take off pretty fast once the orders came down, not that it really helped.

The documentary record attests that the scrambles had virtually no chance of allowing NORAD actually to intercept any of the hijacked planes (a fact that military leaders attempted to obscure) -- basically because they had almost no notice for any of the planes. Neither FAA nor NORAD was poised to rapidly identify and intercept hijacked planes.

I've seen people assert that this couldn't possibly be true, but I've seen precious little evidence, and none that withstands critical scrutiny.

[tortoise1956]

133. True

They did get some aircraft in the air, but there was no live ammunition on board - just dummy rounds. At that point, the only plane that they could have stopped was flight 93, which would have required them to do a kamikaze. Luckily, flight 93 was forced down by the passengers before that became necessary.

[defendandprotect]

5. Hi -- great video -- and you seem to be under attack by "ignored" -- :evilgrin:

[William Seger]

6. Reality is on your "ignored" list, too (n/t)

[zappaman]

8. +1

also with 99% of DU

[Behind the Aegis]

10. Logic is sure as hell is on her "ignored list."

[RegieRocker]

49. Hook line and sinker isn't for you though.

How does that MSM and Gov bull crap taste.

[Flatulo]

60. And yet this M$M which Truther's so regularly castigate published

the reports about the August 2001 PDB, in which warnings of an imminent attack were made known to the president. This didn't make GWB look very good. Why would they do this if the entire M$M is somehow following orders from BushCo (whatever the fuck that is)?

[MrMickeysMom]

90. "ignored" is everywhere in the dungeon...

that you smell a troll.

[cpwm17]

9. Translation

These terrorists shouldn't be able to fly those aircraft (not explained why), or hi-jack them (not explained why also).

Our politicians lie and cover their assess (it's like these truthers had been in a coma and just discovered this fact after 9-11).

So (insert impossible truther theory, e.g. miniature nuclear bombs!) must be true.

[ocpagu]

11. Ha ha

The official account on 9/11 should get the Oscar. It's the most incredible conspiracy story I've seen so far.

Also interesting the people bashing this video. All the author did is to present the facts as they are recognized by the mainstream account. Not his fault if the mainstream account reads like nonsense.

[William Seger]

14. "All the author did is to present the facts as they are recognized by the mainstream account"?

Could you please share your definition of the word "fact"? That could be where our disagreement lies.

[ocpagu]

15. Did you see the video?

Do you have any inaccuracies to point out?

If you do, we can discuss them.

Everything in the video has been publicized in the mainstream press.

The official account is expecting us to believe in miracles - high rises collapsing in controlled demolition style due to fire, planes hiting buildings and evaporating in the air, hijackers' passports surviving huge explosive impacts, etc. I heard a French journalist has called the 9-11 Comission Report of "The Second Bible". And yet "coincidence theorists" love to claim to act under rational mindset and skeptcism. Skeptcism?

A real skpetic person would look into this picture and ask: "where's the plane"?



There's no rational explanation to a plane evaporating. Simple as that.

[terrafirma]

16. I agree that no plane could evaporate.

And no planes DID evaporate that day.

[cpwm17]

17. Pentagon Aircraft Debris

I found these pictures on Google in about a minute. There are more available:

[ocpagu]

18. I've seen these tiny little Pentagon debris images before.

Obviously something did hit the Pentagon, so I would expect the existence of debris...

But, considering the large size of airplanes, shouldn't their debris look more like, you know, this:



And since we are talking about the Pentagon, can you explain this hole? How can an airplane make such a small hole in a wall?





I've heard some coincidence theorists claiming that the hole was made by the airplane nose... but if that's the case, if the airplane body didn't crash into the building... what happened to it? What made it be reduced to the tiny little debris you've shown us?

You see... this is a miracle. Ironic, and sad, but the only way of believing the official account of the "skeptic and rational" anti-truthers on the Pentagon attack is defying logic, physics, science, commons sense and relying on faith... "the government must be telling the true".

