Is anyone interested in Apollo missions...

[Evan Burton]

Thanks for that, Jan. I have no background in news / media, but know from experience that (in Australia at least) media reporting can be wildly wrong, especially when it comes to a chaotic situation. Caveats should be given, and sometimes are - but certainly not always.

I still rely on hard evidence for my views on 9/11. To date, no-one has produced any 'smoking gun' or any verifiable evidence that says it was an inside job, it was MIHOP, LIHOP, etc. Did the current US administration take full political advantage of it? Hell, yes. Did they use it as a pretext for further operations in Afghanistan and Iraq? Hell, yes. Are they covering up for failures in the system that day, systemic or individual, accountable or not? Hell, yes. Did they blow up buildings with controlled demolitions or fly unmanned aircraft / missiles into others? Hell, no. The only facet which might hold some truth is that Flight 93 was shot down by US forces in order to stop it attacking a target, and that the Administration now wants to cover up that incident (even though it would have been an understandable action in the chaos of that day).

I'll review my opinions when I see evidence - not people speaking on subjects which they do not have a background in, not professional giving opions on which the overwhelming majority of their professional peers disagree with, not innuendo and fairy tales.

Evidence. Facts.

(end rant)

Edited April 24, 2008 by Evan Burton

[Maggie Hansen]

http://skeptosis.blogspot.com/2007/02/fire...teel-facts.html

Interesting site.

[Christopher Hall]

Jim Fetzer wrote:

Earlier, at 4:57 PM, the BBC reported that WTC-7 had collapsed, 23 minutes before the event occurred. If anyone wonders whether there is any collusion between the intelligence agencies, the government, and the mass media, I cannot imagine a better example.

On the specific issue of the BBC reporting of the collapse of WTC-7, I have seen the relevant BBC World footage. The version I saw had no timeclock in vision, but it is possible to "sync up" the broadcast by other ways (eg top of the hour news summaries), and as far as I can tell BBC World did report this event before it actually happened.

The FDNY had been predicting for hours that 7 WTC would collapse due structural damaged it sustained when the North Tower collapsed and due to hours of heavy un combated fire on multiple floors. Numerous people who were there attest to this. The people who say the building wasn’t damaged or heavily involved weren’t there. The only person who claims to have been there who says the building wasn’t that heavily damaged is a cop (Bartmer?) who by his own admission only got there a few minutes before the collapse and only came forward after seeing Loose Change. The BBC transmission presumably came after the FD established a “collapse zone” around the building. This has already been discussed at least twice on this forum.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...mp;#entry118839

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...st&p=142987 see posts 25, 32, 35

Funny that ‘truthers’ refuse to deal with this other than to suggest that dozens of firefighters were lying.

why is there no record of other BBC News outlets, or other 24-hour news organizations such as CNN, reporting this information?

Actually CNN said “"we are getting information now that building 7 is on fire and has collapsed or is about to collapse"

Len-

I don't recall what channel I was watching, but I specifically remember that the newsperson said that the FDNY or some other authority said that Bldg 7 was burning and that they expected it to collapse as a result of its structural integrity being compromised.

Shortly thereafter, they said it had, in fact, collapsed.

My beliefs about 911 are based on what I heard and saw that day.

[Ron Ecker]

Did they blow up buildings with controlled demolitions or fly unmanned aircraft / missiles into others? Hell, no.

I would appreciate your comments on the article speculating that Flight 175 was a refitted Boeing 767 tanker (hence the pod on the side of the plane that won't go away, apparently a guidance device), a refitting program with which Dov Zakheim was connected (along with aircraft guidance systems), and why you think it is "hell, no" wrong.

Edited April 24, 2008 by Ron Ecker

[Jack White]

I want to limit my comments strictly to the mechanics or logistics of the BBC broadcasts.

