Ever since Skeptic magazine published an investigative article on the 9/11 "Truth Movement" and analyzed their claims, which were found wanting, I have been hounded by the so-called 9/11 "truthers" because I am the editor of the magazine and therefore am suppose to be a "skeptic" of the official explanation for 9/11.
In fact, throughout January I have been on a book tour for The Mind of the Market, my book on behavioral economics and evolutionary economics, and at every event during the Q & A one of these "truthers" pretends to ask a question about economics but then quickly shifts to a rant about what "really happened" on September 11, 2001.
At my appearance at Powell's bookstore in Portland, Oregon, for example, someone with a video camera captured the rambling screed and posted it on YouTube the same night.
For my appearance in Seattle, my web meister, Emrys Miller, came prepared with a video camera just in case the "troofers" showed up. Sure enough, one did.
There was no need for a camera in Philadelphia, as the 9/11 conspiratorialists came prepared with their own recording equipment, and captured the moment here.
They subsequently appeared at my events at Books Inc. in Mountain View, California, Kepler's Books in Menlo Park, California, and at UCLA. What's going on here? As Bill Maher discovered one day during the taping of his HBO series "Real Time," their goal is just to be heard--in any venue at any time under any circumstances. In spring of 2005, for example, I gave a lecture at the Los Angeles Public Library, after which I was buttonholed by a documentary filmmaker with Michael Mooreish ambitions of exposing the "truth" about the 9/11 conspiracy, and he wanted to know if he could interview me. I responded, "you mean the conspiracy by Osama bin Laden and his nineteen Al-Qaeda operatives to fly planes into buildings?"
"That's what they want you to believe," he said.
"Who is 'they'," I queried.
"The government," he whispered in hushed tones, as if "they" might actually be listening in at that very moment.
"Yeah, well, 'the government' is a little vague for me," I suggested. "Who in the government wants me to believe that Al-Qaeda did it?"
"The Bush administration," was the by now predictable answer.
"But didn't Osama and some members of Al-Qaeda not only say they did it," I reminded him, "they gloated about what a glorious triumph it was over America and western capitalism, materialism, and secularism?"
"Oh, you're talking about that video of Osama," he exclaimed knowingly. "That was faked by the C.I.A. and leaked to the American press to mislead us. There has been a disinformation campaign going on ever since 9/11."
"How do you know?" I inquired.
"Because of all the unexplained anomalies surrounding 9/11," he answered.
"Such as?"
"Such as the fact that steel melts at a temperature of 2,777 degrees Fahrenheit, but jet fuel burns at only 1,517 degrees Fahrenheit. No melted steel, no collapsed towers."
At this point I ended the conversation and declined to be interviewed, knowing precisely where the dialogue was going next--if I cannot explain every single minutia about the events of that fateful 11th day in September, 2001, that lack of knowledge, in his mind at least, equates to direct proof that 9/11 was orchestrated by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the CIA in order to implement their plan for global domination and a New World Order, to be financed by G.O.D. (Gold, Oil, Drugs) and launched by a Pearl Harbor-like attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, thereby providing the justification for war. The evidence is there in the details, he explained, handing me faux dollar bill ("9-11" replacing the "1" and Bush supplanting Washington) choc-a-block full of web sites. Where I have heard all this before?
In the early 1990s I launched a full-scale investigation of the Holocaust deniers, initially as the cover story for Skeptic magazine and subsequently expanded into a book length treatment, Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say it? The deniers employ this tactic of anomalies-as-proof to great effect. David Irving, for example, claims that there are no holes in the roof of the gas chamber at Krema 2 at Auschwitz-Birkenau. So what? So plenty, he says. No holes in the roof of the gas chamber at Krema 2 means that the eyewitness account of SS guards climbing up on the roof and pouring Zyklon-B gas pellets through the holes and into the gas chamber below where the prisoners were herded into, means that the eyewitness account is wrong, which means that no one was gassed in Krema 2, which means that no one was gassed at Auschwitz-Birkenau, which means that no one was gassed at any prison camp, which means that no Jews anywhere were systematically exterminated by the Nazis. In short, "no holes, no Holocaust," says David Irving, a slogan emblazoned on t-shits of his supporters at his London trial in which he sued a historian for calling him a Holocaust denier.