[cpwm17]

19. You are wrong, and the last picture is completely dishonest

HERE'S THE PENTAGON AFTER THE IMPACT

The hole in the side of the Pentagon you picture is on the inside of ring C (as the aircraft exited the third ring it passed through) as far as I can tell. It's completely dishonest of you to represent that as the damage done to the Pentagon.

You're crazy if you think a large part of the aircraft would remain intact after colliding at such a high speed.

[ocpagu]

20. Exactly

The hole is on the inside of ring C.

So, what kind of magic can explain this image bellow:



If it was the plane nose, why didn't the plane body destroyed rings D and C?

And... since we're here... why did Bush lie about getting informed on the attacks?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm73wOuPL60

[terrafirma]

21. The kind of "magic"

Of a 757 traveling 500 mph into a building.

[ocpagu]

25. How?

I can figure out an explanation...

The airplane crashed in the Pentagon's façade. Then it became physically intangible and just went through ring D and most part of ring C, without causing major damage. Then, it became physically tangible and caused the hole in ring C we can see in the picture...

Well... it goes pretty much in the same line of the other miracles involved in the official account of 9/11. It must be true.

[OnTheOtherHand]

34. how did you determine that there wasn't "major damage" in ring D and most of ring C?

You think you can determine that based on this photo alone? All other evidence of damage -- including the people found dead there -- would be just official-story fakery, I suppose?

And if you honestly think that the photo depicts something miraculous, what miracle do you think occurred?

[hack89]

81. No - the plane disintegrated

there are parts of a plane that are solid and heavy enough to do that damage even after the plane disintegrated - the landing gear come immediately to mind. It could also been debris from the building.

[OnTheOtherHand]

24. it's hard to keep up with the goalposts

A few posts ago, you were regaling us with nonsense about planes evaporating in mid-air. All that debris? Was it planted? Do you think it's cruise missile debris? WTF?

[ocpagu]

26. There's only one goal here...

Showing that the official account is a nonsensical, faith-based coincidence theory defying laws of physics.

Not that it is really that difficult to notice...

[William Seger]

31. When do you plan to start?

Seriously?

[OnTheOtherHand]

32. yes, you do seem to be indifferent about what actually happened

Why is that? Why is crusading against "the official account" an end in itself, regardless of whether your assertions are supported or even mutually consistent?

[Flatulo]

42. What are your qualifications in Physics?

And which physical laws do you believe the official account violates? Please be specific and show any equations or formulae and how they are used to prove the violations you speak of.

[William Seger]

22. So, you've seen the evidence

... but even with your X-ray vision, you can't find the rest of the plane inside the building? Wow, that's "defying logic, physics, science, commons sense" alright! Get a rope!

[ocpagu]

28. Oh...

I see... the rest of the plane is inside the building. Ok, I'll pretend to believe that the building's affected area is large enough to "eat" the whole airplane body, and that, for a coincidence (ha, another one) no picture of the area was able to show identifiable large debris inside the building. But, please explain to me, what happened to the plane wings and the tail? We all know they are too large to pass through the area affected of the façade.




So... at least wings should be visible among debris outside of the building... or they should have damaged the building façade. Those are the only two possibilities, in light of laws of physics. Since the official account doesn't recognize neither one or the other... the explanation is the same: miracle.

By the way...

http://www.freedomfiles.org/war/Cnn<1>.Pentagon.Jamie.Mcintyre.swf

Is CNN a conspiracy theorist media?

[William Seger]

30. Gee, all that "logic, physics, science, commons sense"...

... but you can't figure out that the ends of the wings and the tail shattered against the wall, leaving broken limestone and masonry that's clearly seen in many photos but nothing but those small pieces that are scattered everywhere? Or did scientists tell you that, by the laws of physics on your planet, that doesn't happen when a plane flies into a reinforced wall at 500 MPH, so logic tells you it must be the same on Earth? Sorry, but my common sense tells me that plane-shaped damage was caused by a plane, which is perfectly consistent with a rather large mountain of other evidence that you prefer to ignore.

