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The last 4 years have been wonderful! I'm voting for 4 more--not to go back to the 8 previous, which is where Romney is likely to take us. He's the same kind of dimwhit who will have evil minions make ALL the decisions while he golfs, or whatever he does for leisure, like destroy companies and US jobs while he socks more US money away in the Caymans, draining the US economy of capital.
I have been reading Al Gore's Assault on Reason. It's a terrible reminder of how truely awful the Bush & Co years were. Sometimes I stop reading because all that trauma comes back.
There are far too many funny/awful/strange things about 9/11. The demolition-like collapse of the towers and Building 7, how long it took to investigate, the lies that led to invading Iraq, the torture of innocent people--come on, if Bush & Co really wanted to get bin Laden, they would have.
Why aren't these people facing treason charges, at least, and murder, at most?
hb091666: I don't know the answer to that either. I had read that there were pools of molten metal underground...in the sub levels...several weeks after 911 and it hampered the rescuers and workers from doing their jobs. Even IRAS? satellite photos were taken and the site analyzed weeks later and it showed extremely high temperatures.
Yes, I am aware of the Judy Wood theory...I believe her theory was that the towers were zapped from a space station we have in orbit...particle beam weapons. Lawrence Livermore Labs were experimenting with particle beam weapons. But, I know that, in the company I used to work for that made capital equipment for making integrated circuit chips that they had a laser annealer that used a very powerful laser beam and it was very big and heavy...I don't know about particle beam weapons but I imagine they would be pretty heavy and bulky and require an awful lot of power. I can't imagine that they would ever be able to operate in space. Of course, now, if they had some kind of satellite mirror system that could redirect a beam originating on Earth to be aimed and redirected to a target on Earth then maybe it is possible. But I think it is kind of far fetched...really.
There is also some Russian guy who has a theory about miniature atomic bombs being planted in the WTC...I find that pretty incredulous as well. I think all of the real evidence points to nano-thermite combined with conventional explosives.
Incidentally, I understand that Lawrence Livermore Labs was instrumental in creating nano-thermite about 10 years before 911. The nano-thermite chips that was found in the dust and the description of them just made me think of how integrated circuits are made on silicon wafers...different layers could be spun up on a silicon wafer and masked using micro-photolithography and then cut into tiny dies... then they could be suspended in a gel for uniform dispersal and finalized into nano-thermite that could be handled and shaped into a charge. Really creepy to think that I may have helped make some of this possible. And all those chips that go into drones...just kinda ticks me off. Here I thought I was helping to make integrated circuits for the betterment of mankind...like cell phones...I hate cell phones!
I believe that many of these conspiracy theories...especially the wackier ones...are actually disinformation ploys that try to destroy, by association, any theory competing with the official one. It sure seems to work pretty good for them because they still have a lot of people fooled....and too afraid to challenge the official stories.
A bonafide Islamic demon able to land a blow on American soil was pure serendipity for these clowns. 9-11 was Dubya's ticket to re-election.
Palindromedary: I'm neither a physicist nor a chemist. Nonetheless, what is the explanation of the presence of molten metal many weeks after the event?! Where did that energy come from, just nano-thermite? Unless you have answers, those questions are rhetorical. The burning vehicles phenomenon is also very strange. And I'm not a Judy Wood acolyte.
None is so blind as he who refuses to see... The evidence is overwhelming that 9/11 was something entirely other than what our government wants us to believe. That fact in and of itself is damning. But what is more damning is the slowness of the American people, the absence of a vital press to stand up and question, to ask for the truth in the face of the patriotic pablum we were given, the distortion and lies. We had such a press once; Watergate is now part of our history. We should have a 9/11gate but we have no one, apparently, in the journalistic field with sufficient guts to stand up and say: Wait a minute! I agree with the person here who wrote: Shame on you, Thom! Shame on Bill Moyers! And I will add Shame on the NYT and every other news organ and commentator whose business it is to inform the American people and to have sufficient integrity to question nonsense.
21 comments! I beat you! I win! Goodnight!