No holes, no Holocaust. No melted steel, no Al-Qaeda attack. The parallels are equal, and equally flawed. And just as I never imagined that Holocaust denial would wend its way into the mainstream press (Irving's trial was front page news for months), after my above conversation with the filmmaker I never imagined that 9/11 denial would get media legs. But now it has legs for days, and so we have been forced to provide a public response. To read our complete analysis of the claims of the 9/11 conspiracy theorists, go here.
"DYLAN AVERY [Loose Change]: It would have had to have been a controlled demolition. That’s the only way to prove—that’s the only way to explain what we saw with our own eyes, and any attempts to discredit that are just not scientifically sound.
JAMES MEIGS [Editor, Popular Mechanics]: You know, this is a wonderful example of how conspiracy theories work. Any time there’s a little bit of doubt, a little bit of area where we don’t know everything, then the answer immediately is, well, someone must have blown it up. It’s a form of argumentation that’s also used by creationists. If they can find one little gap in the evolutionary record, they say evolution’s a hoax. Or Holocaust deniers—
DYLAN AVERY: Mr. Meigs, with all do respect, these are two completely different things."
Notice the similarity of Meigs & Shermer's language? They are using the same disinformation tactics and talking points [Holocaust denial]. Coincidence, or pushing the government's 9/11 propaganda? Popular Mechanics is a Hearst publication. Benjamin Chertoff, the researcher who authored the PM 9/11 article, is related to Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Dpt. of Homeland Security (DHS). The PM article illustrates how a propaganda method, used by dictatorships, is now being employed by the U.S. government: controlling mainstream media outlets to promote its version of 9/11.
Looks line Kean and Hamilton are saying the Bush administration committed obstruction of justice. Does Shermer say Kean and Hamilton are liars?
http://www.911research.wtc7.net/essays/sciam/index.html
"Shermer uses an array of deceptive methods to persuade the reader that challenges to the official story of the 9/11 attack are worthy only of ridicule and should not be scrutinized. His primary technique is to use hoaxes and unscientific ideas -- long promoted on the web and in videos -- to bracket the valid ideas that he seeks to shield the reader from. That Shermer went to such great lengths to thoroughly misrepresent the painstaking, scientific, evidence-based work of 911Research is a testament to the site's success." Jim Hoffman
I just found a video of her being interviewed by Dr. Greg Jenkins about her theory that space based energy beam weapons destroyed the WTC towers. Here's the interview. It's a very painful thing to watch. This is very sad; I feel very bad for her. I'm finished here. If anyone thinks she has credibility on this we have nothing to discuss.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-558096240694803017
However, you appear to be presenting yourself as an engineering expert on the subject, and I suspect you are not. This could violate your terms of licensing with your state board of registration.
1. If the building did pancake, what happened to the core steel columns? Pancaking at free fall speed is nonsense.
2. Where is the hole in the Pentagon? For anyone to say the plane fit in that hole is blind. Where are all the Pentagon security videos?
3. Moulton steel.
4. Visible explosions and clear sound of explosions.
5. Hundreds of eye witnesses. Who are you going to believe? Bush admin. or eye witnesses and experts (police and firefighters).
6. Phillip Zelikow was really in charge of the 9/11 investigation. That is clearly a cover-up.
7. Marvin Bush was in charge of security at WTC, Dullas Airport and United Airlines. Coincidence?
8. PNAC
9. Cheney - just look at him.
10. Bush - just a puppet to act stupid so no one would believe they can pull off such an operation.
I can go on forever.
GoBlue
Ten Steps to Fascism, by Naomi Wolf
1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy 2. Create a gulag 3. Develop a thug caste 4. Set up an internal surveillance system 5. Harass citizens' groups 6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release 7. Target key individuals 8. Control the press 9. Dissent equals treason 10. Suspend the rule of law.
http://www.pumpitout.com/audio/danny_jowenko_022207.mp3
He later states in the audio that any controlled demolition company in the United States would be "gone" if they voiced the opinion that building 7 was brought down by a controlled demolition.