Your link doesn't work, but we wasted some time recently discussing what Macintyre actually says: No plane hit "near" the Pentagon; it crashed into the side of the building. You've been deceived. Again.

[ocpagu]

35. Honey, childish name calling...

... has never been an argument. Funny though that you seem to be so nervous in your posts... that makes me wonder how much confidence you and the other coincidence theorists have in these bunch of miracles and coincidences that you call "official account"... Why do you always try to stigmatize your critics, label them as lunatics, calling them "aliens", etc.? What are you afraid of? Why are you all so passionate about this subject? Why are you so unable to show the "rational mindset" you claim to have? Can't you just address the criticism in a civilized way? :)

"but you can't figure out that the ends of the wings and the tail shattered against the wall, leaving broken limestone and masonry that's clearly seen in many photos but nothing but those small pieces that are scattered everywhere?"

No, honey, I can't figure that out. You know why?



Because, so far, I haven't seen anything that resembles a plane crashing in the Pentagon. And, since I'm not a coincidence theorist, I don't believe airplanes evaporate. If the wings and the tale hit against the walls, I'd expect to find large part of the wings or the tale among the debris, not pathetic 30 inches alluminium pieces that look like paper.

[OnTheOtherHand]

36. "Why do you always try to stigmatize your critics?"

Oh, brother. :eyes:

[William Seger]

38. Gosh, I guess I've just run out of patience with bullshitters tonight

Here's your claim:

> You see... this is a miracle. Ironic, and sad, but the only way of believing the official account of the "skeptic and rational" anti-truthers on the Pentagon attack is defying logic, physics, science, commons sense and relying on faith... "the government must be telling the true".

Then it turns out that you apparently got all your "facts" from "truther" sites and have no interest whatsoever in being disabused of the distortions and outright bullshit in them, and what you really meant by "logic, physics, science, commons sense" was that as long as you abjectly refuse to see plane debris and plane-shaped damage on that wall, then you can continue to believe that the paranoid delusions you've bought into are rational? Those of us who can see the evidence, don't buy unsubstantiated and implausible claims about the evidence being faked, and can easily understand what happened to the building and the plane are "anti-truthers" "relying on faith... 'the government must be telling the true'?" And now you're unhappy that this bullshit doesn't get the respect you think it deserves, and to demonstrate your awesome logical abilities, you conclude that that must mean you're on the right track? Am I following you?

And that's enough for tonight, but feel free to take another dump and maybe I'll poke at it tomorrow.

[cpwm17]

33. There are no large pieces of debris - that's impossible

But you are the one that believes much of the aircraft should have remained largely intact.

Here is one example of an identifiable piece of 757 debris:





From this site: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=&imgrefurl=http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/conspiracy/q0290.shtml&usg=__g30eAtuPFce_5S7HyPj6rAtnx78=&h=300&w=550&sz=31&hl=en&start=4&sig2=c5BUvBmLBjePmRyij7c_bA&zoom=1&tbnid=Qx7U9h9TiakAEM:&tbnh=73&tbnw=133&ei=UEB1TpXKIcTbgQeB4ZjSDA&prev=/images%3Fq%3D757%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DN%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1



One piece of Boeing 757 American Airlines skin is pictured here. It matches the American Airlines design on the same plane that impacted the Pentagon -tail number N644AA.

[hack89]

82. Well - first off most of the plane burned up

aluminum has a relatively low melting temperature and it sat in a hot fire for a long time.

The wings did leave impact marks on the wall - you can read the description and see the photos in the American Society of Civil Engineers building study. The wings exploded into little pieces - they were thin aluminum filled with gas. The tail was shattered too.

http://fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/build03/PDF/b03017.pdf

[hack89]

83. Your turn

here is the ASCE building report

http://fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/build03/PDF/b03017.pdf

Tell me what caused that damage

[zappaman]

84. *crickets* n/t

[7wo7rees]

92. If the wings don't fit, you must acquit.

Why were suits picking up pieces?
Why were pieces shipped off to be destroyed?
Why wasn't it treated like a crime scene?
Why don't we see a plane in the ONLY video out of dozens?
Why didn't they find luggage, blood, etc.?

