Soon You'll Grow to Take a Chance With a Couple of Kooks
The typically decent Alternet website has published a pretty embarrassing article on the need for a serious "9/11 Truth Movement."
What happened to critical thinking? I thought "the Left" believed that the system's power is based on lies, exploitation and a media controlled by its own culture of overly cautious professionalism. The Left should be leading this 9/11 movement, not taking potshots from outside. Unfortunately, some of the movement's theories, like "the towers came down through a controlled demolition" sound esoteric at first blush. The "No Plane Hit the Pentagon" theory is a loose thread in a maze going nowhere.
I've got news for you; that's all the movement is. The folks I saw hoisting "9/11 Truth" signs at last weekend's anti-war march were not there to instigate serious debates about the history of U.S. intelligence and radical Islam. They wanted to display their evidence of how Building 7 had been brought down by controlled demolitions. They were morons.
The U.S. State Department's dirtiest secret is its 30-year habit of working with the far-right radical Islamists. In 1977, President Carter's National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski (aka the "Democrats' Kissinger") started the Nationalities Working Group. According to his neocon minion, Richard Pipes, the group was tasked with using Islamic rage in the central Asian republics to stir up "genocidal fury" against the Soviet Union. (Pipes' son, Daniel, is a well-known neocon who headed the U.S. Institute for Peace under Bush II.) Brzezinski later admitted in an interview to Nouvel Observateur that he advised Carter to initiate funding for the Mujahedeen so that the Soviet Union would have to enter the region, engage in a Vietnam-like debacle and destroy their economy.
This… isn't a secret at all. This is pretty well known. Actually, packaging 50 years of history of U.S. interference in the Muslim world and the roots of modern terrorism as part of the "9/11 Truth Movement" is the best way to ensure we never talk about it. Take it from libertarians: You don't want your outlook and research to be associated with a bunch of kooks.
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Flight 93 was shot down.
There are also serious questions about who the terrorists were really working for.
Building 7 probably was brought down by controlled demolition. Would that make a difference to you if it was? It wouldn’t to me. Are they morons for thinking the building was pulled or “morons” for caring either way?
Sam,
Where’s your evidence for that silliness?
What you are saying, is that within two hours, in saome airbase in the midwest, they took air to air missiles out of storage, armed them, loaded them into a fighter, which then intercepted one aircraft of hundreds in the air without any GCI assistance, and shot it down at low altitude over a population center without anyone seeing the missile hit. You have been reading too many Tom Clancy novels.
Dude, it is better to keep one’s mouth shut and to be suspected to be an idiot…
In Alternet’s defense, the disclaimer is that they’ve published a number of articles critical to the so-called 9/11 truth movement, and they were looking for balance.
Weigel is on a roll today.
Forgive Mr. Franklin, he suffers from a mild form of mental retardation.
tarran,
Before your wind up giving yourself an aneurysm, I’ll explain how this works. For the conspiracy nut, the lack of evidence is evidence. When said conspiracy nut is a lawyer, he get you dancing around for hours until you finally admit that you can’t prove that it didn’t happen the way he said, then claim victory.
Jews, Knights Templar, Masons, Jews, the Pope, Jews, Crab People, aliens, Jews, Jews, Jews…
Oh, here we go again. I suspect some sample bias when I note that if you took H&R to be a reasonable amalgam of America’s thoughts on the subject, something like half of the population would believe that the Jews blew up the World Trade Center to destroy the Knights Templar once and for all, except that the Crab People, who were being paid by the Jews, thought that the Holy Grail was REALLY on Flight 93, so therefore impersonated the pilot ant took the flight down.
It’s enough to make you wish that Reason would declare a moratorium on blogging against conspiracy theories, for the same reason that real molecular biologists don’t spend their evenings debating Creationists.
S.C. — This didn’t start out as an anti-conspiracy rant. Rather it was commenting on whether a “Serious 9/11 Truth Movement” is possible, or whether all inquiry into the official version has been co-opted by the lunatic fringe.
