Is anyone interested in Apollo missions...

[John Simkin]

I posted a reply to Monbiot's post which seems to have disappeared. Can anyone offer or venture an explanation?

I know nothing about this. Why don't you try posting it again? Or send it to me and I will post it for you.

[Ron Ecker]

I posted a reply to Monbiot's post which seems to have disappeared. Can anyone offer or venture an explanation?

I know nothing about this. Why don't you try posting it again? Or send it to me and I will post it for you.

John,

Steve has pointed out what happened. Sorry for my confusion.

Ron

[Steve Ulman]

Okay, tell me this. Does the person in this link look at all like Bin Laden?

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200512/2...227_231145.html

No - and I'm sure the subject is greatful!

[John Geraghty]

I enjoyed reading George's article this morning, in fact, I read it on the forum before I had a chance to read it in the guardian. Perhaps this is another example of the changing face of the media. He is correct in his assessment on loose change. The makers of the film continually refuse to accept expert advice on the topic, including the research from the magazine 'popular mechanics'. See here a debate between the makers of loose change and two writers from popular mechanics,

.

The general demeanour of the film makers is adolsecent at best. Their research is exposed as highly flawed and has served to discredit their 'cause' more than highlight it. The very people whose research they based their film on have denounced them (Michael Ruppert).

I am particularly glad that this article appeared in a publication such as the guardian. In publishing this, it distances the left from the less credible elements of political and critical research.

I had considered writing an article not too different from George's article for a new publication that I am starting up. I don't think that it can be bettered, so I shall leave it be.

Just to continue the theme of the 'chaning face of the media', I am currently establishing an alternative newspaper in my college. In addition to a print publication, the paper will be available online in blog form, allowing immediate reader comment. To my knowledge, we will be the first Irish student newspaper to do so.

John Geraghty

[Anthony Thorne]

"But whoever grabbed that frame clearly saw the rest of the video and had dishonest reasons for picking that particular frame out of it instead of the thousands of others that look just like him."

That's a novel suggestion. As I understand it, the Osama-the-stout pic on the left was the one supplied by the US in December 2001, and the rest of the video looks just like it. They look like two different people to me.

I've seen the various Guardian anti-conspiracy pieces, and note that the Guardian has also printed pieces leaning strongly in the opposite direction by Michael Meacher and Gore Vidal. Their articles seemed more persuasive to me than the one above. Likewise, quoting the NIST piece as conclusive proof of how the WTC collapsed doesn't convince me in the light of the detailed critiques of it that have appeared in the writings of David Ray Griffin and the long, extensive 9/11 MYSTERIES doco. Forget LOOSE CHANGE (which I've never seen, and don't need to) - the 9/11 MYSTERIES doco features audio recordings of firefighters that heard explosions, footage of a dozen or more eyewitnesses that saw explosions, an audio recording of a firefighter describing the internal blaze as small and isolated, footage of the oxygen-starved fires belching 'cool' black smoke, and so on and so on.

Where are the structural engineers, the materials scientists, the specialists in ballistics, explosives or fire?

Many of those are featured in 9/11 MYSTERIES, which runs for almost two hours, is solely devoted to discussing the collapses and which has convinced everyone I've shown it to. Maybe it's LOOSE CHANGE with a brain... It's easily viewable on GoogleVideo for anyone that cares.

If there is one universal American characteristic, it is a confessional culture that permits no one with a good story to keep his mouth shut.

John Ashcroft places a gag order on Sibel Edmonds, folks who knew Atta in Florida are advised by the FBI to keep their mouths shut... the 'Jersey Girls' 9/11 widows have slammed the 9/11 commission report as ignoring 80% of their requested questions.. Bush and Cheney demand that their 9/11 testimony be kept private, with note books confiscated... an FAA official cuts an audio recording tape into pieces.. Of course, none of this happened in the happy-go-lucky world of the article above, where all government officials are chatty and gabby and the Commission Report members were all ears to criticism.

At one point, the presenter asks: "So what brought down the twin towers? Let's ask the experts." But they don't ask the experts.... The only people they interview are a janitor, a group of firemen, and a flight instructor...none of the participants in this monumental crime has sought to blow the whistle - before, during or after the attacks. No one has volunteered to tell the greatest story ever told.

