A Conspiracy By Any Other Name...

 With all due respect to two of my favorite Alaskan bloggers, and I say that sincerely, their discussion with Nicole Sandler made me grit my teeth.  I am speaking of AKM (Jeanne Devon), and Shannyn Moore. AKM is, of course, the brilliant writer behind The Mudflats, and Shannyn's got a widely-read blog, Moore Up North, and a topical daily radio show. I've corresponded with Jeanne by e-mail and called into Shannyn's show at least twice. I met them both in person, right after last year's Netroots Nation in Pittsburgh, PA. Their warmth and humor were delightful.  Their disappointment in and disagreements with the former half-term Alaska governor are well-known.

Shannyn (L) and AKM (R) at Pittsburgh Mudstock

Why teeth-gritting, though?  Here's why.  It's one thing to make a personal or political decision about whether or not to cover a particular story, and I'm talking about babygate—the pregnancy that Sarah Palin faked in order to boost her pro-life cred with evangelical Christians and parlay her thin resume into a shot to become the Vice President of these United States.  It's another to disparage, however off-handedly, those who do address, research and endeavor to cover that same story.  If you listen to the Nicole Sandler interview (in the first link of this post), you'll learn that Nicole was able to interview Jeanne and Shannyn just as the two intrepid Alaskans concluded their second Netroots Nation in Las Vegas. Nicole had recently interviewed Patrick, one of the chief authors of the Palin watchdog blog Palingates, twice: see here and here for the details. As a result of her education about the babygate topic, Nicole asked some followup questions of the Alaskan bloggers on her segment.  Their responses were, to my ear, condescending and disparaging.

When you use words like conspiracy theory and tin-foil hats in conjunction with describing why you are not writing or talking about a potential story, you trigger a response in listeners, to wit: "Watch your step here, this is la-la land!"  Both these accomplished ladies seemed to "pooh-pooh" any efforts to get to the bottom of the clearly impossible stories Mrs. Todd Palin has given concerning the birth of the child she calls her son, Trig.

Like I said, I can understand why someone would not want to touch a story that the "mainstream media" decided to let lay fallow.  One only has to read the recently released e-mails from the Journolist group to find some sort of justification for this.  Is the justification valid?  I don't happen to think so, but then, that's me, and I have a day job. My future life plans do not depend on whether or not I blog about the right topics, or the safe topics, or the approved topics.  Running for political office is not in my future.  Cozying up to Marcos Moulitsas or any other notable in the Democratic Party is not one of my goals.

Let's face it. though.  Labels have meaning to people.  Label something a conspiracy theory and red flags shoot up everywhere.  BEWARE, BEWARE!

So fine, don't touch the story, but don't label it in such a way that I, and many of my blogging and commenting friends are made out to be kooks.  It's obvious from some of the details that AKM and Shannyn provided during the interview with Nicole that they are not very well read on the subject of babygate.  There is now a mountain of detailed evidence that makes it clear why not one of us, those who did choose to follow this story, have been threatened with a lawsuit for claiming that Mrs. Todd Palin defrauded the country with her impossible Wild Ride tale and imagined magical birth of Trig.  It is because it is NOT TRUE.

For an excellent overview/summary, I implore you to view these newly released videos:

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Videos are courtesy of lidia17 who published them at Palingates, and summarize the indisputable evidence that disproves the assertion that Mrs. Todd Palin was actually ever pregnant with the child she claims as her own son, Trig.

WTC7 Coverup - Thermal Bullcrap

 
Had the latest NIST report actually investigated the collapse of WTC7, we may rest easier with their conclusions that a heretofore unknown process for bringing down steel-framed skyscrapers was in any way valid: fire-induced thermal expansion.

But they didn't.

Nist claims that they took a cursory look at a controlled demolition scenario. But what they did -- all they did -- was to dismiss the possibility because it was untenable. Why? Their only reason was that an explosion of sufficient size to blow column 79 (their key critical core column) would have caused a sound event that they were unable to verify actually happened.

All you have to do is Google "WTC7 Explosions" to find multiple videos recounting explosions in World Trade Center 7. Eyewitness accounts. Actual video taken on the day. There is no dearth of reports of explosions in WTC7, starting from before... yes BEFORE ... the twin towers even fell.

But hey, NIST was unable to find any of those accounts or videos, so they were left with the supposition that building 7 had to have collapsed by some mechanism previously undocumented.

With all due respect to Dr. Shyam Sunder and his contractors (which included Larry Silverstein and his development group), it is painfully obvious that they were overtly instructed to find a different conclusion from the most obvious one: controlled demolition.

