Why Might Bombs Have Been On Board the Planes?

I just stumbled upon a good explanation at The Movement site.

The planes were being controlled by someone on the ground or in another plane, either using existing technology built into the plane, or having planted additional hardware in the plane for that purpose.

First, if you haven't looked at the section on weird coincidences you may wish to read how someone in the entertainment industry had already come up with the idea of planes being flown into the World Trade Centre using remote control technology. To recap:

X-files spin-off "The Lone Gunmen" aired in March 2001. (snip) My theory is that the planes had some sort of device installed (like in the x-files plot) and an explosive to destroy the plane in the event of a failure.

(emphasis added)

Makes sense to me. Bombs on the planes could explain a lot about the strange, incredibly explosive crashes of all four 9/11 planes.

PENTAGON RESEARCH

A great new site I've added to my 9/11 links.

The site seems to have the same basic position as me (i.e. what the heck happened at the Pentagon and why is there a cover-up), and is very balanced in presenting an impressive array of evidence.

I think now, after looking over the site, and after all my other reading, I am essentially convinced that a Boeing 757 painted with American colors hit the Pentagon.

But there are important questions such as:
1) who or what piloted the plane?
2) was it really flight 77?
3) did the plane carry some sort of bomb?

Just like the oddities of the flight 93 crash site, the Pentagon crash site defies basic logic. While perhaps airplanes impacting the ground or a brick building at such high speeds is just something we can't comprehend very well, another possibility is that these crashes seem strange because they weren't ordinary crashes-- that is, something else happened upon impact.

Such as a bomb going off.

As spelled out in my 9/11 grand unified theory (NEGUT), having bombs aboard the hijacked planes has some explanatory power.

Still Doubts About the Presidential Election

by prominent statisticians.

According to analysis by the group of senior statisticians, the new data just released by the exit-pollsters shows that the possibility that the overall vote count was substantially corrupted must be taken seriously. “Now we have statistical evidence that these reports were the tip of a national iceberg. The hypothesis that the discrepancy between the exit polls and election results is due to errors in the official election tally is a coherent theory that must be explored,” said statistician Josh Mitteldorf.

Their paper titled "Response to Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004 Report" notes that the Edison/Mitofsky report offers no evidence to support their conclusion that Kerry voters “participated in the exit polls at a higher rate than Bush voters”. In fact, the data provided in the Edison/Mitofsky report suggests that the opposite may have been true: Bush strongholds had slightly higher response rates than Kerry strongholds.

The statisticians' study is available online at: http://uscountvotes.org/ucvAnalysis/US/
USCountVotes_Re_Mitofsky-Edison.pdf

The statisticians go on to note that precincts with hand-counted paper ballots showed no statistical discrepancy between the exit polls and the official results, but for other voting technologies, the overall discrepancy was far larger than the polls’ margin of error. The pollsters at Edison/Mitofsky agreed that their 2004 exit polls, for whatever reason, had the poorest accuracy in at least twenty years.

Meanwhile, the mainstream media yawns and goes to look for the latest news on the Michael Jackson trial.

Much Ado About Nothing?

Am I wasting time even discussing the flight 93 crash (see my previous post)?

Perhaps.

But I still think there are oddities.

One new idea I had for the impact of the plane is that the plane indeed burrowed into the ground deeply-- such that just the very tail end was sticking out-- and then this is disturbing, but may have been what happened-- the fuel exploded using primarily the air inside the fuselage, and what may have happened is that the very end of the plane opened up and the fuselage acted a bit like a rocket tube-- wherein the explosion shot out of the end of the fuselage, spraying fire and debris and human remains back from the direction the plane came from. The bit of the plane that WAS sticking out then got completely demolished by the explosion. The large engine piece could have been blown back by the wing exploding, and the furrowed ground may have acted to propel the engine piece back out the way it came in. And given the violence of the crash, then maybe it is not too surprising a thousand pound piece of debris gets thrown a few hundred feet.

So, this may be the explanation for the crater and the debris in the woods. The explosion may have rocketed backwards out the direction the plane came-- say a 60 degree angle.

However, it does NOT explain the debris, including human remains, found at Indian Lake three miles east of the crash site. Nor does it explain witnesses seeing a plane fly over the lake, nor does it explain Edwards Felt's phone call from the plane who thought for sure the plane was damaged before it went down.

So there are still some unresolved issues.