[William Seger]

100. The wings fit like a glove

> Why were suits picking up pieces?

In most of the pics I've seen of volunteers picking up pieces, most of the people were wearing military uniforms, which makes sense given that the Pentagon and Navy Annex are military office buildings, but civilian men working in those buildings wear suits, as would FBI agents and police detectives. What are you trying to imply?

> Why were pieces shipped off to be destroyed?

Whatever gave you that idea?

> Why wasn't it treated like a crime scene?

It certainly was. If your question is why wasn't the cause of the fire investigated, oddly enough it seems that none of the people who were actually there were as confused about that as "truthers" seem to be. Oddly enough, those doubts seem to be restricted to a small group of people whose only knowledge comes from a handful of photos they've seen on the web.

> Why don't we see a plane in the ONLY video out of dozens?

We do, and while it may be impossible to positively identify it from just that one-frame-per-second video, we don't need to when there were so many eyewitnesses. The video does confirm, however, that a plane-sized object flew low over the ground into the side of the building and created a giant fireball, which reinforces the eyewitness testimony. My parents' neighbor was one of those eyewitnesses.

> Why didn't they find luggage, blood, etc.?

You appear to be claiming to know what was found and not found and yet you seem to be unaware that DNA from all flight AA77 passengers was identified from the human remains found, and that AA77's flight data recorder was also found. You may also be unaware that there was a very intense fire inside the building immediately after the crash, so even if your unsubstantiated speculation about luggage and blood not being found were correct, it wouldn't be unexpected.

I'm going to predict that you don't really give a damn about answers to your questions.

[7wo7rees]

106. Thanks for your input!

I will consider all you have laid out before me.

[Flatulo]

43. Do you believe that all aircraft disasters should look more or less alike

regardless of the speed, attitude and hardness of the object impacted?

One of the more disturbing images I recall was when the USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian passener jet during a period of escalated tensions in the Persian Gulf. The news networks showed ghastly videos of hundreds of naked bodies floating in the gulf. I remember that some on the right claimed that this was proof that the Iranians had filled a plane with dead bodies and then staged an incident with a US warship in a bid to get world opinion tilted in their favor.

When the smoke settled a bit, some accident investigators came forward to explain that all kinds of bizarre things can happen in an air disaster. Passengers' clothes can be blown off, odd things can survive, etc.

The point being, there is no such thing as a 'typical' air crash.

edited: a bit harsh, reworded

[CJvR]

78. Depends on the speed.

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

Speed can turn an aircraft into confetti. I served at the F10 Fighter wing in Ängelholm when one of our J35J crashed into a swamp - a fairly soft traget compared to a reinforced concrete structure, and J35 was a solidly built aircraft compared to a modern jetliner. The two biggest pieces they brought back from that plane was the tail fin (about the size of a large desk) and the engine (which was 'relatively' intact since it hadn't hit anything solid) the rest of the plane was ripped into pieces varying between a chair and an A4 paper in size - and that was from hitting a soft target.

[William Seger]

23. Yep, I watched the whole thing; it was priceless

See post #13 for examples of errors, just from the first paragraph but I don't see any reason for slogging through the rest of it for the benefit of gullible people who are too lazy to do their own research. And nobody is required to explain to you things that didn't happen, e.g. evaporating planes. Anyway, even with the exaggerations and lies, the video completely fails to make the case that it's less plausible than idiotic fake hijackings and controlled demolitions theories. Apparently you haven't done much research or really given it much thought. And it looks like you don't intend to start now, huh.

[Flatulo]

37. Not sure how you can read this

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=125x322292#322353

and come away with that conclusion. Love to hear more detail.

[ocpagu]

12. BTW

I don't believe it'll prevail. I think there's already a growing tendency of questioning the official account worldwide and that at some point this will bring important changes to American politics.

History can be frauded NOW... but that won't spare frauds from be reviewed in the future.