And there were rescuers up inside the WTC towers right up to the moment they started to collapse...the really hot fires were all localized to the few floors where the planes crashed and they weren't hot enough to melt steel or to even weaken steel to any significant degree. These buildings were designed to take a crash (or even several crashes) of airliners along with the anticipated fires that would ensue. And if those fires would have been hot enough to even weaken the steel then all of the designers, architects, and engineers who had made many statements that the buildings wouldn't come down were either incompetent or lying. And the WTC chief designer, Minoru Yamasaki, would, perhaps, have been the most incompetent. But, I don't think they were lying or incompetent. I believe the WTC buildings came down by demolition. The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond is built almost the same structural design except almost half of the building is underground.
hb091666: And gravity (here on Earth anyway) doesn't melt steel as it would have had to do in order to remove the resistance to free fall that the supporting under structure would have done...because the fire did not light up the whole building..it was localized. The under structure would have been fully intact and resisting free fall.
hb091666: What a coincidence! ie: your dad having the same hypothesis. I didn't even read that anywhere just thought of it as a possibility. Interesting. Does your dad also frequently, like all the time, glance at the clock and see 1:11 or 11:11 or 2:22 or 3:33 etc? It's really freaky! Happens with other things too...receipts and other things. But then I heard from a friend that her friend kept seeing 2:22 all the time too and she died recently, unexpectedly. I sure hope that is not an omen. Not that I believe in such things, of course, nor that what I am experiencing is really out of the ordinary...I don't know...maybe it happens to a lot of people and has absolutely no meaning at all...probably. But, it's freaky just the same!
Yes, I know what you mean about the debris fields of a gravitational collapse versus a demolition. I would not expect a gravitational collapse to hurl huge heavy steel beams hundreds of feet. And all of that dust would not likely have come from just a gravitational collapse...as you say...much of that building, other than the steel beams, was pulverized...except of course, a passport that belonged to one of the alleged hijackers. Imagine that! And just watching the buildings come down...watching the squibs shooting out with such force just milliseconds prior to and several floors beneath the collapse point...man, they looked like explosions.
hb091666: Yes, scary, indeed! Well, if you want to continue voting for the entrenched two-party system..yes, I guess you're stuck with the lessor of two evils. We could vote for an angel...(Jill Stein)...but I don't really know how angelic she really is. She is Jewish but I don't know how attached she would be to the political faction that has control over America now. Some Jews are not the Zionist ones that carry out a form of Apartheid against the Palestinians. Many Jews hate what the radical Israeli government is doing in Palestine (Israel). But her messages are very compelling...just as compelling as Obama was when he campaigned the first time. I just don't think I can vote for Obama again because it would be a vote for the corrupt two party system that is ruled by the oligarchy. I would love to see that two party system thrown out on it's trunk and a$$ just to show them that they don't have us all down to a one or the other choice.
I really don't know much about the Libertarian candidate either. I do know that there used to be two different kinds of Libertarian...liberal ones, believe it or not...they just objected to the government's intrusion into their personal lives...then the conservative ones who want to privatize everything. I think that the later is the one that is usually believed to be dominant and, in my opinion, is as evil as Republicans.
Palindromedary: I like your alternative designed-in explosives hypothesis. When the physical truth of the WTC collapses hit my Dad's consciousness, he instinctively improvised the same hypothesis: talk about a major secret! ;) Yes, even given the overwhelming unlikelihood of their occurrences, gravitational collapses would yield dramatically different debris fields than those of WTC 1, 2 & 7: there would be remnants that are somewhat intact. Besides the melted steel, most of the rest of the contents of those buildings were pulverized to micron sized dust during the collapses. Gravity doesn't provide the energy to do that.
hb091666: Hey, thanks! I missed today's show wearing out my fingers typing. I'll catch it on the internet. Glad to hear it! Thom is really great but I sometimes think he's trying to convince us to vote for Obama (what?!..no kidding?!)...and there is nothing wrong with that if he truly believes that Obama is what is best for us (yes, he certainly would be better than Romney for sure) but I have a more sinister belief that both parties, hence, both candidates are really useful idiots for the ruling elite. Obama may want to do things for the 99% (but, I don't know... he sure doesn't act like it sometimes) but he may have no other choice. For all I know, after candidate Obama won the election the first time, they may have sat him down and told him how things were going to be ...or else. Would they do the same to Jill Stein? Probably! Would Jill Stein be scared into submitting to their dictates? Now, that would be one brave lady..but I'm sure Cheri Honkala could whoop their a$$!