Though, actually, there’s even a conspiracy theory backdrop to this argument — a particular application of “disinformation” is the active clandestine promotion of kook theories to discredit inquiry into what one is _really_ trying to conceal. E.g, the government may have fanned UFO flaps over the years in order to discourage investigation of sightings of experimental aircraft or other activities. Might there be some arm of US intelligence that has acted as agent provacateur for wingnut 9/11 conspiracy theories in order to discourage inquiries into intelligence sources and methods, and possible incompetance? Who knows? Keep watching the skies…
I would be thrilled if the Left became seriously committed to a bona fide “9/11 Truth” movement, and took as their enemies the people who really are behind that attack and the worldwide Islamic terror networks.
What you are saying, is that within two hours, in saome airbase in the midwest, they took air to air missiles out of storage, armed them, loaded them into a fighter, which then intercepted one aircraft of hundreds in the air without any GCI assistance, and shot it down at low altitude over a population center without anyone seeing the missile hit. You have been reading too many Tom Clancy novels.
What I am saying is that there is no way the response time would have been so slow that the plane would not have been intercepted. i think the air defenses are simply more responsive than that. They certainly didn’t seem that sluggish when that golfer turned blue and died.
btw, the witness accounts I read did say that there were suspicious planes in the area.
The last time I attempted to read a Tom Clancy novel was 1989. i remember because I just moved to Dallas and the aprtment had a pool where hookers hung out. Sometimes I would give them food. So skinny they were. Couldn’t finish the book. I prefer stuf like 1984 or Middlemarch or The Third Man.
that Confedracy Of Dunces book was also good. As was Catch 22.
“Might there be some arm of US intelligence that has acted as agent provacateur for wingnut 9/11 conspiracy theories in order to discourage inquiries into intelligence sources and methods, and possible incompetance?”
they certainly have a stake in fantasies about omnipotent governmental control…
O yeah, and McVeigh had accomplices.
And Kurt was murdered.
TWA Flt 800? Don’t really know.
I could believe in the 9/11 conspiracy theory if our troops in Baghdad had found detailed plans, and the means, for detonating a dirty bomb outside the New York Times building.
Any U.S. conspiracy smart enough to pull of 9/11 would have had a cakewalk planting WMD in Iraq.
Dave,
You said “The typically decent Alternet website”
Do I need to recalibrate my sarcasm meter? Because it looks like a decent website for those who like statist, big government ideas and policies. Some headlines on the alternet site today.
Maybe this explains the liberaltarian boomlet we have seen on this site recently.
It sounds like the government has yet to find a set of lies regarding 9/11 that are agreed upon.
I could believe in the 9/11 conspiracy theory if our troops in Baghdad had found detailed plans, and the means, for detonating a dirty bomb outside the New York Times building.
Any U.S. conspiracy smart enough to pull of 9/11 would have had a cakewalk planting WMD in Iraq.
Actually, conspiracies are a lot harder to pull off when there is meaningful investigation and skeptical people around (in gov’t positions, in the media, in academia, etc.).
If anything secret and surprising did happen behind the scenes on 9/11 it will have remained undiscovered precisely because nobody with subpoena power ever asked the right questions.
people planting wmd’s in Iraq would not have had that luxury. Even in 2003, when the US had otherwise gone to hell in a handbasket, people were at least skeptical about the WMD claims that popped up from time to time.
I think Ron Brown may hve been murdered, too.
I think Sam Franklin was kidnaped by freemasons who conducted bizarre medical experiments on him, including surgically implanting rocks in his head. He of course has no memory of this.
“What happened to critical thinking?” The Left believes yadda yadda yadda…
So, in other words, lefties have a story that jibes with their preconceived ideas about how the world works, but reject it anyway, because they find it absurd, and this is supposed to demonstrate that they AREN’T engaged in critical thinking?
The only legitimate hole in the narrative provided by the 9/11 Commission Report is that the President, Vice President, and others were obviously lying when they said Bush told Cheney to give the shoot-down order.