They go so far as to say, hey! what we found looks just like controlled demolition but ... lookie here, it really isn't! It's really uhhh fires, regular office fires, uhhh... see here, column 79, got baked man, and heck, once that happened, the result was uhhh... total failure, into a neat pile! I mean, believe me, I work for the Government!

Forgive me for doubting.

NIST did not ever examine any physical evidence. NIST did not explain the dozens of witnesses who heard explosions. NIST did not ever view (or explain, if they did) the dozens of videos that clearly show explosions. NIST did not ever examine the forensic evidence gathered by other researchers (to wit, Dr. Stephen Jones). NIST did not build any scale models, they did it all by computer simulations. NIST took 7 years to foist this bastard of a report on us.

Lately, tptb are growing in their arrogance and their outrageousness. They know we have no WMD to strike them back with.

Or do we?

WTC7 Thermal Expansion Hoax: NIST Disses 9/11 Truthers

Remember, Remember, 11th September
There are some images of the impossible destruction on 9/11 that I can't forget. Here's an aerial view of the rubble taken a couple days after the event.

The smoke is still rising from the piles of both towers and building 7, in spite of firemen spraying millions of gallons of water on the heaps of debris. You can see severe damage to the building at the lower left, and more holes torn into the roof of the building at the lower right. The buildings across the street however (Verizon on the upper left, and the Post Office on the upper right) appear relatively unscathed -- except for the one in between. That's the remains of WTC7, the first and only steel-framed building over 10 stories to be totally destroyed by office fires and a "new phenomenon" NIST calls "fire-induced thermal expansion."

Here's a color-coded image identifying the remains:


Then and Now
Early theories about the demise of WTC7, put forward by Popular Mechanics in a March, 2005 cover story, and supported with statements from Dr. Shyam Sunder, supposed that serious damage caused by Tower 1's explosive collapse turned building 7 into a wreck just waiting to fall down. We have yet to see any photos revealing such extensive damage but Popular Mechanics said they saw them in a private showing. We were supposed to take their word for it. I always wondered how the Verizon building and the Post Office escaped similar damage from Tower 1's energetic debris. And then, I wondered why those two buildings showed no damage from the implosion of WTC7 either.

As we're told now, by the same Dr. Shyam Sunder, all that was needed to totally destroy this 47-storey steel skyscraper and make it look just like a controlled demolition, was an office fire on a few floors. NIST claims that those fires weakened the connection between a beam and a critical northeast core column. This initiated a domino effect resulting in first one, then several floors giving way. That left the critical core column unsupported over the span of 9 floors, so it buckled causing more floors and beams to break loose above, and then like dominos, the other 80 columns went along for the ride in rapid succession wherein the whole building fell down.

Dr. Sunder reassures us that they've got it right this time. "The public should really recognize the science is really behind what we have said," he said, adding: "The obvious stares you in the face."

Really.

Final NIST Report on WTC7: Color Me Unconvinced

 

WTC7 on the afternoon of 9/11/2001

After nearly 7 years of investigation, the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), charged with producing reports explaining how the World Trade Center buildings were destroyed, held a press conference today announcing the publication of a final report on WTC7 (pdf) -- the third building in the New York City complex that inexplicably collapsed in 7 seconds late in the afternoon of 9/11/2001.

From today's press release (emphasis mine):

The fall of the 47-story World Trade Center building 7 (WTC 7) in New York City late in the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001, was primarily due to fires, the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced today following an extensive, three-year scientific and technical building and fire safety investigation. This was the first known instance of fire causing the total collapse of a tall building, the agency stated as it released for public comment its WTC investigation report and 13 recommendations for improving building and fire safety.

Reasons for WTC7's collapse have been touted, over the years, by Popular Mechanics, FEMA, and NIST itself. A favorite debunking theory was that debris from the exploding towers caused excessive, critical damage to WTC7. Here's what Popular Mechanics said to debunk "conspiracy theorists." Note that PM quotes Shyam Sunder, the same fellow who gave the press briefing today:

The most important thing we found was that there was, in fact, physical damage to the south face of building 7," NIST's Sunder tells PM. "On about a third of the face to the center and to the bottom — approximately 10 stories — about 25 percent of the depth of the building was scooped out." NIST also discovered previously undocumented damage to WTC 7's upper stories and its southwest corner.

Well, in today's announcement, we hear:

Finally, the report notes that "while debris impact from the collapse of WTC 1 initiated fires in WTC 7, the resulting structural damage had little effect in causing the collapse of WTC 7."

How conveeeenient! Now the photographs of this excessive south side damage that Popular Mechanics claimed they alone were privileged to see no longer have to be produced...!