Palindromedary: Scary. In terms of U.S.--us--policy, we are truly stuck with a lesser of evils choice on election day. Obama's unwavering capitulation to the dictates of the War of Terror has unfortunately caused some folks to turn to the strange promises of the good friend of the KKK and Neo-Nazis: Ron Paul. I guess Gary Johnson is carrying the Libertarian torch now; I don't know anything about him but, given his party, I assume he's an asshole.
hb091666: You're welcome! Yes, there have been many buildings either having been hit by aircraft or on fire. Some fires were really terrible...much more terrible than the WTC buildings yet they didn't collapse. The thing is that the debunkers would say that the WTC building was mostly built of steel and had much less concrete to act as a fire barrier which would protect the steel beams and provide more rigidity. That's true. However, the steel beams in the WTC did have asbestos insulation as a protection from fire. As a matter of fact the asbestos was part of the reason why it made some people very happy that the buildings came down. It would have cost a fortune to remove that asbestos and replace it with a different insulation. It really was a nightmare waiting to happen..legal wise and health wise. 911 solved a lot of problems for a lot of people...especially Silverstein.
But, even if the upper floors did collapse...there is just no way that the buildings could fall straight down at free fall speed like that unless demolitions were used. It is a matter of do you believe in physics and science or do you believe in magic? NIST wants us all to believe in magic...or at least their dumb conspiracy theory. Both the WTC towers and the WTC 7 building came straight down in their foot prints. And how can that be when the planes hit the building on one side and the WTC7 fire was on one side. Why would they not have tilted or broken off and come down to their sides?
Now there is one thing that could be possible...that the buildings were built with explosives already planted...or at least planted some time after they were built. The thought here would be similar to the rocket launches...they can be detonated if they look like they are flying off course and can hit a populated area. It could be that many tall buildings, in order to keep them from falling over and wiping out a lot of other buildings full of people, can be detonated to fall in it's foot print. If this was the case, then I sure wouldn't want to be working in any of those buildings. And it might be that they sure don't want people to know about this. But, the problem with that idea is that explosives get temperamental and unstable with age..and they may not do this because of that.
But, of course, the most likely scenario is that they planted the explosives in the months and weeks prior to 911.
Palindromedary: Excellent summary, to me that's the crux of the 9/11 Truth argument. Debunk that ye motherfuckers.
hb091666: I believe there is a difference between Bush and Obama in some things...and Obama may even want to do the right thing for America...I can't believe this of Bush or Romney.
I guess it depends on what one means when one says "America", the Ultra-rich America--the 1% (or as Bush bragged before his constituents...his base); or, "America"-- the 99% of people who are suffering under the Draconian and Machiavellian rule of the 1%.
And a large part of that 99% voted for Obama believing in him... just to find that the first thing he does is appoint the very same wolves who destroyed our economy to overlord over it.
He takes a healthcare bill, written in large part by Romney and the insurance companies, and hocks it off as something we should praise him for.
He gets out of Iraq (sort of) but only on the timetable originally agreed to by Bush.
He gives the ok to kill OBL, but not to capture him, and they illegally invaded Pakistan's sovereign space killing several other men along with OBL. Cold blooded murder is Cold Blooded Murder! This should be a war crime and probably is! I've read Matt Bissonette's (come on, now, Fox news already outed the guy) book (chapters 15 & 16) detailing the murder of those men. Very gruesome and was totally unwarranted. I watched Matt Bissonette on 60 minutes and while 60 minutes hypocritically said they would not use his real name (although I thought I heard them say it once during that broadcast) they did mention that a cable channel already outed him...failing to mention Fox...but it was Fox.
Obama continues to murder civilians with his drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The US is still there, occupying and murdering people, and creating the atmosphere where hundreds of thousands of people are willing to do jihad against us.