Three different people – Libby, Lynne Cheney, and the official stenographer in the room – were taking notes of everything said, and not one of them – not Cheney’s wife, not Cheney’s chief of staff, not the professional secretery whose job is was to write down what was going on – made a single note indicated that a phone call took place at the time Bush allegedly gave the ok, but they all accurately noted every other phone call that took place that morning.
And no, I’m not saying Flight 93 was shot down. Cheney gave the order after it had already crashed.
Take it from libertarians: You don’t want your outlook and research to be associated with a bunch of kooks.
Now you tell us!
TJIT:
“Because it looks like a decent website for those who like statist, big government ideas and policies.”
See the sixth word in your quote? You admitted that it is a decent website. Everybody knows that it is an unabashed leftie site. But since Wiegel says it’s decent, you say it’s decent, and I think it’s decent, let’s agree that the damn site is decent. Sure, it has fallen off in the last year or so, but perhaps I just have less patience for the far left stuff.
The left-wing newsletter/website Counterpunch has spent considerable time, effort, and ink patiently debunking the 9/11 Truth Movement’s conspiracy theories. There are plenty of reasons to make the effort: because they make the Left look silly and because the reality of what happened is a damning enough indictment of American foreign policy, the same way Saddam was.
After all, these guys weren’t the minions of the Evil Empire, these are our own clients, armed, trained, and paid by us, who turned on us the moment they saw a weakness. All through the 80’s the Left bitched and moaned about US support for Saddam and the mujahadeen. Alexander Cockburn called the Islamic radicals out in 1984 as medieval lunatics who wanted to kill any woman who tried to get a job or give up the veil. Every journalist who spews a shrill, morally indignant story about Saddam gassing the Kurds is essentially plagiarizing left-wing polemics from 1985 twenty years after it would have done any good.
With reality like this, why would the Left need a conspiracy theory?
TJIT,
I heard this rumor that reading well-crafted arguments from people you don’t agree with can help you learn things you didn’t previously know, sharpen your own arguments, and sometimes even lead you to change your understanding based on new ideas and data.
Just a rumor, though.
So, in other words, lefties have a story that jibes with their preconceived ideas about how the world works, but reject it anyway, because they find it absurd, and this is supposed to demonstrate that they AREN’T engaged in critical thinking?
absurd or inconvenient?
I find it odd that Cheney waited until after the plane was shot down to (officially) give the shootdown order.
If what he said in that room really had any real world consequences, I think that shootdown order would have come a whole lot sooner.
besides, I don’t believe that Dick Cheney conducts his real business in public anyway. Not when he pulled that Teddy Kennedy on his hunting partner and I think there was even a Supreme Court case in 2002 over how secretive the man was. He won.
It is absurd to believe he did not decide on the (real) shootdown orders sooner than he supposedly did.
Conspiracy theories are what amounts to political science for the blindly moronic or the clinically insane.
S.C. said: Jews, Knights Templar, Masons, Jews, the Pope, Jews, Crab People, aliens, Jews, Jews, Jews…
Crab people? I would never have dreamed they were involved. The last crab person I met was a girl named Betsy I briefly dated senior year.
I don’t mean to nit-pick here. God knows I did enough of that back in my dorm room . . .
Conspiracy theories are what amounts to political science for the blindly moronic or the clinically insane.
You mean, like the supposed Watergate burglary coverup? I am such a moron I believe that Iran Contra was an illegal conspiracy!
People may find this relevant, or at least funny.
http://www.sawyerhome.net/whatilearned.html
(Hat tips to Kathy Shaidle and Colby Cosh.)
My Truth About 9/11 theory is as follows:
If the U.S. Government was competent enough to plan, execute, and cover up 9/11 I wouldn’t have to decide whether to cast a hold-your-nose vote for Hillary Clinton or John McCain, or throw it away on Ron Paul.
What you are saying, is that within two hours, in saome airbase in the midwest, they took air to air missiles out of storage, armed them, loaded them into a fighter, which then intercepted one aircraft of hundreds in the air without any GCI assistance, and shot it down at low altitude over a population center without anyone seeing the missile hit.