The articles focus on LOOSE CHANGE as the source for all opposition to the official story seems clearer after this comment, as only someone really keen to avoid the more difficult questions would bother. A single click to the link below -

http://patriotsquestion911.com/

- gives a long and literally tiring list of of former and sitting US Senators, former and current US military officers, members of the prior Reagan and Bush administrations, former members of MI5, journalists foreign and domestic (including Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg), scientists and ex-members of the CIA (including Ray McGovern), all of whom couldn't be any clearer or blunter in their unhappiness with the official story and their suspicion that there is a cover-up. Perhaps all these government and intelligence officials were happy with the official story until they saw LOOSE CHANGE, in which case I should probably thank the author for pinpointing LOOSE CHANGE alone as the source of all those niggly questions.

The film's greatest flaw is this: the men who made it are still alive. If the US government is running an all-knowing, all-encompassing conspiracy, why did it not snuff them out long ago? There is only one possible explanation.

The explanation here is that any figure in any walk of life - policeman, doctor, lawyer - can commit a crime, or be accused of criminal activity, but as soon as a high-level government politician is involved it's a 'stuff up', a big mistake, and something where criticisms get dismissed by mainstream journalists in jocular fashion and the politicians get the benefit of the doubt, because criminal activity is impossible and those politicians, evidence of corruption and deceit notwithstanding, all ultimately have our best wishes at heart. Rather than bothering with the teenybopper LOOSE CHANGE boys, I'd love it if 'conspiracy theory' boosters bothered to tackle the comments made by Ray McGovern, Robert Baer, Barbara Honegger and countless other harder-to-dismiss authorities at the link above, but I suspect those criticisms would prove harder for the lifestyle page at The Guardian to nervously reduce to a comic hit-piece for the ill-informed.

[Kevin M. West]

"But whoever grabbed that frame clearly saw the rest of the video and had dishonest reasons for picking that particular frame out of it instead of the thousands of others that look just like him."

That's a novel suggestion. As I understand it, the Osama-the-stout pic on the left was the one supplied by the US in December 2001,

Possibly, I haven't dug up the origin of that specific frame. But the government didn't just release that one frame, so the same point still applies, why does the conspiracy theorist pick the worst of the bunch, mess with the quality of the image, and ignore the rest of the video?

and the rest of the video looks just like it. They look like two different people to me.

This site has some more images from the same video, looks like him to me.

http://www.september11news.com/OsamaEvidence.htm

[Anthony Thorne]

why does the conspiracy theorist pick the worst of the bunch, mess with the quality of the image...

I haven't seen evidence of either of those assertions. That still frame of the 'fat' Osama appeared in regular mainstream papers here in Australia at the time of the original story, and looked no better then. Thanks for the link with still images from the rest of the video - are you basically suggesting that the 'fat' Osama pic has been deliberately adjusted or distorted in Photoshop or something by a 'conspiracy theorist'?

I've seen a number of reports online, and some in print, that questioned the validity of the translation. I'm at work so no time to be as indepth as my previous post but

http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/16801

is a random example. More to the point, there are transcripts around of Bin Laden statements prior to December where OBL denies direct involvement, though he still registers general approval, and there's a longish interview around with Al-Jazeera journalist Abid Ullah Jan (who interviewed Bin Laden a couple of months before 9/11) who states point blank that he's seen the video and it's not the same guy. Without immediate links to these I don't expect them to immediately change your point of view, but I thought I'd mention them.

Edited February 7, 2007 by Anthony Thorne

[Don Jeffries]

"Loose Change" is more credible than the official account of what happened on 9/11, no matter how many alleged "mistakes" are in it. What is undeniable is the fact that our state-of-the-art defense system stood silent and didn't react at all for over an hour while hijacked planes were flying into the WTC and even directly over Washington, D.C. If our defense system isn't triggered to react when a known hijacked plane is flying directly towards the Pentagon-the heart of the our defense system-then the taxpayers certainly have a right to demand an accounting of where the trillions they've spent on all those magnificant missiles and fighter planes went. Remember, just a few years prior to 9/11, the plane that professional golfer Payne Stewart was flying in didn't respond to radio communication. Within 15 minutes, two fighter planes were riding abreast of Stewart's plane, to ensure it didn't crash in a populated area. If NORAD is designed to respond like that to a single plane that is not responding to radio communication, how can anyone believe they didn't respond at all on 9/11, especially after the second plane hit the WTC?