First, I need to make some personal disclosure. In September 2001, I was in America researching a proposed BBC documentary about Jack Welch, who was retiring from GE. Ultimately, this documentary was not made because of access problems. On 11 September, my recce completed, I was staying at a friend's house in Connecticut, and watched the events of 9/11 unfold on network television. By 12 September, a BBC Money Programme Special, "The Cost of Terror", had been commissioned in London, and I was sent down to New York as the field producer for the US side of the story. Because American airspace was closed, the only people the BBC had on the ground were staff/freelancers already physically on the eastern seaboard. Eventually, a special plane was chartered by UK news organizations, and this flew the "name" reporters/presenters and production staff in from the UK via Canada. The final Money Programme focussed on the experiences of Cantor Fitzgerald staff:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/the_...mme/1605109.stm

However, I did personally film for 3 days (12-14 September) in the aftermath of the attacks, and I vividly remember seeing and filming Wall Street covered in thick layers of white powder. It was surreal, like a scene from a science fiction movie. End of disclosure.

Now I am a documentary producer/director. I do not, and have not, worked in News. However, there are certain logistical and technical similarities in the process of film and newsgathering.

I see that at around 8 minutes in to this video clip, BBC News 24 also report on air that the Salomon Brothers building has collapsed. This time there is a timeclock in vision showing 21:54, which syncs up fairly well with the already known BBC World report.

This is significant for the following reasons:

i) it means that both BBC News 24 and BBC World have received information that they believe is sufficiently strong to broadcast that the Salomon Brothers building "has collapsed". The caveat in the BBC News 24 piece is "we are being told that...". The BBC World anchor is even stronger, saying just before handing over to Jane Standley: "you may have heard us talking about the Salomon Brothers building collapsing and indeed it has". Given the breaking news context and the fact that "information" was very difficult to verify as these events unfolded, these statements are not particularly heavily caveated by the BBC;

ii) back in 2001, the BBC rolling news channels were regarded as being slower and more cautious in reporting breaking news than their commercial rivals, such as Murdoch's Sky News in the UK. Yet this is clearly a story that is broken first by the two major BBC news channels. With the only problem being that the BBC is breaking news which hasn't actually happened yet;

iii) Jane Standley, the BBC reporter in New York, is some considerable distance from Ground Zero, and clearly does not understand the precise geography of the WTC complex. There is nothing inherently wrong or suspicious about this - the precise names & identity of the various WTC buildings would not have been crucial knowledge for a BBC reporter prior to 9/11. However, WTC-7 is clearly visible still standing some distance behind her shortly after 17:00 US time, and I think it is unlikely that Standley herself is the direct source for the information that WTC-7 has collapsed;

iv) I note in passing that both BBC News 24 and BBC World name the "collapsed" building as the 47-storey "Salomon Brothers building" rather than as WTC-7. This also suggests that both BBC News channels are relying on the same source for their information that the building has collapsed;

v) my initial response was that the BBC were reporting a press agency (eg Reuters, AP) wire. However, such a context is not given onair as the source by either channel. If there was a wire reporting the collapse at this time, then I would expect other news outlets (eg CNN) to report this wire on air (with appropriate caveats). However the CNN report appears at c17:11 (New York time), with the reporter saying "we are getting information that one of the other buildings in the WTC complex, building 7, is on fire and has either collapsed or is collapsing". The CNN strapline is "Building 7 at WTC on fire, may collapse".

My best guess is that CNN's source is different from the BBC's, for two main reasons:

a) it is less certain, saying the building is on fire and "may collapse", as compared with the more definitive statement - "has collapsed" - from the BBC;

b it identifies the building as WTC-7 and not as the "Salomon Brothers building".

If it was an agency wire report that led the BBC to state that the building has collapsed, there should - somewhere - be a copy of that wire, but I haven't seen it produced in evidence;

vi) it is highly likely that other BBC New York-based staff - either directly employed or freelance stringers - were on the streets far closer to Ground Zero than Jane Standley. For shorthand reasons, let's call these staff "stringers". Now, stringers would have been feeding information directly into BBC editorial staff. In my experience, stringers are usually outstanding journalists, and if one of these reported the information that the "Salomon Brothers building has collapsed" to a BBC editor or producer, that may have been regarded as strong enough for the BBC to broadcast that information.