Maybe it is much ado about something after all.

The Crash Scene of Flight 93 Defies Logic

(The "facts" below are culled from Jere Longman's book on UA Flight 93-- "Among the Heroes"-- which has lots of good information besides being filled with melodramatic tripe. The inspiration for thinking about this was from a Democratic Underground post-- "Part II: ... and kiss the official UA 93 theory good-bye!")

If we are to accept the official version of flight 93 crashing, we are to accept:

1) The hijackers intentionally crashed the plane because the passenger revolt was succeeding.

2) the plane was flying upside down at the time of its crash because the hijacker pilot was trying to disrupt the passengers who were trying to take over the cockpit.

3) the plane was flying almost 600 mph when it crashed.

4) the plane impacts a reclaimed strip mine area at full force, at an extreme angle of 45-90 degrees.

5) the plane burrows into the soft ground and leaves an imprint remarkably similar to the shape of the plane-- as it would be expected for if it was flying upside down-- thus the tail leaves a clear mark in the ground.

6) much of the plane accordions upon impact, and the bulk of the plane burrows COMPLETELY into the ground, 15-50 feet below the surface. The plane or anything like a plane cannot be seen at the crash site by people who arrive first. There are small fires all around, and only very small pieces of debris are scattered about. No bodies are visible.

This part above makes SOME sense.

Now here is where it gets weird:

7) the plane also EXPLODES massively, shooting tons of debris BACKWARDS for hundreds of feet behind the impact site. This debris includes a piece of an engine that weighed one thousand pounds that was found over one hundreds yards from the crash site. So, for unknown reasons, the explosion went in the exact opposite direction the plane was supposed to be going. Some of the debris was body parts and passenger belongings that flew into the forest behind the crash and got stuck in the trees. Many of the trees behind the crash area were also badly burned from the explosion.

8) The explosion occurred without disturbing the basic pattern of the plane impact area. Thus, the plane must have gone into the ground in one piece, blew up, and then the crater reformed into the shape of the plane.

9) The explosion also was strong enough to send some very small light debris very high in the air, such that this debris landed eight miles away, supposedly downwind.

This is what we are supposed to believe happened when the plane crashed.

If we accept these basic premises, does this make any sense?

How can a plane explode like this but also burrow so far into the ground?

How can a massive engine part be blown hundreds of feet backwards into the forest?

How can the plane explode but still leave a plane-shaped imprint in the ground?

And WHY didn't the earth collapse around the burrowing plane and stifle or minimize the explosion?

I simply cannot visualize how a plane can blow up into so many tiny pieces but also leave a plane-shaped imprint and burrow so deep into the ground.

I cannot understand why the explosion went in the direction it did.

I cannot understand how some debris ended up EIGHT miles away. (One or two miles I could see, but EIGHT?)

Why is this plane crash so strange? Why did at least two of the 9/11 plane crashes defy logic? (e.g. The Pentagon crash is also strange but for different reasons.)

If you think you can explain what happened to produce this crash pattern, please let me know.

I really can't understand this.

LATE UPDATE-- after further thought, there ARE some similarities with the flight 93 crash and the flight 11 crash into the WTC (the first crash). Both planes were completely subsumed into the thing they hit (building or ground). Flight 11 produced an explosion that burst out backwards from the direction the plane was going. This could well have been the case for flight 93. BUT-- the ground into which flight 93 burrowed SHOULD have dampened the explosion if not prevented it. Also, if the plane went deep into the ground, where did the oxygen come from for the explosion? Finally, I wouldn't expect an explosion from a plane burrowing into the ground to be so powerful as to knock a thousand pound piece of engine backwards hundreds of feet.

The one way to explain this-- PERHAPS-- is to say the explosion occurred just after the plane hit the ground, after the plane made its mark. The explosion could have pushed the front part of the plane forward further into the earth, while blowing the back part of the plane apart and all over. This might make sense. However-- according to the official story-- almost the entire fuselage was burrowed into the ground. Plus, the plane's tail made a mark on the ground similar to the wings. So the explosion rocketing half the plane deep into the ground and half backwards doesn't really fit either.

There are some other considerations too--

1) the flight may have come from a different direction (the debris trail was officially reported up to 8 miles east of the crash)

2) the flight may have had some damage before crashing (consistent with the Ed Felt call)

3) the plane may have had some bomb on board that exploded upon impact (to account for the huge explosion).