This is a complex issue, much like the JFK assassination. Instead of discrediting people who are trying their best to bring out issues the mainstream press will never touch, we ought to focus on questions like; why did WTC building 7 collapse? Nothing hit it- so the jet fuel argument won't fly. Before 9/11, no high-rise building in the world had ever collapsed from fire. None have since. On 9/11, three did, and one of them was not hit by any plane. There are so many aspects of this case to investigate. For instance, there are witnesses who were in the basement of the World Trade Center North, who experienced what to them was an explosion IN THE BASEMENT at the time the first plane struck. The walls crumbled, there was a loss of power, and they were lucky to get out of there alive. One of them (sorry, would have to look up the name, but I believe he was hispanic) became a hero when he rescued several people from the crumbling basement, and was even interviewed locally in the immediate aftermath and lauded for his bravery. He later appeared on a radio show (probably Alex Jones or Black Ops- don't imagine anyone else would interview him) and expressed surprise at being ignored completely after that. Of course, the media had to ignore him, because even they couldn't explain how a plane hitting a building 80 stories above could cause significant damage to the basement.

I don't see how anyone who has studied the JFK assassination, with all the lies, distortions and the massive coverup (which is still ongoing) can not see the parallels in the 9/11 "investigation." Those who conspired to murder JFK didn't suddenly become evil in November, 1963, and then suddenly go back to being good and non-conspiratorial afterwards. Those who rule us are seemingly always conspiring against us, to maintain their hold on power.

[Evan Burton]

Remember, just a few years prior to 9/11, the plane that professional golfer Payne Stewart was flying in didn't respond to radio communication. Within 15 minutes, two fighter planes were riding abreast of Stewart's plane, to ensure it didn't crash in a populated area. If NORAD is designed to respond like that to a single plane that is not responding to radio communication, how can anyone believe they didn't respond at all on 9/11, especially after the second plane hit the WTC?

This is a common error; it took about 80 minutes for the aircraft to be intercepted.

At about 0933 EDT, the aircraft failed to respond to calls from ATC. At about 0954 CDT, the F-16 was alongside the aircraft. The difference between EDT and CDT at the time was 1 hour. That makes the intercept time about 80-odd minutes.

[Evan Burton]

...why did WTC building 7 collapse? Nothing hit it- so the jet fuel argument won't fly...

Don,

The firefighters on-scene reported that the collapse of WTC 1 & 2 damaged WTC 7 - so much so that they reported "...about a 20 story hole ..." in the side of WTC 7.

Wasn't this a factor in its collapse? If not, why not?

Thanks.

[Len Colby]

Likewise, quoting the NIST piece as conclusive proof of how the WTC collapsed doesn't convince me in the light of the detailed critiques of it that have appeared in the writings of David Ray Griffin and the long, extensive 9/11 MYSTERIES doco. Forget LOOSE CHANGE (which I've never seen, and don't need to) - the 9/11 MYSTERIES doco features audio recordings of firefighters that heard explosions, footage of a dozen or more eyewitnesses that saw explosions, an audio recording of a firefighter describing the internal blaze as small and isolated, footage of the oxygen-starved fires belching 'cool' black smoke, and so on and so on.

9/11 MYSTERIES which you are so enamored of has already been critiqued on this forum I only watched the 1st 20 - 30 minutes or so and found numerous errors and distortions and gave up. For example the fireman who said the fire was small was referring to his location which was a fire protected stairwell on a floor NIST itself said only had limited fires. Griffin isn’t much better many of his claims are unsourced or drawn upon sources that don’t document their claims he once even cited the manual of a consumer computer flight simulator as a source regarding FAA policy. He also suffers from a sever misunderstanding of fire engineering. He for example claimed that because some steel framed buildings stood after 10 hours of fire that steel frames could withstand 10 hours of exposure. Sounds reasonable except the same area isn’t continuously on fire for that amount of time, fire burns until all the flammable material has been consumed and by then has spread to other areas.

As for the explosions HEARD (there are only 1 or 2 reports of seeing explosions) 1) many things can produce explosions like noise and lots of things (like transformers and stores of flammable cleaning, photocopying etc supplies) that aren’t bombs would have exploded in the towers. There were reports of explosions in the Edifico Windsor fire in Madrid as well, do you think there were bombs there too? As for the smoke find me a fire fighter or fire engineer who agrees with the inside jobbers that the fires in the towers were weak.

Where are the structural engineers, the materials scientists, the specialists in ballistics, explosives or fire?

Many of those are featured in 9/11 MYSTERIES, which runs for almost two hours.

As I stated above I only got through the 1st few minutes before I gave up because it was such crap. Perhaps you can tell us the names and credentials of these experts and at what point they appear. Funny that no other truth sites seem to have cited them.

If there is one universal American characteristic, it is a confessional culture that permits no one with a good story to keep his mouth shut.

John Ashcroft places a gag order on Sibel Edmonds, folks who knew Atta in Florida are advised by the FBI to keep their mouths shut... the 'Jersey Girls' 9/11 widows have slammed the 9/11 commission report as ignoring 80% of their requested questions.. Bush and Cheney demand that their 9/11 testimony be kept private, with note books confiscated... an FAA official cuts an audio recording tape into pieces.. Of course, none of this happened in the happy-go-lucky world of the article above, where all government officials are chatty and gabby and the Commission Report members were all ears to criticism. .