In it's initial report, FEMA postulated that "a fire fed by fuel oil caused the collapse" and suggested that the cantilevered construction over the power station was a contributing factor in WTC7's demise. At least FEMA acknowledged that more study needed to take place (emphasis mine):

The loss of the east penthouse on the videotape suggests that the collapse event was initiated by the loss of structural integrity in one of the transfer systems. Loss of structural integrity was likely a result of weakening caused by fires on the 5th to 7th floors. The specifics of the fires in WTC 7 and how they caused the building to collapse remain unknown at this time. Although the total diesel fuel on the premises contained massive potential energy, the best hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence. Further research, investigation, and analyses are needed to resolve this issue.

Yet today, NIST tosses this notion into oblivion:

“Video and photographic evidence combined with detailed computer simulations show that neither explosives nor fuel oil fires played a role in the collapse of WTC 7,” Sunder said. The NIST investigation team also determined that other elements of the building’s construction—namely trusses, girders and cantilever overhangs that were used to transfer loads from the building superstructure to the columns of the electric substation (over which WTC 7 was constructed) and foundation below—did not play a significant role in the collapse.

Instead, we are told that ordinary office fires "burned out of control" (see picture above) and created enough heat to expand steel beams which eventually caused Floor 13 (unlucky floor, eh what?) to lose its connection, and then in domino-like fashion, all the other columns and beams simultaneously failed resulting in a total collapse. In 6.5 seconds. In a neat pile. Totally symmetric. Read it and weep:

Determining the probable collapse sequence for WTC 7, NIST found that the impact of debris from the collapse of WTC 1 ignited fires on at least 10 floors of WTC 7, and the fires burned out of control on six lower floors. The heat from these uncontrolled fires caused thermal expansion of the steel beams on the lower floors of the east side of WTC 7, damaging the floor framing on multiple floors. Eventually, a girder on Floor 13 lost its connection to a critical interior column that provided support for the long floor spans on the east side of the building. The displaced girder and other local fire-induced damage caused Floor 13 to collapse, beginning a cascade of floor failures down to the fifth floor. Many of these floors had already been at least partially weakened by the fires in the vicinity of the critical column. This collapse of floors left the critical column unsupported over nine stories.

“When this critical column buckled due to lack of floor supports, it was the first domino in the chain,” Sunder explained. “What followed in rapid succession was a progression of structural failures. Failure first occurred all the way to the roof line—involving all three interior columns on the most eastern side of the building. Then, progressing from east to west across WTC 7, all of the columns in the core of the building failed. Finally, the entire façade collapsed.”

I wonder if there is any other possible explanation for a rapid onset for the failures of 81 core and perimeter columns? (Like some helper mechanism to dismember the structural support?) We have to recognize that there are certain paths NIST would not walk. And since the physical evidence has been destroyed, there can be no conclusive finding from any outside investigation.

How conveeeeenient.

Of Conspiracies and Theories

"Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories..." ~ George W. Bush

Everybody knows conspiracy theorists are crazy people. They wear tinfoil hats. They are idiots and morons who should be shut up, if not locked up. They come up with ridiculous reasons for events that are already satisfactorily explained by people in positions of authority in our Government and Media. They have the gall to keep asking questions and raising doubts. They're never satisfied!

Anyone who has been awake over the last several years knows that people in positions of authority in our Government and Media try to manipulate us and purposely mislead us. They busily rewrite history and even tell us outright lies with straight faces.

But conspiracy nuts are looney kooks. Everyone in their right mind knows that. Why should we concern ourselves with any of their conspiracy babbling, or spend time looking at questions those fools keep asking? After all, people in positions of authority in our Government and Media wouldn't do anything to harm us. They can be trusted to act in our best interests. It's downright hateful and anti-patriotic to think otherwise.

People in positions of authority in our Government and Media have floated several theories concerning Bruce Ivins' motives to mail anthrax. What makes their theories any more believable than the theories espoused by others? What makes one theory credible and another theory unthinkable? When does a theory become a "conspiracy theory," and therefore outlandish?

We owe it to ourselves to don a tinfoil hat and ask questions of our Government and Media when they say, "Trust us."

Doubts About Bruce Ivins as Anthrax Mailer

 


I'll be very surprised if it turns out that Dr. Bruce Ivins was the sole perpetrator of the anthrax letters. Here are a few reasons:

1. Who benefited from the scare? Not Ivins.
2. Who had a supportable motive? Not Ivins.
3. Who had access to the equipment to produce the highly concentrated, 99% pure, military grade polyglass-coated spores (found in the Daschle and Leahy letters)? Not Ivins.
4. Who had the know-how to produce this weaponized material? Not Ivins.
5. Who can be placed at the scene where any of the hoax or real anthrax letters were mailed? Not Ivins.