Finally, what angle did the plane hit the ground? I would say it had to hit at a 60-90 degree angle to make a crater like shown in the pictures (see the DU thread linked above)-- but as John Doe II points out in the DU thread-- how did the plane manage such a steep angle at the low altitude it was at before crashing (according to the witneses)?

Thus-- it seems almost certain that flight 93 came from a different direction-- meaning the witnesses all saw some OTHER plane acting like flight 93.

For what it is worth, in "American Assassination: the Strange Death of Senator Paul Wellstone", the writers mention a James D. Sanders who investigated flight 93-- he says that it was "holed" before it crashed (probably by a missile), and spread debris, including body parts, at a lake three miles from where it crashed. He claims witnesses saw the plane fly over the lake then saw the debris dump. The lake is most likely Indian Lake, since that is the only lake exactly three miles from the crash site. And Indian Lake is EAST of the crash site. The official story is that flight 93 is coming from the WEST. So this Sanders story fits with the different direction theory. (I don't know where the original Sanders story is published, if anywhere. They were mentioning it in the book in reference to other NTSB cover-ups besides the Wellstone crash.)

The Election in Iraq

I'm happy Iraqis are voting.

And it is really sad there are people in Iraq trying to disrupt the process.

I have never had anything against bringing a better state to Iraq. The only question was how to do it.

While the Bush administration will clearly spin a huge success out of the Iraq vote, the fact is, their mismanagement made the situation far far worse than it ever should have been. Too many people died who didn't need to die.

Moreover, while the elections in iraq may be a great thing conceptually-- on the ground, I doubt anything will change. The insurgency is very likely going to try to keep disrupting things and killing Iraqis and Americans alike. It's still going to be very bad a week from now.

I don't have to watch the pundits declare Bush the great victor out of all this-- because of his "steadfastness" (I am imagining the coverage here). I'm sure I will get sick if I hear these things. But of course, to the American media-- more than about Iraqis-- these elections are all about BUSH.

Nonetheless, things will not change in Iraq after this.

Moreover, if a Shiite-dominated government eventually comes out of this, as seems likely, it may very well be a long-term disaster for US interests in the region.

Not that that outcome is a BAD thing neccessarily.

Flight 93 Crash Site

Like the other crash sites of 9/11, the flight 93 crash site is strange. Basically the plane is supposed to have disappeared into a hole in the ground. That video linked above and this collection of videos show absolutely no sign of a plane-- no debris, NOTHING.

Really really odd.

It's quite amazing how all of the 9/11 planes just seem to MELT into whatever they impact-- WTC exterior, Pentagon wall or the ground. Did any one of the 9/11 planes produce any significant debris?

Take a look at the photos of airplane crashes at this site. Every crash whose photo I looked at produces recognizable airplane wreckage.

Why were the plane crashes on 9/11 so different?

Because they were piloted by terrorists?

I understand there may be logical explanations for why the plane crashes on 9/11 looked and turned out the way they did, but still it is odd-- particularly flight 93. How does a complete plane disappear into the ground?

Even if the plane was going straight down at a 90 degree angle, does this explain how the whole airplane can go deep into the ground? Almost 200 feet of plane? In contrast, if the plane telescoped, then one would expect to see some plane sticking out. You can't have a telescoping and deep burrowing action at the same time. It reminds me of how the WTC south tower exploded-- both the top and bottom sections above the crease started disintegrating at the same time. It doesn't make sense.

But if flight 93 DIDN'T go into that hole, where did it go?

I really don't know. But certainly the crater of the crash site could have been produced just by explosives. The plane could have ended up somewhere very differently. The big question is if anyone besides the FBI saw the plane engine that was supposed to have come off flight 93 and was found in the woods.

Understanding Evil

The RudePundit takes on Dick Cheney at Auschwitz.

This is something you basically have to go read, I can't do it justice without excerpting the whole thing.

There's Something About Sibel

Something has bothered me for a while about Sibel Edmonds.

I initally thought her stroy was very compelling-- that she had some serious insight into 9/11. And darn, if she ain't a looker. Following her story was something of a pleasure.

But I finally figured out what has been bothering me.

If she truly has important information, can't she just violate her gag order? What's more important-- spreading the truth about 9/11 or not going to jail?

I mean-- how many interviews have I seen now where she hints she has some really incredible information that would blow open 9/11, but darn it-- she just CAN'T talk about it? (Answer: lots) Isn't this the definition of a tease?