Here's a Dutch TV show about it. Look Like Jowenko isn't down with the explosives thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkZMQAC95kI
"Peter Tully, president of Tully Construction of Flushing, New York, told AFP that he saw pools of "literally molten steel" at the World Trade Center. Tully was contracted on September 11 to remove the debris from the site.Tully called Mark Loizeaux, president of Controlled Demolition, Inc. (CDI) of Phoenix, Maryland, for consultation about removing the debris. CDI calls itself "the innovator and global leader in the controlled demolition and implosion of structures." Loizeaux, who cleaned up the bombed Federal Building in Oklahoma City, arrived on the WTC site two days later and wrote the clean-up plan for the entire operation. AFP asked Loizeaux about the report of molten steel on the site. "Yes," he said, "hot spots of molten steel in the basements." These incredibly hot areas were found "at the bottoms of the elevator shafts of the main towers, down seven [basement] levels," Loizeaux said. The molten steel was found "three, four, and five weeks later, when the rubble was being removed," Loizeaux said. He said molten steel was also found at 7 WTC, which collapsed mysteriously in the late afternoon. Construction steel has an extremely high melting point of about 2,800° Fahrenheit (1535° Celsius). Asked what could have caused such extreme heat, Tully said, "Think of the jet fuel." Loizeaux told AFP that the steel-melting fires were fueled by "paper, carpet and other combustibles packed down the elevator shafts by the tower floors as they 'pancaked' into the basement."
Kerosene-based jet fuel, paper, or the other combustibles normally found in the towers, however, cannot generate the heat required to melt steel, especially in an oxygen-poor environment like a deep basement. Eric Hufschmid, author of a book about the WTC collapse, Time for Painful Questions, told AFP that due to the lack of oxygen, paper and other combustibles packed down at the bottom of elevator shafts would probably be "a smoky smoldering pile."
Here's what he has to say.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzGd0t8v-d4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoDqDvbgeXM
http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/
Those who believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
-Votaire
Len Hart addresses this article and provides some interesting rebuttal. The burden is on the Bush administration to explain the entire event and so far they have failed to meet that burden of proof in the eyes of the world.
I have conducted forensic investigations for thirty years. I was invited to Vienna to present projects to the International Association of Material Failure Engineers. I have worked with metallurgical engineers who have Ph.D s and their certificates in metallurgical engineering, specializing in failure analysis.
Metal failure is a science. It isn't about politics or belief.
The failure to secure the crime scene from tampering and destruction of evidence and the outright fabrication of the reasons for war have left this administration without any credibility in this country or in the world. If you want to really know what happened you need to be able to fly an airplane and perform a microscopic analysis of the metal by obtaining a sample and performing an assay, the performing the "fractology" with a scanning electron microscope. Photographs are compared to ANSI standards. The "heat experience" of the metal can then be determined.
I would venture to say that you have done neither the necessary piloting of multi-engine aircraft nor the metallurgical engineering, to form an opinion, and, therefore have little other than your "beliefs" to add to the discussion. The evidence at the crime scene was tampered with and destroyed. You have cited no evidence of any kind. Comparing holocaust denying to the 9-11 tragedy adds nothing but to show that you are grasping for a basis for your own lay opinions based on your having accepted a proposition and/or conclusion without any evidence nor the requisite expertise.
The secretness and lies that have been revealed so far, have made it painfully clear, even the corrupt mass media cannot hold back the truth forever!
This cur administration is guilty of many impeachable offences, to the everlasting shame of the craven Dems who have failed to protect and defend the Constitution, as the blood of the innocent and the shreds of that sacred document roil around our ankles; history will be a harsh judge. No cloud being will have to intervene; the specter of those tortured and killed in our name, will haunt us all for all time.
The only path to redemption is to have every aspect of that day gone over with a fine tooth comb by people with nothing to gain or lose..
After all, if all is as it has been reported, by the lap dog media, a through examination should be welcomed. Right?