And that within two hours the president made the decision, transmitted it through the Air Force chain of command, (Presidents do not actually call company-grade officers and issue orders.) and scrambled the mission.
And that not one of the dozens of people involved in such a scenario has since talked about it.
Ah, but there is one thing that separates Watergate and Iran Contra from theories that JFK was shot by a right-wing assassin from the grassy knoll, a UFO crashed at Roswell, the moon landing was a hoax, or that the U.S. government and not a bunch of Islamic fanatics destroyed the World Trade Center: EVIDENCE!
So we’ll ask again? What is your evidence that U.S. government destroyed the WTC, attacked the pentagon, and shot down flight 93? Don’t tell us what you feel or find “convenient,” because that shit doesn’t matter. What matters is hard data and physical evidence.
If you can’t provide us with that and you still believe in this 9/11 conspiracy shit, then yes Sam, you’re a fucking moron or you’re a fucking paranoid schizophrenic.
Which is it?
Larry A: not to get myself dragged into a discussion of conspiracy theories but, in fact, it was standard before 9/11 to have armed F-15s on the runway at all times at every major US airbase. Condi’s argument that “no one ever dreamed anyone would use an airliner as a weapon” just isn’t true. The Russians seized a crucial airfield in Czechoslovakia in 1968 by loading a civilian airliner with troops and claiming to be in distress.
The standard response time was suppose to be two minutes. They didn’t make that, probably because of confusion in the towers about what was actually going on and the usual cobwebs that accrue to any alert unit that rarely has an actual alert. But the weapons weren’t in storage and it’s entirely plausible that they had armed aircraft up with a few minutes of the alert. As for getting the order through the “chain of command:” sclerotic as the US military is, the command structure was intended to respond to nuclear attack within ten minutes or so. The capability exists.
All of that has little or no bearing on what actually happened, except that it could have happened lots of ways. A shootdown is possible but, given that the passengers had chosen to resist, a crash is more likely.
Sam,
I worked on an aircraft carrier. Getting missiles flight-ready takes hours. Planning a mission takes hours. Readying an aircraft takes hours.
Now, since the two fighters that were on standby that morning were a couple of hundred miles out over the Atlantic Ocean at the time the aircraft was observed smashing into the ground by multiple people, there were no other air defenses available!
What I am saying is that there is no way the response time would have been so slow that the plane would not have been intercepted. i think the air defenses are simply more responsive than that. They certainly didn’t seem that sluggish when that golfer turned blue and died.
As far as the Payne Stewart case, a unarmed fighter which happenned to be flying a few miles away from the stricken aircraft performed a ground controlled intercept on an aircraft flying straight and level at high altitude with its transponder turned on. It’s like claiming that the Colts offense can leap out of bed, get dressed, and out on the field and score two touchdowns against a the Patriots in two minutes because they once scored two touchdowns in 2 minutes during a charity game against a local high school football team.
Sam, you are clever in use of language, but you are one of the most gullible people who post on this board. Seriously… You got to work on your critical thinking skills.
Actually I think that Sam is more an Academic Skeptic, the type that “…hold that all knowledge is impossible; except for the knowledge that all other knowledge is impossible.” He doesn’t understand/believe in evidence, so his only guide is what he thinks is probable. This allows him to believe whatever he feels like at the moment, and he mistakenly thinks his arguments “from probability” are effective.
Sam Franklin is a plant to discredit the TRUE 911 TRUTH movement… which is simply that government is incompetent, Jack Bauer is actually a fat pencil pusher at Langley, and Air Defences arent structured to blow up errant Commercial Airlines, and no one could possibly have approved such a thing within the time frames involved.