Despite TSA making such ridiculous harassing gestures, taking away mother's baby milk and nail files and groping people...the international flights I was on (every one) gave out stainless steel, sharp, serrated edged dinner knives on international flights going and coming.
And studies have shown that the TSA are not very effective in screening for weapons...as a very high number of weapons have been smuggled past the check points.
It's not the "terrorists" they are trying to catch...it's all about creating the atmosphere of fear...so they can control us...and do it "in our faces" (and crotches)! Next? Cavity searches?...now won't that be fun?
Oh, but wait! That already happened to one poor woman who told her story on Wordsmith. She was half Palestinian sitting next to two Indian men on the plane flying into Phoenix. They stopped the plane on the tarmac and dozens of cops with powerful weapons boarded the plane...told everyone to put their heads down and their hands on top of the seat in front. They then handcuffed the woman and the two Indian men and put each one in a dirty 4'x6' cell with a filthy toilet. She suffered the indignity of temporary imprisonment, repeated questioning, and they did a cavity search on her. They let her go and she went home to her awaiting husband.
Palindromedary: Exactly, as Thom would say, very well said! Abby Martin and Media Roots are fantastic. Ditto RT. At the end of Thom's show today, his response to a caller, who questioned the official account of the building collapses, was that there should be a new investigation. Due to his usual brilliance and erudition, Thom has become one of my heroes, and hearing him say that was so damn vindicating!
hb091666: I believe there is a difference between Bush and Obama in some things...and Obama may even want to do the right thing for America...I can't believe this of Bush or Romney.
I guess it depends on what one means when one says "America", the Ultra-rich America--the 1% (or as Bush bragged before his constituents...his base); or, "America"-- the 99% of people who are suffering under the Draconian and Machiavellian rule of the 1%.
And a large part of that 99% voted for Obama believing in him... just to find that the first thing he does is appoint the very same wolves who destroyed our economy to overlord over it.
He takes a healthcare bill, written in large part by Romney and the insurance companies, and hocks it off as something we should praise him for.
He gets out of Iraq (sort of) but only on the timetable originally agreed to by Bush.
He gives the ok to kill OBL, but not to capture him, and they illegally invaded Pakistan's sovereign space killing several other men along with OBL. Cold blooded murder is Cold Blooded Murder! This should be a war crime and probably is! I've read Matt Bissonette's (come on, now, Fox news already outed the guy) book (chapters 15 & 16) detailing the murder of those men. Very gruesome and was totally unwarranted. I watched Matt Bissonette on 60 minutes and while 60 minutes hypocritically said they would not use his real name (although I thought I heard them say it once during that broadcast) they did mention that a cable channel already outed him...failing to mention Fox...but it was Fox.
Obama continues to murder civilians with his drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The US is still there, occupying and murdering people, and creating the atmosphere where hundreds of thousands of people are willing to do jihad against us.
Despite TSA making such ridiculous harassing gestures, taking away mother's baby milk and nail files and groping people...the international flights I was on (every one) gave out stainless steel, sharp, serrated edged dinner knives on international flights going and coming.
And studies have shown that the TSA are not very effective in screening for weapons...as a very high number of weapons have been smuggled past the check points.
It's not the "terrorists" they are trying to catch...it's all about creating the atmosphere of fear...so they can control us...and do it "in our faces" (and crotches)!
Palindromedary, thanks for this information about how WTC 1 & 2 were designed to withstand the impacts of fully loaded 707s. It serves as a good rebuttal to Ken Ware's assertion in #17. In 1945, a B-25 crashed into the Empire State Building, and it didn't materially dissociate at near free-fall.
Right on, Tomcalwriter1! I have watched a number of those documentaries and will, no doubt, watch them again. I am glad that most of us have not been hoodwinked by the criminals that have taken over this country...maybe there is still hope. Now, if we can only get Thom Hartmann and others in the media to take a good look at the evidence and brave it out enough to publicly question the government's official conspiracy theory. I bet Abby Martin, of Russia Today would speak out...she is very outspoken...Yay! Abby!
Thanks for that link, whateverittakes! I liked your reference to Raskolnikov in Dostoyevsky's novel Crime and Punishment because that is very similar to how the Bush Administration dealt with 911 except this group is nothing like an impoverished student...they already own most of the world but want more....which makes them even more evil.