Seems to me, if she really cares about this country AND the truth AND all the people who died on 9/11 and SINCE-- she owes it to everyone to tell her story-- and DAMN the consequences.

To Peak or Not to Peak?

Putting it simply, Mike Ruppert believes in Peak Oil, a theory at its extreme that says that in the near future, global oil supplies will plummet, wreaking a global catastrophe as humanity won't have enough energy to supply its basic needs. Ruppert postulates that Dick Cheney, aware of upcoming declining oil supplies, and determined to keep the US "lifestyle" intact, maunfactures the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which provide a Pearl Harbor type of catalyst that allows the US to attack oil-rich middle east nations-- particularly Iraq and Iran.

The problem is-- even by the relative irratonality of the Bush administration, does it truly make much sense to spend vast amounts of capital to hoard the last remaining bits of a resource you are going to have to wean yourself off of in the next ten to twenty years?

It doesn't to me.

On the other end of the spectrum is Dave McGowan, who thinks the idea of Peak Oil is basically a scam, and that there is plenty of oil and gas to last for a long time. He puts out the idea that oil and gas actually are not fixed entities but have abiotic origins, meaning that they are natural products of the earth. McGowan then turns around the Bush administration's motives in invading the middle east-- NOT as an attempt to grab the last remaining drops of oil by invading middle east countries-- but as a massive and cynical battle for the capitalist control of oil deposits so as to ensure high oil prices.

But this doesn't make a lot of sense to me either. First off, the evidence for Peak Oil is pretty strong. Second, the idea that we are grabbing oil-producing countries merely in order to CONTROL the prices of an unlimited resource seems a little silly-- since if oil is unlimited, it should be unlimited everywhere, so why do we need to take over the middle east?

But-- the US clearly IS trying to take over the middle east.

The question is WHY? What is our motivation? It's certainly not terrorism. It's by now a sick joke that the US invaded Iraq becuase they wanted to control terrorism. So WHY did we go into Iraq?

There is the issue of Israel-- taking away Saddam Hussein did help Israel. But as powerful as the Israeli lobby may be, I don't think they were the only reason we went to war. We had to have another reason.

The answer, I think, is sort of a compromise between Ruppert's and McGowan's theses. That is-- Peak Oil is real. Oil supplies will decline dramatically over the next twenty years. But I suggest that the US invaded Iraq NOT to be able to take their oil, but to stabilize oil prices.

That is, as we start going down the curve of Peak Oil, economic stability is extremely important. A drastic change in oil prices could easily lead to a world recession-- and even global catastrophe. For modern economies not to collapse, the price of oil has to be controlled very carefully over the next twenty years. Thus, the key for this is that the political situation in the middle east be stable as we start down the downward Peak Oil slope. The stable control of oil prices over the next twenty years was seriously threatened by the "instability" posed by Saddam Hussein and his sons, who were poised to take over. Simply put, Saddam and his regime were "bad actors" who the west could not control or not be trusted.

Iran seems to be in that same catagory. But I just can't see how the US is going to topple Iran in the next few years. We have way too many problems as it is right now. But I guess it depends on how desperate the Bush administration is. I hope mostly they are bluffing right now. The only way we could go after Iran is if there was a draft, and the Bush administration, for political reasons, won't start a draft unless there is some severe emergency such as a major terrorist attack. So either they are bluffing, or they ARE really desperate and there is another major terror attack in the works.

It would be a great show to watch if this wasn't so deadly serious.

Are The Democrats Finally Doing something Useful?

The 'Stop Government Propaganda Act'

According to a release, publicity or propaganda is defined in the bill as: news releases or publications that do not clearly identify the government agency responsible for the content; audio/visual or Internet presentations that do not identify the responsible government agency; any attempt to manipulate journalists or news organizations; messages created to aid a political party or candidate; messages with a "self-aggrandizing" purpose or "puffery of the Administration, agency, executive branch programs or policies or pending legislation"; and, finally, messages that are "so misleading or inaccurate that they constitute propaganda."

Boy if they can get this passed and especially if they can make it retroactive, seems to me they could lock up the whole Bush adminstration.

Not very likely, obviously.