I generally ask what they think the motive of the conspiracy is, and thats when the real fun begins… they prefer to talk in detail about their ‘evidence’ to give an air of credibility to their thought process… but when you ask them what they suspect the conspirator’s motives were…. its opens up the can of JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOS!!!!! *(and masons)
JG
Actually I think that Sam is more an Academic Skeptic, the type that “…hold that all knowledge is impossible; except for the knowledge that all other knowledge is impossible.” He doesn’t understand/believe in evidence, so his only guide is what he thinks is probable. This allows him to believe whatever he feels like at the moment, and he mistakenly thinks his arguments “from probability” are effective.
There was a thread here recently that made a play on the popular phrase “the dog that didn’t bark.” I believe the phrase comes from a Sherlock Holmes. I think I may have been required to read it in 9th grade even.
In the story, the dog not barking is a form of evidence that helps Holmes solve a mystery.
I am saying that the Air defenses were the dog that did not bark. I consider it to be evidence just like Sherlock Holmes did.
Of course, there is evidence that the plane was not shot down because that is what the military told the 9/11 commission. I believe my “dog didn’t bark” evidence is more persuasive than the military’s say so.
What about the dog not barking in the sense that nobody reported seeing a mid-air explosion?
I generally ask what they think the motive of the conspiracy is, and thats when the real fun begins… they prefer to talk in detail about their ‘evidence’ to give an air of credibility to their thought process… but when you ask them what they suspect the conspirator’s motives were….
I don’t know what the motives were.
Instead of insinuations of anti-Semitism against people not participating in this discussion, how about just asking one who is?
…Jews, Crab People, aliens…
So… it was Dr. Zoidberg?
On a more serious note, I feel compelled to repeat what I put in my blog on the subject:
Let’s assume for the moment that you’re right, and that one of the LIHOP/MIHOP theories is correct. So, what do you propose that I do about it?
Aside from “spread this meme” or “thank me for freeing your mind,” I honestly cannot think of any legitimate answer to this question (not that those are especially legitimate).
“Vote the bums out”? Which bums: the bums like President Bush who are term-limited, or the bums in his administration (or the CIA, or the NSA, or the FBI, or…) who aren’t even elected officials?
“Rise up against the oppressors”? Dude, I’ve fired a handgun maybe five times in my life, and never at anything more sympathetic or dangerous than a sheet of paper. I don’t think I can point a gun at a human being with the serious intention of pulling the trigger. In addition, seeing as that person will also have a gun (not to mention actual training in its use, and a dozen coworkers similarly advantaged), I’m pretty sure you’re asking me to commit suicide. Pass.
“Demand that Congress ‘do something'”? Isn’t that how we got the USA PATRIOT Act?
I just want to know why:
1. It was nessicary to missle the pentagon? I mean, fuck, we saw the planes crash into the WTC… like it is that hard to believe one crashing into the pentagon as well? Why the hell would they missle the pentagon, in plane view of thousands of people, when they could have just crashed a plane into it?
2. Why the hell would they need to bomb the WTC and nearby buildings? I mean, if they are looking to start a war, just crashing the planes into the WTC would have been enough. Is it some Lex Luthor style plot to open up valuable real estate?
Why all of this convoluted stupid stuff? I mean, I can understand there being conspiracy theories: If the government can critically fail at protecting the United States, depite the fact that the U.S. has the largest and most effective military and intelligence services in the world – Then that means the government can also fail at planning the economy, providing healthcare and education, etc. If government is god, then the failure of government must be some satanic conspiracy, as everyone knows that the god-government is infailable.
So I understand there will be conspiracy theories. But this whole thing with the bombs in the WTC, the missle into the pentagon, etc. – is like claiming that Kennedy was shot by a little pistol in Jackies pillbox hat. It isn’t just conspiracy theory – It is conspiracy theory taken to the point of lunacy.
the standard alex jones/icke continuum answer to “what do we do” is this: you buy more dvds and books about how much smarter you are than the sheeple.
it’s an amazing program for stasis in many ways.
Of course, there is evidence that the plane was not shot down because that is what the military told the 9/11 commission. I believe my “dog didn’t bark” evidence is more persuasive than the military’s say so.