[Flatulo]

39. The 9/11 Truth Movement reminds me of the Flagellation Movement

of the dark ages. With the notable exception that its adherents are beating others over the head with superstitious nonsense instead of themselves.

I suspect the 50% of the population that has above-average intelligence will prevail.

[ocpagu]

40. My dear...

You are the ones believing that airplanes evaporate...

You are the ones that see nothing weird about investigation finding hijackers' passports intact after a plane crash, followed by a huge explosion and high rises collapsing, whithin hours after the attacks happened.

You are the ones who are unable to establish the obvious connection that the entire world has already noticed among Dick Cheney / Halliburton / 9-11 / oil proxy war in Iraq.

You are the ones who can't see anything wrong with Bush giving two different versions - within 3 months - about the moment when he got to know "America was under attack".

You are the ones who believe that the United States Government, which funds the most advanced inteligence services, half of the world's military budget, the largest diplomatic body and the most sophisticated espionage aparatus of the planet was unable to find Osama Bin Laden in a cave, even though the guy kept releasing tapes like crazy, using the internet and had absolutely no problems in communicating with a TV network like Al Jazeera...

You are the ones who believe that the 9-11 Comission was an authentic and independent investigation.

You are the ones who show a pathetic undeserved trust in your government - ignoring your own history and topics like Operation Northwoods, just for a start.

The "superstitious nonsense" is all on your side, my dear.

PS - Truth always prevail. It's not a question of inteligence. History is at first point always inaccurate and biased, for presenting the version of the winners or powerful individual running its course. After some time, historic accounts are perfectioned and corrected for history still is a science. It happened with Pearl Harbor, it happened with the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, it happened with Cold War, it will happen with September 11th.

[Flatulo]

41. Your false claims reveal your lack of any intellectual honesty or curiosity.

Who claims that planes evaporated? We've shown countless pictures of identifiable aircraft parts at all four crash sites. The FEMA report found major chunks of Flight 11 on the roofs of adjascent structures.

The surviving Suqami passport is decidedly *inconvenient*, precisely because it fueled so many nascent conspiracy theories. However, bear in mind that almost 40% of the towers' face was glass, so the plane wasn't exactly minced into kibble. The FEMA team found lifejackets, seat cushions, other passengers' effects. Also, FBI agent Richard Marx described finding many passenger personal effects at the Fresh Kills landfill, where every cubic inch of rubble was hand sorted in the search for human remains. Google this and see what you find. Of course, they're all probably 'in on it'.

Another straw man - I don't know of a single soul on DU who supports Cheney or the US invasion of Iraq. Was 9/11 used as an excuse to catapult us into this war? Absolutely. I don't know anyone here who disagrees with this. But seizing an opportunity is not the same as creating the conditions that caused it, especially when the perpetrator was generous enough to admit the crime on several occasions.

And that mighty US military and intelligence apparatus? Do you know how much of it was on the ground during the seige at Tora Bora? 1200 troops and CIA operatives. Total. In a country the size of Texas. And the operation had been stupidly handed over by GWB to corrupt locals who sprited him across the border into Pakistan.

About Osama living in a cave - do you have proof of this? It was my understanding that prior to the attacks, he was an honored guest of the Afghan government and maintained a large compound in Jalalabad. Remember when Bill Clinton attacked it with cruise missiles in 1998? He missed too. Was Clinton in ot it as well? Are you unaware of the previous attacks on US interests that al Qaeda took credit for?

Yet another straw man - that we blindly trust the US government or Bushco or both. Bullshit. All governments have an innate obsession with appearing to be competent. The 9/11 Commission Report was at least partially an ass-covering exercise, and I've never seen anyone here argue against that.

You may think it's clever to win arguments with your opponents by attacking things they never said, but really, it just exposes you as lazy, disingenuous, or both.

[Flatulo]

45. Did you read Sen. John Kerry's Senate report on the failure

to capture/kill bin Laden at Tora Bora? There were actually less than 100 US troops on the ground in that mountainous region when the assault began.

This is a fascinating read, unless of course you believe that John Kerry was 'in on it' as well.