Edmonds only joined the FBI after 9/11 and was a low level translator of Turkish, Persian (Farsi) and Azeri, languages unlikely to have been used by any of the suspects from the “official” version, show me where she indicated she thought 9/11 was an “inside job”

Please provide a citation for you claim about the people who knew Atta.

Show us where the Jersey Girls indicated they suspected an “inside job”.

Bush and Cheney are unlikely to have confessed during their testimony.

The cut up tape was of the recollections of flight controllers after the fact nothing would have prevented them from repeating what they said. There is no indication the recording was indicative of a stand down.

At one point, the presenter asks: "So what brought down the twin towers? Let's ask the experts." But they don't ask the experts.... The only people they interview are a janitor, a group of firemen, and a flight instructor...none of the participants in this monumental crime has sought to blow the whistle - before, during or after the attacks. No one has volunteered to tell the greatest story ever told.

The articles focus on LOOSE CHANGE as the source for all opposition to the official story seems clearer after this comment, as only someone really keen to avoid the more difficult questions would bother. A single click to the link below -

http://patriotsquestion911.com/

- gives a long and literally tiring list of of former and sitting US Senators, former and current US military officers, members of the prior Reagan and Bush administrations, former members of MI5, journalists foreign and domestic (including Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg), scientists and ex-members of the CIA (including Ray McGovern), all of whom couldn't be any clearer or blunter in their unhappiness with the official story and their suspicion that there is a cover-up. Perhaps all these government and intelligence officials were happy with the official story until they saw LOOSE CHANGE, in which case I should probably thank the author for pinpointing LOOSE CHANGE alone as the source of all those niggly questions. .

And if you whittle out those who weren’t in office anytime around 9/11 and those who don’t say they suspect an inside job your let with only one or two politicians.

The film's greatest flaw is this: the men who made it are still alive. If the US government is running an all-knowing, all-encompassing conspiracy, why did it not snuff them out long ago? There is only one possible explanation.

Rather than bothering with the teenybopper LOOSE CHANGE boys, I'd love it if 'conspiracy theory' boosters bothered to tackle the comments made by Ray McGovern, Robert Baer, Barbara Honegger and countless other harder-to-dismiss authorities at the link above, but I suspect those criticisms would prove harder for the lifestyle page at The Guardian to nervously reduce to a comic hit-piece for the ill-informed.

McGovern, Baer and Honegger had long since left their intelligence jobs none of them claims inside information Baer only indicated that he suspected an inside job. Serious questions have been raised about Honegger’s sanity. http://screwloosechange.blogspot.com/2007/...e-honegger.html

[Len Colby]

What is undeniable is the fact that our state-of-the-art defense system stood silent and didn't react at all for over an hour while hijacked planes were flying into the WTC and even directly over Washington, D.C. If our defense system isn't triggered to react when a known hijacked plane is flying directly towards the Pentagon-the heart of the our defense system-then the taxpayers certainly have a right to demand an accounting of where the trillions they've spent on all those magnificant missiles and fighter planes went.

Its not true that the US’s air “defense system stood silent and didn't react at all for over an hour”. Thought it’s true it wasn’t able to intercept any of the planes. The system was set up to defend against external invaders. The issue has been debated on other threads here. The only planes they reasonably could have been expected to intercept were flights 93 which crashed far from its target and 77. The problems with intercepting 77 are complex there is no evidence the Pentagon is defended by anti-aircraft missiles.

why did WTC building 7 collapse? Nothing hit it- so the jet fuel argument won't fly.

As Evan already noted 7 was extensively damaged by debris from 1 WTC, it contained thousands of gallons of diesel fuel and burnt without intervention for several hours there are numerous reports from firer fighters of it looking like it would collapse long before it did.

Also if you had bothered to read the NIST, ASCE/FEMA or 9/11 Commission reports or any of the articles by engineers about the collapses you’d have known that building materials rather than jet fuel were considered the main fuel source. It is unreasonable to doubt the well documented explanation of an event if you are unaware of the basic facts.

.

For instance, there are witnesses who were in the basement of the World Trade Center North, who experienced what to them was an explosion IN THE BASEMENT at the time the first plane struck. The walls crumbled, there was a loss of power, and they were lucky to get out of there alive. One of them (sorry, would have to look up the name, but I believe he was hispanic) became a hero when he rescued several people from the crumbling basement, and was even interviewed locally in the immediate aftermath and lauded for his bravery. .