The attempt to convict Ivins posthumously, in the press, is supported largely by an unsubstantiated report from a drug-addiction counselor (who had repeated convictions for DUI and was a home detention 'inmate' on the date Ivins' reportedly made threats in front of her group therapy session). She told the court in a peace order hearing that psychiatrists had diagnosed Ivins as a sociopathic revenge killer bent on homicide who had killed before. There is NO independent confirmation of this anywhere.

The FBI says, "Trust us, we got the right guy this time." I'm not buying it.

Cui bono?

Those in the government who were pressing for military aggression in the Middle East. Those who wanted to elevate the fear level of Arabs in general, Muslims in particular. Those who profited from the sales of Cipro and other drugs to treat anthrax infection.

Who had a motive?

See Cui bono.

Who had access to the highly specialized equipment?

Those persons working to develop (probably not legally, either) bio weapons. That's not what USAMRIID did, where Bruce Ivins worked. His lab developed vaccines to prevent anthrax infection, and didn't even use powdered anthrax in his work -- his challenge bacteria was in liquid form, as was the now-infamous vial of RMR-1029.

Who had the know how?

The same persons who had access to the equipment, the same persons who had been working for years on developing particularly nasty strains of bacillus anthracis for weapon use.

Who can be placed at the scenes of the mailings?

We know Bruce Ivins can't. Hatfill came close. Until we see how the FBI eliminated their 'universe' of other persons who might have had access to the anthrax, we'll never know.

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Important reading on this topic:

from Glenn Greenwald

• Vital unresolved anthrax questions and ABC News
• Journalists, their lying sources, and the anthrax investigation
• Additional key facts re: the anthrax investigation
• The FBI's emerging, leaking case against Ivins
• The FBI's selective release of documents in the anthrax case

from Dr. Meryl Nass

• Anthrax Vaccine Blog

Why is 9/11 So Important?

The talking heads on TV, witness Homeland Security head Chertoff, still point to 9/11/2001 as a seminal event... a day that changed everything. This has been the mantra since that day. This event, and the accused perpetrators (never mind that those supposedly responsible have morphed from Osama bin Ladin to Saudi nationals to Saddam Hussein) are the reason we now have lost habeus corpus, the reason we are now enmeshed in a civil war in Iraq, the reason we are still losing soldiers in Afghanistan, the reason our gas prices are high, the reason we cannot expect the Executive branch of our government to follow the law....

I confess to holding a few assumptions. (1) The current administration is lying and has been lying about nearly everything. (2) Questioning the "official line" about what happened on (and who caused) 9/11 is verboten.

Actually, point 2 is indisputable. If you don't believe me, just try to raise a question, out loud, about how Tower 7 fell... or any other anomaly that day. Like how in the hell our national defense system failed us so badly that no planes were scrambled to confront the airplanes that turned off their transponders. Or why the members of the 9/11 commission just failed to include testimony from Norman Minetta that raised definite questions about just which orders Cheney wanted to stand as a plane approached the Pentagon.

Point 1 is obvious to anyone who learns about the world outside of Fox News [sic] channel. The lies are endless. Not only are they proven lies, they go unchallenged by the "MSM" ... who apparently have better things to do than source their stories and seek the truth.

The root of all current evil is 9/11. Once we shine the light on what really happened (and what DIDN'T happen) on that day, the remainder of our current issues and their solutions ... will come into focus.

That's why 9/11 is so important. If we leave those stones unturned, we are only trying to plug the hole in the dike when what we really need to address is why the seas have breached the dikes in the first place.

How Many Conspiracists Does it Take to ...

Why is one conspiracy any more believable than another?

To read forums and blog comments, some people believe that 19 incredibly lucky Arabs with boxcutters pulled off the total destruction of the entire World Trade Center complex, plus the destruction of a plane with passengers and crew in Shanksville, PA, plus heavy damage all the way through several rings on one side of the Pentagon.

I'd say that's fairly outlandish.

But if you suggest there's more to the story, or a different story, all of a sudden it's impossible because it would take the assent, aid and continuing silence of thousands of people!


This, my friends, is a straw man argument. There is no mainstream 9/11 Truth theory that calls for a cast of thousands.

I mean, if all it took was 19 mostly Saudi Arabs, then surely another group of 19 could do it too. Especially if the event was planned in advance and the mechanisms put in place over time.

I do not believe now, nor have I ever taken seriously, the motive ascribed to Osama bin Laden and his followers, that, "they hate our freedoms." Did Osama benefit? Did Islam benefit? Did the Taliban benefit? Just who did benefit? And who might have had the means and a motive?

If we are looking for motive, we find one right here -- the implementation of the PNAC's hegemonic plan simply could not have happened absent our "new Pearl Harbor." The neo-cons seem to have been ready for 9/11/2001.

[Tunick photo found here, fair use]