Of course, it's much easier to ignore this and just look at snappy YouTube videos that make ridiculous bullshit claims with no supporting data and rely on incredulity as their main evidence.

http://foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Tora_Bora_Report.pdf

[Name removed]

44. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Flatulo]

46. For someone who writes at the fourth-grade level,

that's a pretty audacious sentiment.

Whatever.

[whatchamacallit]

65. Right

I remember you as the guy who didn't know your avatar was Arundhati Roy, and that you choose it because "she was kinda hot". Yeah, *someone* is at the fourth-grade level...:eyes:

[Flatulo]

69. Guilty. But how many engineering degrees do you have?

I'll take a horny engineer over, um, whatever you are when it comes to matters of science and engineering.

[Flatulo]

70. And for what it's worth, I'm sorry I insulted you that way, but I

was responding to your post that OCT'ers were 'Fucking morons'.

I hope you can understand why that got my dander up. I really don't think that you're stupid or ignorant. But sometimes your posts do not evidence a strong desire to actually know the truth. You often seem more interested in scoring debating points.

I'll try to do better.

Edit - spelling

[whatchamacallit]

71. Thanks

I appreciate and the olive branch. Maybe I can try harder too.:toast:

[Flatulo]

72. We all get hot under the collar here. It's a deeply disturbing event

that changed everyone's lives.

[ocpagu]

51. They'll attack your inteligence...

...they'll doubt of your sanity, they'll try to portray you as a lunatic, they'll do everything to avoid you going out of the mass media hypnosis and bringing others with you. That's the only thing they can do, because they know that the official account they want us to buy is CRAP. They know the official account is a fragile and nonsensical fraud relying in faith and defying logic and physics. They know that without the mass media cover up support, they got nothing.

So, just ignore them.

[zappaman]

52. "they'll try to portray you as a lunatic'

no need.
truthers do that themselves just fine.

[ocpagu]

53. Sure they do.

Now go back to your enchanted world where governments don't lie and planes evapporate.

[zappaman]

54. "planes evaporate."

when did this happen?

[Flatulo]

56. And yet, even when repeatedly asked, Truthers cannot provide

a single solituary iota of their own physics work showing that the official account is crap. All they can do is hand waving and subject changing, then plead persecution.

[Flatulo]

67. It's not your intelligence, it's the laziness. You cite YouTube

videos that are disingenuous at best and outright bullshit at worst, and when challenged, you run away and cry persecution without ever questioning your sources. The other common tactic is to respond to every challenge with "Why would you believe BushCo?"

All we ask is that you back up your claimes with evidence, logic and science. Is this so much to ask, especially since there is so much information out there to help you with this, if only you would look at it?

We also get frustrated that even the so-called 'experts' in the Truth Movement, when challenged to show their calculations and assumptions for their claims, never, ever can do so. All we get is exaggerated, incredulous appeals to emotion and short-cuts to wrong conclusions.

The collective sound of the Truth Movement is "LALALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU".

This movement is the most anti-intellectual witchhunt I've witnessed in my life. It's really quite remarkable that otherwise intelligent people will not lift a finger to verify these silly claims for themselves. You WANT to believe that BushCo committed this massive, impossibly complex crime involving ridiculous numbers of people, none of whom have ever breathed a word of it to anyone. You want to believe this so strongly that you take the Movement's claims as if they came from the lips of God. You would check out a supermarket sale with more due diligence than you examine the claims of the Movement.

The entire Movement has had 10 years to create a consistent narrative, but it has failed to do so. Followers are able to simultaneously hold all these conflicting theories as truth, even though it is logically impossible.

Edited for spelling

[OnTheOtherHand]

73. largely agreed, but some of the experts do bring some work

For instance, Tony Szamboti came right here to talk about his "missing jolt" work. One could more or less figure out the assumptions behind his calculations. But for whatever reason(s), it seems to be hard for these folks to correct their mistakes. And lots of people can't see the holes in their work. It's like an alternate reality -- and that's at the best of times.