NB once again, I am a documentary maker, not a News producer. Presumably, there are specific and detailed internal BBC Newsgathering regulations about how to treat such information. So my suggestion above that stringer information "may" have been been regarded as strong enough to justify broadcast needs checking against any such regulations or guidelines. I suspect that the relevant (ranking) BBC Editor would also have had authority to make journalistic judgements as to the reliability and quality of the source and the information.

However, if we assume for the moment that the information may have come from a BBC stringer on the ground, then we're still left with a problem. That stringer cannot have seen with his or her own eyes the collapse of WTC-7 for the simple reason that the building was still standing. So, any stringer must have been relying on secondhand information passed to him or her. Again, for a stringer to state categorically that WTC-7 "has collapsed", the source of the information would have to be highly credible or the stringer would have - by journalistic convention - caveated the information when passing it on to the BBC. In the latter case, the BBC would surely have preserved that caveat when broadcasting the information - especially since none of the American channels were broadcasting this story at that time;

vii) alternately there may have been another source for the information, eg a private briefing to a well-placed BBC correspondent. In this case, there should be a record of such a briefing within the BBC.

In conclusion, the available evidence suggests the BBC had their own source which told them that WTC-7 had collapsed, and that source was sufficiently strong for them to break the news to the world. Now, mistakes do happen in high pressure rolling news situations, but this was a major one.

I should add that large corporations hate admitting that they've made a mistake. This is especially so when the mistake goes to the very core of that corporation's reputation or brand. The BBC brand stands for accurate and objective news reporting. Clearly, the BBC do seem to have wrongly reported that the Salomon Brothers building had collapsed some twenty-odd minutes before it did in fact collapse. Such a mistake does cut to the credibility of the BBC reputation for accuracy, and such an event is therefore highly embarrassing institutionally to the BBC.

Jan... many thanks for providing this highly relevant insider evaluation regarding an important subject.

Jack

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

I don't play cards, but 'see you, and raise you one'! I'll almost bet that a person's belief / view of 911 is related directly to how they see the ligitimacy of the society they are embedded in.

You mean like Chomsky, Ward Churchill, Amy Goodman, Edward Said, Alexander Cockburn etc etc ?

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

No, Len more like the "good leftists" at Encounter Magazine, which was an entirely CIA funded left-gatekeeping operation. Government controlled "dissent" is history not speculation. Any proof that Chomsky, et al are of this ilk today? None, whatsoever. There is no "checks and balance " system in place that would ever offer the public this type of information. Does that mean that we should leave the historical fact of CIA left gatekeeping entirely out of consideration? To do so would be as irrational as to jacuse the Chomper.

Just what are our choices, at a time when there is no limit whatsover on centralized government power? Why do you NEVER think about this vital ingredient of the "conspiracy theory" recipe? By this I mean the total absence of checks and balances both on centralized government power and the centralized control over political information and forums available for its dissemination and discussion.(note that the myriad ways of marginalization of dissident opinion so that they can never have access to anything broad enough to be considered the public sphere, is here considered one means of centralized political control)

[Jack White]

http://skeptosis.blogspot.com/2007/02/fire...teel-facts.html

Interesting site.

Thanks, Maggie...

Interestingly this website is designed to debunk 911 conspiricies by listing other buildings

that PARTIALLY COLLAPSED because of fire. The 3 skyscrapers at WTC TOTALLY COLLAPSED.

That is a significant difference. As one respondent to the blog stated:

"So again, just to re-state the undebunkable truth, prior to 9/11, no steel-framed building

had ever fully collapsed due to fire."

Jack

[Evan Burton]

Did they blow up buildings with controlled demolitions or fly unmanned aircraft / missiles into others? Hell, no.

I would appreciate your comments on the article speculating that Flight 175 was a refitted Boeing 767 tanker (hence the pod on the side of the plane that won't go away, apparently a guidance device), a refitting program with which Dov Zakheim was connected (along with aircraft guidance systems), and why you think it is "hell, no" wrong.