Dude, analogies about “Barking Dogs” from Sherlock Holmes is not evidence. The fact that a dog didn’t bark in a fictional story is somehow “proof” that there is a 9/11 conspiracy? This is the best evidence you can give to convince us?
The only conspiracy theory you have convinced me of is that, yes, Dan T is a troll, and is really just another libertarian Reason reader trying to make non-libertarians look stupid.
What about the dog not barking in the sense that nobody reported seeing a mid-air explosion?
How do you know that nobody reported seeing a mid-air explosion. Nobody said that nobody reported a mid-air explosion.
Just because you haven’t heard that nobody reported a mid-air explosion that means that nobody did report a mid-air explosion.
Faulty inference.
But let’s say that nobody did see an explosion. maybe there was no explosion. When KAL 007 was shot down there was no explosion, if you believe the black box recordings and/or the Japanese fishermen.
Or maybe the witnesses didn’t see correctly. Eyewitnesses of the TWA 800 thing reported seeing a missile, but according to the official story that would have been impossible. On the payne Stewart thing at least one eyewitness reported seeing a parachute, but it turned out that it was just Payne Stewart’s plane coming down.
“Just because you haven’t heard that nobody reported a mid-air explosion that means that nobody did report a mid-air explosion.”
–Just because you haven’t heard that anybody reported a mid-air explosion doesn’t mean that nobody did report a mid-air explosion.–
work is really getting in the way of my posting 2day.
So, what do you propose that I do about it?
If you are a reasonwriter do a FOIA. It is your job and duty.
If you are just a Reasonreader then clamor for your favorite Reasonwriter to do her job and duty.
I look at 9-11 conspiracy theorist the same way I look at people who claim to have been abducted by aliens. The interesting part is not the theory it is that seemingly normal and rational people will throw out all coneception of reality to beleive something. I really think these kooks honestly beleive the government or the crabmen or whoever did it. What is interesting is how otherwise rational people are so willing to believe such crap. What kind of psycological disorder causes it?
John:
It’s an inherent flaw in the way our brains are wired. One thing our brains are especially good at is detecting patterns, and conspiracies are just pattern-matching run amok.
From an evolutionary standpoint, a false negative (failing to notice that tiger lurking in the bushes) can get you killed. A false positive, though, (thinking you saw a tiger, but it wasn’t really there) is merely annoying, and doesn’t hamper survival.
The end result is a strong bias toward believing perceived patterns, regardless of their legitimacy. A side effect of this is that we tend to reject explanations that suggest the world is unpredictable. (A couple dozen wackos I’ve never heard of came completely out of left field and did this? Impossible!)
I’ve no doubt there are other forces at work, too, like Secret Knowledge and such, but pattern-matching and a fear of the unpredictable seems sufficient to me.
Whenever I hear about conspiracy theories I think of the episode of King of the Hill where Dale goes to Dallas and finds that Dealey Plaza isn’t anything like he thought it was. As he compares his conspiracy theory to the actual topography he realizes that the Warren Commission was right all along.
I like to think that if 9/11 conspiracists stopped making things up and recognized the simple facts (eyewitnesses did see airliners fly into the towers and the Pentagon, structural steel does not have to melt to have its integrity seriously compromised, etc) they would get away from their bizarre ideas.
That’s probably too much to hope.
More likely, of course, this will be seen as just more proof that I love George Bush and the Republicans.
i always think of that episode of King Of THe Hill where LuAnn goes to Waxahatchie to meet Deep Throat and Daniel Ellsburg and learns that some conspiracies are real.
O, wait. That episode doesn’t exist. Cuz they would not make one like that.
“Soon You’ll Grow to Take a Chance With a Couple of Kooks”
I didn’t read all of the posts here, so I might be wrong about being the first to see it:
…hung up on romancing”. A David Bowie song from the album “Hunky Dory”, 1971.
“Things that happened in the past only happened in your mind”
If flight 93 was shot down debris would have been scatter is such a wide area, hunters would have probably found some, passengers would have be scattered. The crash scene appeared to be consistant with an aircraft heading straight down.