No Child Left Behind-- From the Draft

Funny what Republicans sneak into these bills:

The No Child Left Behind Act, passed in 2002, included a little-seen provision stipulating that all public high schools provide a list of students' names, addresses, and other personal information to military recruiters. Douglas Smith, a spokesperson for the Army Reserve Command, says this provision is simply a matter of convenience. "It saves the recruiters a lot of research time figuring out how to get in contact with the students."

But by the accounts of teachers, students, and parents, the officers in the pressed uniforms and shiny shoes are using those data to get more aggressive, particularly at poor and largely minority schools. At schools like Bronx Community College, they set up tables three or four days a week; at many high schools, they far outnumber college or other job recruiters. They call kids at home, show up at their front doors, and even threaten them, anything to get the kids to boot camp.

Activists report that one kid who signed up for delayed entry was told that backing out, which is legally allowed, would be desertion in a time of war, meaning he could be hunted down and shot. (Smith, the army spokesperson, said a recruit could be considered AWOL—less serious than desertion—only after going through all physicals and other screenings, and then failing to show up for basic training.)

Is this SICK or what? What a fucked up country we've become.

So when IS the draft coming?

That ought to be fun.

Cut NORAD Some Slack for Their Response on 9/11?

SO-- on 9/11/01 NORAD was running several wargames, including a live-fly hijacking drill, AND before 9/11/01, NORAD conducted several live-fly exercises where NORAD was supposed to intercept a hijacked plane that was supposed to crash into a major US building.

But that doesn't mean that NORAD could have prevented 9/11, right?

And it also doesn't mean that the exercises on 9/11 interefered with the interceptor response to the real hijacked planes, right?

After all, the military runs exercises all the time, right? And if anything, the NORAD exercises on 9/11 meant the interceptors were already on alert ready to go, right?

As you might expect, this is the official NORAD story-line.

And okay, these are valid points.

HOWEVER, there are three reasons to think there is a lot more to this story than their facile excuses:

First, the lack of air defenses over Washington DC on 9/11 is inexcusable. The only possible explanation for the lack of air response short of a stand-down order, which nobody really believes happened, is the normal air defenses were diverted away into a wargame/exercises on 9/11.

Second, the total secrecy in which NORAD and the military have kept about the wargames/exercises on 9/11 strongly suggests they are hiding this information for a reason.

Third, the fact that on 9/11, NORAD was in fact running some sort of live-fly HIJACKING DRILL is simply too much of a coincidence. I don't buy that it was a coincidence. Either Al Qaeda had a mole that knew about the hijacking exercises and planned their hijacking for then (and if so, why haven't we heard more about this?), or 9/11 was an inside job.

It's that simple.

The NORAD wargame/exercise story simply can't be written off as something innocuous and unrelated to the attacks of 9/11.

Democratic Underground Poll on 9/11 wargames

How many of you know that:

A) on 9/11/01 NORAD was running several wargames, including a live-fly hijacking drill?

B) before 9/11/01, NORAD conducted several live-fly exercises where NORAD was supposed to intercept a hijacked plane that was supposed to crash into a major US building?

Results-- of sixty responses:

68% knew about both A and B
25% knew about either A or B but not both
Only 8% were unaware of both A and B

Surprisingly good!

Of course there undoubtedly was some self-selection-- people who knew the answer may have been more likely to respond to the poll.

But my impression is that a rather high percentage of "DUers" are very suspicious of the official 9/11 story. Perhaps not surprising, given the type of forum-- but still... it gives me hope.

Silence from the Mainstream Media

On Ruppert's "Crossing the Rubicon".

Is the book really not even worth rebutting?

Or is silence a better response from their viewpoint?

I wonder if Ruppert is surprised at how little attention it has gotten. I would be kind of depressed myself.

Still, it's #455 on Amazon, even though it has gotten amazing little attention.

David Ray Griffin's "The New Pearl Harbor" is #2,066
(Griffin's book on the 9/11 Commission Report is #8,381)

The 9/11 Commission Report itself is #111.

So Ruppert is doing quite well, but gets no press at all. I wonder if at some point the political/media borg will have to address the book however.

Certainly the wargame/highjacking drill issue is still very much out in the public domain with this book, and the government has not made any real official statement regarding it.

Of note actually, is that although back in May 2004, CNN and USA Today broke stories that NORAD had been running drills that simulated hijacked planes crashing into buildings BEFORE 9/11, they didn't mention the wargames that were running ON 9/11. Those stories were only mentioned by the Canadian Toronto Star and Richard Clarke's book, as well as a couple of low profile US publications.