Ron,

If it is the same pod I am thinking about, it is nothing but a part shadow and the normal landing gear nacelle. If you show me the particular one you are referring to, I'll know for sure and if you like, go into more detail why I formed that opinion.

Can aircraft like that be remote controlled? With the proper fitment, yes. The problem is flying it accurately, especially to hit the WTC. Remote control flying is surprisingly different from flying a normal aircraft; you tend to react differently (for lack of a better term). When UAVs first started to become popular in the late 1980s, they found that regular pilots were NOT best suited to fly these aircraft. RC flyers turned out to be far better at flying them. Flying a large remotely piloted aircraft is halfway between; a UAV pilot would find it a little different from normal Global Hawk / Predator flying, and an airline pilot would find it different from flying a normal heavy.

Could such a remotely piloted aircraft be flown into the WTC? With training, yes. They'd have to get used to flying such a large aircraft, and flying it accurately - but it could be done.

Is there any evidence that it was done? No.

There is only speculation. No-one has been able to prove that the aircraft that hit the WTC were not the aircraft they claimed to be. No mysterious bodies have turned up, no aircraft that were destroyed or parts thereof have appeared, no radar tracks of switching of flights have appeared, etc. At best it is speculation without a basis in reality.

Edited April 24, 2008 by Evan Burton
Changed 'gamers' to 'RC flyers'

[Evan Burton]

Does anyone know - is it normal to pay to have your paper published in a peer-reviewed journal? I ask because Dr Jones would appear to have paid $600 to have his article published in that journal. This might be normal procedures, but it sounds strange to me.

[Evan Burton]

"So again, just to re-state the undebunkable truth, prior to 9/11, no steel-framed building

had ever fully collapsed due to fire."

Jack

That might be true for a full collapse - but sections above a fire have fully collapsed.

The Madrid Windsor Building is situated in the heart of the Spanish capital's financial district and was a distinct and familiar landmark on the city's skyline. Built between 1974 and 1978 by architects Alas Casariego, its occupants included high profile corporate clients including accountants Deloitte and Spanish legal firm Garrigues.

The building totalled 32 storeys, with 29 floors above ground and three below. A concrete core and concrete frame supported the first 16 floors. Above that was a central support system of concrete columns, supporting concrete floors with steel perimeter columns. An additional feature was the presence of two 'technical floors' - concrete floors designed to give the building more strength. One was just above the ground level and the other at the 17th floor.

The tower was built using normal strength concrete and before modern fire proofing standards, without any sprinkler system. It was undergoing a complete refurbishment, including the installation of various active fire prevention and resistance measures, when the fire began at around 11pm on 14 February 2005. Fortunately the building was empty of people at the time.

The fire started on the 21st floor and quickly spread both above and below. Upward spread was by means of internal openings made as a result of the refurbishment and the failure of fire stops between the perimeter column and steel/glass façade. Downward spread is thought to have been caused by burning façade debris falling through windows on lower floors.

Because of the height of the structure and the extent of the blaze, firefighters could only mount a containment operation and ensure that neighbouring buildings were protected. The fire eventually finished 26 hours later, leaving a complete burn-out above the fifth floor. The steel-glass façade was completely destroyed, exposing the concrete perimeter columns. The steel columns above the 17th floor suffered complete collapse, partially coming to rest on the upper technical floor. The insurance value of the total damage caused was €122 million.

Crucially, the building remained standing despite the intensity of the fire. An investigation is underway between Spanish technical agency Intemac and UK authorities including Arup Fire, the University of Edinburgh and the concrete industry including Cembureau, BCA and The Concrete Centre. Preliminary findings suggest that a combination of the upper technical floor and the excellent passive fire resistance of the tower's concrete columns and core prevented total building collapse.

The fire is significant in terms of its potential similarities between the collapse of the building's steel frame above the 17th floor and the experience seen at the World Trade Center. Notably, one of the recommendations of NIST's interim report on the World Trade Center disaster is for tall building design to incorporate 'strong points' within the frame.

http://www.concretecentre.com/main.asp?page=1095

[Ron Ecker]

If it is the same pod I am thinking about, it is nothing but a part shadow and the normal landing gear nacelle. If you show me the particular one you are referring to, I'll know for sure and if you like, go into more detail why I formed that opinion.