[Flatulo]

74. Yes, I recall Tony posting here, but I was very busy with work

at that time and couldn't comment on the validity, so I kept my mouth shut. Tony certainly seemed sincere and civil, but as I recall it, his graph of what he was claiming to be instantaneous velocity was in fact being averaged by the definition of how the data was collected, i.e, (V2-V1)/(T2-T1), so the velocity between data points was actually an average (straight line) velocity.

If Tony is still posting here, perhaps he could update us on whether he has modified his work or is still standing by his methodology and professing that there was no negative change in velocity (deceleration) and therefore no force amplification ala Bazant.

[Flatulo]

76. Ah, I see what Tony did. He computes acceleration by multiplying

the distance the roofline fell by 2/t^2, (X = 1/2*a*t^2) but this is only true for constant acceleration, so if you're trying to identify variations in acceleration, you better not assume constant acceleration.

The only way to measure an (assumed) non-constant accelration (which is what you'd better do if you expect to find it) is to plot displacement vs time and numerically differentiate it. You could stop there and see if it ever slopes downwards, which would be your jolt.

edited for clarity

[tortoise1956]

134. How can you compute acceleration?

there are multiple forces at work, including gravity, the rate at which the support structure collapsed, the building itself slowing the rate of descent, the pile of debris at the bottom building up and shortening the distance for top to bottom, how fast that debris was pushed out from the bottom due to the weight of the building above it...

That's what came to mind right off the bat. I'm not a mechanical engineer, so I'm sure I missed others. However, just the ones I brought up would essentially make this an unsolvable problem without more data, such as a historical database of other buildings in that height range that were demolished. I don't think there are too many of those to use as a baseline.

[Flatulo]

77. Just thought of another problem... I used to do a lot of signal

analysis, and the same principles apply here... if the original data is noisy, as the displacement data undoubtedly is due to the source (video and pixel counting), then the differentiated signal (velocity) will be much noiser. That's why people use accelerometers to measure vibration, and not displacement measuring devices such as strain gages. When you measure acceleration, you're directly measuring the force on a crystal element of extremely accurate massm which is directly proportional to acceleration.

Differentiate noisy data, and you get a much noiser result. I'd still like to think about this some more, but I see some real problems with Tony's approach, although it seems like a worthy effort nonetheless.

[OnTheOtherHand]

79. well, this is what I'm saying

At times it seemed to me that Tony didn't know what he was saying, but at least it's generally possible to identify his assumptions so one can critique them -- which is pretty much how one makes progress, at least if the assumptions are interesting.

I have a sort-of example from here on DU. A well-known poster (with multiple tombstones) used to argue that the 2004 exit polls contained tell-tale evidence that Kerry had won: the weighted results (those that showed Bush winning) contained too many people who reported having voted for Bush in 2000. His analysis was a chest-thumping mess, but it did get me thinking about what one might call a retrospective bandwagon effect: people often wrongly recall having voted for the incumbent.

One fascinating thing about that is that the poster was completely impervious to evidence on this score. There is even a panel study in which one can see some people changing their vote reports; he blithely dismissed the study, along with all the other evidence from dozens of surveys (probably hundreds, if one could plow through all the data). But the phenomenon is interesting in its own right: it's hard for most of us to imagine forgetting whether we voted for Bush or Gore, but it appears that millions of people did. (Of course, we only have survey data; the psychology behind the responses is a matter of speculation.)

My impression is that the odd attempts to prove that the Twin Towers were demolished by many small(-ish), synchronized charges have at least prodded Bazant and others to refine their analyses of how the collapses happened -- and it is possible that those refinements will be useful at some point, in some way. Bazant and Verdure certainly argue that their piece is useful for some purpose other than arguing with incorrigible conspiracists; I don't know how true that is.

Beyond the technical problems with Tony's work, I think a fundamental problem is that he imagines the upper blocks falling without any rotation. Bazant and Zhou concluded that the towers would have collapsed even in that circumstance, but since we know that the upper blocks did rotate, it makes little sense to insist that all the other observables should match the assumption that they didn't.