The conspiracy theories are not only the left. The right wants you to believe that. One of the guys saying the twin towers were brought down by demolition is a conservative engineer from Brigham Young University, A very conservative college.
The left or right holds no monolopy on bad thinking.
KAL 007 came down in one piece.
All I ask is that the people behind the next big conspiracy just give me a few days warning so I can make a fast buck on the market.
I promise I won’t get too greedy or act suspiciously.
Son of a
That’s the most cogent explanation of why so many tend to believe in conspiracy theories I’ve ever read. Thanks.
Sam & Dave (W — I’m guessing you have 2 screen names because there are 2 of you in there), your dog not talking to you is much better evidence than that of Lisa D. Jefferson, describing her conversation with passenger Scott Beamer, or Alice Hoglan describing her conversation with her son Mark Bingham, or Deena Burnett describing her 4 calls to her husband Tom Burnett, or any of the numerous friends and relatives that talked to other passengers, or the flight data recorder,…
Yep, that sleeping dog in your head convinces me.
Son of a!, nicely stated, I’ve read similar discussions in Skeptical Enquirer.
So essentially your argument is that since Watergate was real conspiracy, there has to be a 9/11 Conspiracy too?
You’ve answered my question for me, Sam. You’re a fucking moron.
So essentially your argument is that since Watergate was real conspiracy, there has to be a 9/11 Conspiracy too?
a whole range of outcomes wouldn’t surprise me actually.
I would not be surprised if the official story was true in every detail.
I would not be surprised if Mossad posed as Bin Laden’s agents to the highjackers and told Dick Cheney to make sure that the air defense response was slow, but only plausibly so.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the official story was mostly true, but that some details, like the shooting down of Flt 93 and the demolition of WTC7 were hidden (not neccessarily for any nefarious purposes).
My mind is pretty open.
Except for the fact that Flt 93 was shot down.
I stand corrected.
If 9/11 was allowed to happen, at least in some partial sense, would it change your feelings about The Afghanistan War and The Iraq War?
Ooh, dueling King of the Hill narratives.
Five quatloos on the Vulcan!
My mind is pretty open.
Yeah, open. As in open enough to fly Flight 93 between your ears.
I hang out on the JREF forms, I hear this crap “open mind” crap all the time from idiots who want us to believe that John Edward talks to dead people or Earth was created in six, 24-hour days.
The “Truthers” don’t sound any more credible than the new age woos or the bible-beaters who show up on a day to day basis, and the one question we ask over and over to all of them is this:
WHAT IS YOUR EVIDENCE???
“I would not be surprised if Mossad posed as Bin Laden’s agents to the highjackers and told Dick Cheney to make sure that the air defense response was slow, but only plausibly so.”
Of course everybody knows that Cheney does whatever Mossad tells him to do. This line of reasoning has its roots in the Middle Ages when Mossad’s equivalent was posinoning wells.
Of course everybody knows that Cheney does whatever Mossad tells him to do. This line of reasoning has its roots in the Middle Ages when Mossad’s equivalent was posinoning wells.
Or maybe it was agents for China that set it up — to slow down the US economy a bit.
Or maybe it was North Korean agents that set it up. To get the heat off a bit.
Or Iran. To frame the Saudis, or neutralize Iraq or whatever they stood to gain from a 9/11.
Maybe it was Fidel Castro. He is no friend of the US. Weren’t the pilots training in FLA?
Didn’t have to be Mossad — although Israel received the most direct benefits from 9/11 happening, there are plenty of other nations that stood to gain.
Or maybe it was the al Qaeda guys acting on their own. Nah, that’s too simple.
Of course everybody knows that Cheney does whatever Mossad tells him to do.
Maybe Cheney was doing what Halliburton told him to. Certain energy companies have profited from the Iraq War I will bet. Maybe they told Cheney to make a big public rigamarole (his with there, a transcriber there, apparently) about shooting down terrorist planes. While Cheney is somehow going through the mental calculus (like he never thought of the issue before) in the middle of a Pearl Harbor type event. Thing is, even he never did think of it before, the mental calculus is trivial — its a no brainer — you shoot the planes down — duuuhhhhh.