That was William Rodriguez and he like all the point you bring has already been discussed here. He was interviewed live on CNN on 9-11 and said nothing about an explosion from below, nor did he mention this in his numerous other interviews nor even in the RICO suit he filed against Bush and others he only mentioned this years after the fact, he was a hero but his claim isn’t credible. Like the 2 or 3 co-workers who back his story he is party to a multi-billion dollar lawsuit.

[Matthew Lewis]

Here\'s a link to the NTSB report on Payne Stewart\'s jet so one can see the timing for themselves

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief2.asp?ev_id=...A005&akey=1

As you can see, the time changes from Eastern to Central which adds an hour to the overall time.

Also of note is that the planes that first intercepted Stewart\'s jet were not planes dedicated to air defense but rather unarmed ones that were already airborne for another unrelated mission. It took even longer to get air defense jets to Stewart\'s plane.

[Don Jeffries]

The 9/11 debate, like so many other issues, is determined in large measure by the faith of those who are debating. In the case of those who defend the government's official story of what happened, this faith is grounded in establishment bulwarks like the 9/11 Commission, the journalists at Popular Mechanics and other mainstream media debunkers, scientists cited as experts by the government, etc. In the case of conspiracy theorists like myself, we are predisposed to distrust those same establishment forces, and thus will usually place more credence in alternative sources like the internet. I freely admit to being predisposed towards conspiracy theories. What is just as obvious, however, is that those who passionately try to debunk these theories are just as predisposed to disbelieve them. It becomes a case of "I'll ignore your evidence, and you'll igonre mine." The case of WTC building 7 is critical here, I can't see how any large hole in the side of that building could make it collapse. The whole collapse theory is based on jet fuel melting the steel beams; there was no jet fuel in WTC 7, so why did it collapse? I'm sure you'll claim he was taken out of context, but the owner of the building was recorded as saying "we had to pull it," apparently meaning demolish it, in reference to WTC 7.

I only heard the one interview with William Rodriguez (thank you for coming up with his name), and he certainly never mentioned those other interviews. If he never mentioned the explosion or the fact he rescued others, then his credibility is certainly greatly diminished. I'll have to research that more. As for the failure of our defense system to react to what an attack on our infrastructure, as an American, I am outraged by that alone. I don't know how many of you here are Americans, but for those that aren't, we boast early and often in our country about the incredible national security system we have, which is of course centered in the Pentagon. Really, it is just as unbelievable to me as the magic bullet theory to accept that this well guarded command center could stand idly by while a rogue plane was flying overhead for some 30 minutes or more. If that's the best they can do with my tax money, then I want a refund!

We need to have an independent investigation of what happened that day; the 9/11 Commission, like the Warren Commission, was a whitewash designed, in its own words, "not to point fingers or assign blame." A real independent investigation would call all those witnesses-government officials and conspiracy theorists alike-and try to determine what really happened. Are any of the supposed hijackers really alive? That definitely needs to be answered, because if even one is, that alone destroys the muslims-gone-wild theory of 9/11. President Bush should be questioned about his curious actions on September 11, 2001. How did he learn about the planes flying into the WTC? Why did he continue to calmly read the goat story to the children?

On 9/11, over 3000 Americans lost their lives. To date, the only "investigation" into why they lost their lives was conducted by the woefully inadequate, toothless 9/11 Commission. We deserve anwers, not riducule. If all these "theories" are "wacko," or just plain wrong, that could be easily demonstrated by an independent investigation. A bipartisan congressional committee would hopefully do a better job of ferreting out the truth than the 9/11 Commission. The strongest voice in Congress for such an investigation was Cynthia McKinney, but she was defeated in the November elections. Right now it looks like the debate will continue to be ignored by television networks and largely confined to internet forums.

[Ron Ecker]

The cut up tape was of the recollections of flight controllers after the fact nothing would have prevented them from repeating what they said.

I have no intention of addressing all your points, but this one jumped off the page at me. "Nothing would have prevented them from repeating what they said"? How about fear?

How many employees, if a supervisor deliberately and demonstratively destroys something they said, are going to keep running their mouths or repeat themselves, once they start wondering what might happen to them if they don't keep their mouths shut, particularly on something as deadly as 9/11?

There's a TV show called "The Fear Factor." I've never watched it, but I don't have to watch it to know that a fear factor exists, something that debunkers of government conspiracy theories ignore when they ask where all the whistleblowers are. (Just as in the JFK case, I imagine that a lot of potential whistleblowers on 9/11 are dead, and a lot of others know it.)