It is pictured in the article I referenced. Here again is the link:

http://911review.org/brad.com/batcave/Dov_Zakheim_911.html

It does not look like shadow and normal landing gear to me. It looks like something attached to the aircraft. But I guess that refitted Boeing 767s can be in the eye of the beholder, especially if the beholder has reluctant eyeballs.

[Evan Burton]

If it is the same pod I am thinking about, it is nothing but a part shadow and the normal landing gear nacelle. If you show me the particular one you are referring to, I'll know for sure and if you like, go into more detail why I formed that opinion.

It is pictured in the article I referenced. Here again is the link:

http://911review.org/brad.com/batcave/Dov_Zakheim_911.html

It does not look like shadow and normal landing gear to me. It looks like something attached to the aircraft. But I guess that refitted Boeing 767s can be in the eye of the beholder, especially if the beholder has reluctant eyeballs.

Ron, every time I go to that site it redirects me after about 5 or so seconds to another site. Sorry, it's a suspect site IMO. I did see the photo (I think) to which you refer. Is it this one?

If so, it's as I said - the normal nacelle where the main gear goes.

See here for more detailed information.

[Len Colby]

Jan

For the most part I agree with your analysis but with a few 'caveats' :lol:

Len

iv) I note in passing that both BBC News 24 and BBC World name the "collapsed" building as the 47-storey "Salomon Brothers building" rather than as WTC-7. This also suggests that both BBC News channels are relying on the same source for their information that the building has collapsed;

Either that or one go their information from the other

v) my initial response was that the BBC were reporting a press agency (eg Reuters, AP) wire. However, such a context is not given onair as the source by either channel. If there was a wire reporting the collapse at this time, then I would expect other news outlets (eg CNN) to report this wire on air (with appropriate caveats). However the CNN report appears at c17:11 (New York time), with the reporter saying "we are getting information that one of the other buildings in the WTC complex, building 7, is on fire and has either collapsed or is collapsing". The CNN strapline is "Building 7 at WTC on fire, may collapse".

My best guess is that CNN's source is different from the BBC's, for two main reasons:

a) it is less certain, saying the building is on fire and "may collapse", as compared with the more definitive statement - "has collapsed" - from the BBC;

At the 10 second mark, Aaron Brown says: “We are getting information now that one the other buildings, building 7 in the World Trade Center complex is on fire and either has collapsed or is collapsing”

I assume the ultimate source in both cases was the FDNY. Did you play the gane "telephone" when you were a kid?

FDNY - 'the Solomon Brothers Building is about to collapse, We're establishing a collapse zone around it'

CNN "building 7... either has collapsed or is collapsing”

BBC 'we are know being told the Solomon Brothers building has collapsed'

'we are getting reports the Solomon brothers building has collapsed details are sketchy'

These were hardly the only erroneous reports that day, some media outlets reported that flight 93 crashed near Camp David.

[Evan Burton]

Thread created and posts moved.

Edited April 24, 2008 by Evan Burton

[Jack White]

If it is the same pod I am thinking about, it is nothing but a part shadow and the normal landing gear nacelle. If you show me the particular one you are referring to, I'll know for sure and if you like, go into more detail why I formed that opinion.

It is pictured in the article I referenced. Here again is the link:

http://911review.org/brad.com/batcave/Dov_Zakheim_911.html

It does not look like shadow and normal landing gear to me. It looks like something attached to the aircraft. But I guess that refitted Boeing 767s can be in the eye of the beholder, especially if the beholder has reluctant eyeballs.

Ron, every time I go to that site it redirects me after about 5 or so seconds to another site. Sorry, it's a suspect site IMO. I did see the photo (I think) to which you refer. Is it this one?

If so, it's as I said - the normal nacelle where the main gear goes.

See here for more detailed information.

Not the same.

Jack