If Cheney was willing to hem and haw like that in full view of the public, imagine how unsure he must have sounded when actually communicated directly with the military chain of command.
Why the heck was the Vice President in charge anyway? Does that strike anybody as absurd?
“(his with there, a transcriber there, apparently)”
–(with his spouse there, with his transcriber there, apparently)
Here is some evidence for LIHOP, Akira:
From what I understand, only the president can order a civilian, domestic airliner shot down in the US. At least that is the way the protocol was reported at the time of the Payne Stewart thing.
So, just on the surface, it is suspect that Dick Cheney is the one “agonizing” over the shootdown order.
But Bush was not even indisposed with an important task. He was reading to a classroom, well after the first plane hit. Isn’t that passive resistance to a response by the air defense. Now, instead of having the president in location to order any shootdown orders as the quickly evolving situation warranted, he is going to force his vice president and his vice president’s underlings to establish the non-availibility of the president before deciding about shootdown orders down at the vice presidential level of command.
That was not a strategy for making information travel as quickly as possible. And when a shootdown order is a no-brainer, this kind of fooling around with the reading to the kids in FLA is a way of injecting delay in that no-brainer response. That delay is LIHOP. It is not mere circumstantial evidence of LIHOP — it is directly a form of it.
I didn’t buy the ice cream in the refrigerator. My wife doesn’t want me to gain weight, but my doctor would benefit greatly in medical fees over time. I think my doctor put the ice cream there. On the other hand it could the gym, which I suspect is front for Mossad. My Doctor’s last name is O’Brian, but his first name is Sidney. Maybe the doctor and the gym are in cahoots.
My Doctor’s last name is O’Brian, but his first name is Sidney.
This thd was started by a man whose last name is Weigel and first name is David who is gratuitously calling ppl “kooks” and “morons.”
Which way is the prejudice flowing here again?
Morons, Sam. It’s the morons that are being dissed.
Turns out my aunt put the ice cream in the fridge. At least, that what she claims.
evidence
SYLLABICATION: ev?i?dence
PRONUNCIATION: v-dns
NOUN: 1. A thing or things helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment: The broken window was evidence that a burglary had taken place. Scientists weigh the evidence for and against a hypothesis. 2. Something indicative; an outward sign: evidence of grief on a mourner’s face. 3. Law The documentary or oral statements and the material objects admissible as testimony in a court of law.
Evidence is NOT anything you think sounds plausible.
Evidence is NOT anything you think sounds plausible.
actually that is not too far off the FRE 401 def’n of “probativeness.” Are your objections FRE 401 based, ot 403 based?
I don’t have access to the voices in your head, Sam. What are they talking about?
Federal Rules of Evidence 401 and 403 provide a framework for deciding whether evidence is relevant.
If, for some reason, I was trying to prove that Flight 93 was shot down in a federal court case (not that I ever expect to), then an application Federal Rules of Evidence (“FRE”) 401 and 403 would determine whether my “evidence” (in this instance the non-barking dog) is sufficiently relevant to be admissible.
To clarify a fine point, I don’t recall that FRE 401 itself defines “probativeness.” I think the def’n of that term may come from caselaw applying 401. It has been awhile since I have had a serious relevance issue.
Sam
Have you noticed that we–the wingnut and the troll–are the last to be posting on this thread? That’s a good sign.
Well, maybe no one else is reading at this point.
Then again, this toic is a “hot potato,” so hopefully some of the readers are re-evaluating their position on Flight 93, but doing so quietly so they don’t get kicked out of their place of worship or fired from their job or whatever.
Nobody likes to be thought of as a kook or a moron.
Except for me.
I don’t really care. I have given up on being well-liked, so I find solace in the fact that I can say what I think.
Sam
Take up pipe smoking. It makes a even a moron look wise and keeps a fool’s mouth shut.