But, yes, the Bush administration did everything they could to cover up and prevent an investigation...and then, finally, they rigged up a faux investigation for the purpose of further impeding the truth to the public.
"scandal of treasonous proportions"
That's what I think...exactly! And thanks for posting those connections to the insurance company and to the security of the WTC buildings. I had mentioned them before but forgot their names at that time.
And, you are probably right about Bush...he may have been just a small player in all of this. It may have been way over his head and he just went along, perhaps? And, of course, that goes for Obama, now, as well...way over his head...and he knows it. That may be why Bush looked like the cat that swallowed the canary when reading that goat book...frozen in his tracks. Or, like a "deer caught in the head lights". Like..."oh, sh!t, they really, really did do this after all!" Bush was the President, and as all Presidents seem to take the heat for every bad thing that happens because they are very visible. I think there is a very powerful group (don't even know what to call them...some might have names but I never really got into any of those "conspiracy theories" ;-} )
JFK didn't want to have anything to do with Operation Northwoods and, who knows, may have been part of the reason they terminated him.
I believe that FDR had his conspiracy as well...in the Pearl Harbor attack. Another instance where they decided to bait the enemy and sacrifice thousands in order to control the people. It worked then so well then that the neocons thought it a good idea in planning 911..they already had lots of ideas from Operation Northwoods.
"And now those of us who thought we were voting for change and would somehow get to the bottom of what we knew in our heart of hearts was not evil in some axis spanning other parts of the globe, but right before us in Washington DC, now we are left with a gaping disillusionment that increases each day with new reports about this whistleblower, that CIA informant, the newest and latest enemy of the State."
whateverittakes: that's an amazing statement! On this eleventh anniversary of 9/11, you said what I feel better than I could. This is why some people (inaccurately) see no difference between Obama and Bush.
I believe there were a number of reasons that 911 was carried out..aside from the obvious...excuse to invade the Middle East, control the oil, and as a strategic place for yet more military bases. What, I think, many people are missing is that the neocons and neoliberals had been pillaging us for 30 years...overturning laws that protected us from the ravages of banksters and Wall Street. America was converted from a manufacturing base economy to a finance economy where it was easier to steal our money. Businesses were trying to maximize their short term profits in any way they could...at first, it was reducing wages and benefits and demanding more productivity. Then they started shipping our jobs overseas...and many people had previously bought into the "buy now before it is too late" philosophy in home ownership. The Fed was artificially keeping their rates low...like practically free money to the banks and they would make a killing on higher rates. But the real scam was they made it really easy, initially, for people to buy homes. They even pushed liars loans to many people who really didn't know any better. The increased sales..sellers market...artificially spiked home prices. Then bust...the balloon burst and people lose their homes to the banks.
There were also casino capitalist scams...derivatives, various ponzi schemes.....liars ratings...and then there were all of the illegal bonds that were stored in one of the WTC towers that were to come due on 912 that would have caused a real scandal. Bank vaults inside the WTC towers were cleaned out (note: it would have taken a long time...longer than they had since the 1st airliner crash...to clean out the vaults. There were also many very suspect trades done just prior to the disaster. And then there were the investigations of illegal economic actions by various large corporations that had records stored in the WTC towers and in that side of the Pentagon that got hit. Enron and the others that got caught was just the very tip of the ice berg.
Finally, 911 made people very afraid and extremely, irrationally, xenophobic and jingoistic. Instead of being concerned about the myriad of companies like Enron in line to be prosecuted the people were now concerned about Muslim Terrorists, crop dusters...be sure to tape up those windows and door! There was no longer any resolve, even by those in the know, the investigators, law enforcement, Congress, and apparently even now, Obama, to investigate and prosecute. The pansies are just saying "let's just look to the future and not dwell on the past".
Now they have us where they want us...without the freedoms we had before and spying on us and can even, just like the KGB, abduct us from our homes, send us to Gitmo and torture us. It could happen. It has happened.
What I learned from 9/11 is that we Americans are easily scared and once scared can be led around like sheep.