[Flatulo]

80. I've kind of kept my mouth shut about the 2004 election, not having

followed the various arguments for and against.

I didn't lose much sleep over it, figuring that all the data was out there, and there were (are) more than enough Bush haters combing through the wreckage to make their case. Also, contrary to the prevailing sentiment on DU, I don't believe that the MSM (whatever that is) leans to the right. In fact, since the MSM seems to be equally loathed by both the left and the right, they're probably, on balance, doing a pretty good job.

Anyway, on to my point. Journalists are not typically cowardly or timid people. Enough of them get killed covering war zones to prove this without any work on my part. I've always felt that if there were any legs to these election theft stories, some fearless investigative reporter would be all over it. The same is true for 9/11 theories. The ultimate win for any reporter is a Pulitzer, and I'm certain that that lure has gotten a lot of journalists at least thinking about digging into these theories. And yet, after all this time, no mainstream journalist with unquestionable integrity have 'broken' these stories open. Why is that? Well, most DUers would have you believe that their 'corporate master' are keeping them silent. But that itself would be a major story and conspiracy.

I'm an Occam's Razor kind of guy, and it seems unlikely that scandals of this magnitude would lie undisturbed this long.

So back to Tony; I applaud his diligence in digging into the physics of a possible CD, and he's certainly a bright guy, possibly a lot brighter than I am, but in following this whole 'jolt' saga on 911forum, the debate seems to have devolved into something of a stalemate. It's a complex problem for a hand solution, with too many unknowns to state with certainty that this or that happened. I think I'll cast my lot with the analysis that NIST performed. That's why these huge FEA numerical codes were created in the first place - to study problems that are too complex for a pencil and paper solution.

From a purely Occam's kind of standpoint, there was no need to demolish those buildings. Simply flying planes into them would have been a sufficiently hostile act so that Bush would have gotten his wars anyway. And if a more artistic flair was desired, it would have been far simpler to just nuke Manhattan.

[OnTheOtherHand]

85. quite a trick, not talking about things you don't know much about :)

For what it's worth, I can conceive of certain kinds of conspiracies that journalists wouldn't be in a position to break open -- but I agree that a cover-up that includes all major journalists doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Also one that includes all major engineers. And so on.

I haven't kept up on 911forum, but it seems that the missing jolt idea is a "stalemate" in the sense that one can't exactly prove that there cannot have been a demolition, but the demolition doesn't seem to do any useful work (applying Occam's razor at the physical level, never mind the practical level). So, a stalemate in the sense that Tony probably won't change his mind, but not a stalemate from an engineering standpoint, as far as I can tell (although IANAE).

[spooked911]

124. you should read "Into the Buzzsaw"

to see how any brave journalists get censored if they start to cover a topic that the powers that be don't like.

It might get you thinking in a different light about these issues you bring up.

[OnTheOtherHand]

127. pretty much a self-rebutting argument

Now, if you can point to the book where reputable journalists complain that they were censored about the physics of 9/11, you might be on to something.

[spooked911]

129. why is that self-rebutting?

I know, I'm taking a big chance here, that you will be able to actually answer the question in a straight-forward manner.

[OnTheOtherHand]

132. are you really going to punish me for your lousy arguments?

Oh, heck, considering the list of people whom you consider accessories to mass murder, I guess I don't really care whether you consider my posts "straight-forward."

Without having read Into the Buzzsaw, I note that there is a book of (purportedly) leading journalists describing their experiences with censorship. As Flatulo put it, obviously their "corporate master(s)" weren't able to keep them silent.

Combine that with the embarrassing stories that the MSM has actually covered, and... oh, I give up.

[spooked911]

135. yes, because a book that relatively few people will read is EXACTLY the same as

a story covered by a major newspaper or a story on a TV news program.

And yeah, no doubt, the media are SO INCREDIBLY HONEST AND COMPLETE in their coverage, I never need to worry that they would cover-up government wrong-doing.

[zappaman]

136. WHOOSH!

the sound of OTOH's point going over your head...again.