So the 9/11 wargame issue, perhaps THE KEY to 9/11, is being pushed out into the public domain by Rupert's book and various web-site and weblogs (such as this one).

I sitll believe this issue could change the public's perception of 9/11 if it could ever be made widely known.

We'll see if that ever happens.

Last Bit on the Pentagon Hit

Of course, the most inexplicable thing about the idea that flight 77 hit the Pentagon is the lack of any air defense over Washington DC-- when flight 77 had been known to be hijacked for 40 minutes and had (apparently) flown hundreds of miles to get to the Pentagon. The lack of air defenses in the nation's capital is astounding and hard to believe.

What is also weird is that the same time Flight 77 was heading to Washington DC, Bush was dilly-dallying in a Florida classroom. Thus at the precise time Bush should have been making decisions about shooting down flight 77, he was clearly stalling. Ari Fleischer even held up a sign to Bush reading "don't say anything yet".

So the inexplicable lack of Washington air defenses is mirrored by the inexplicable lack of attention Bush is paying to the crisis occurring.

Was this a coincidence?

Was someone KEEPING Bush occupied so he couldn't respond to flight 77?

It's certainly too hard to believe this was a coincidence.

Funny Navy Coincidences with the Pentagon Hit

Mike Vreeland, who apparently had foreknowledge of 9/11 worked for the Office of Naval Inteligence (ONI).

The Captain of Flight 77, that supposedly hit the Pentagon, was a former Navy pilot.

The part of the Pentagon that was hit housed the renovated Naval Command Center.

Weird.

By the way, Al Martin, who used to work for the ONI, says that the ONI is more powerful than the CIA.

I'll Be Happy

If I can EVER figure out what the deal is with the Pentagon security camera video.

Webfairy/Killtown analysis.

Is it a giant hoax? A huge fake? Does it show something real at all?

Also, I hadn't noticed before the thing sticking out from the explosion that might be a plane's tail-- see frame #4.

Interestingly, if you assume that thing sticking out of the fifth frame is a plane's tail, then there is a theory for what happened. There was an explosion before the plane hit and the plane flew into the explosion!

As strange as this may seems, this idea fits the security camera sequnce (which must have been edited extensively-- several frames removed) and it also explains how a Boeing 757 could have flown into the side of the Pentagon and only make such a small hole. A pre-damaged Pentagon wall could explain the very odd pattern of how the plane hit.

A pre-plane explosion could explain WHY they were so secretive about this.

Why on earth they would have explosives go off right before the plane hits is not clear. Could the explosion possibly be caused by a surface to air missile that missed the plane and hit the Pentagon? Or even weirder-- a missile from a plane that was trying to intercept flight 77? Maybe they really didn't want us to know they were shooting at planes-- just like with flight 93-- when the president hadn't officially given the order. Is this all about the military covering its ass?

Hmmmm.

What I DO know is that the video doesn't show a plane hitting and then causing an explosion. The explosion doesn't even make sense with a plane hitting. So there has to be another explanation.

On even further thought-- if you go look at the frames of the explosion played together here, the you can see that the tail-like thingy is more like some large piece of debris that gets blown up into thte vortex of the explosion. Also, in the last frame, the angle is not right for a plane's tail that would have gone INTO the Pentagon.

So probably scratch the plane tail idea.

But damned if I can figure out what is happening with the #$%!@# Pentagon security camera video.


Note-- this essay (scroll way down)has an interesting theory that the Pentagon strike was some sort of blackmail, and they seem to be blaming the Israelis. There is some logic to what they say, but who the hell knows if it is true or not.

Thoughts on 9/11, Bush

Will Bush implode in his second term before he does any more damage to the country?

I think it is likely-- and certainly much more likely than the 9/11 fraud being exposed.

I really see the next four years as being a giant let-down and disappointment for most Americans rather than any huge catastrophe. Iraq is simply not going to give a happy ending, but it is not going to start World War Three (or Four or Five -- or whatever they are officially up to now). Oil will be in reasonable supply for a few more years. I don't see the US economy booming not completely busting-- more just a sorry slide into a continual weakened state.

Is there one trend-line that is pointing up for the country or for Bush right now? Bush probably won't be impeached, but he will be very limited in what he can do. His hands are tied with the budget and with the military.

I guess the real question is whether he will finally abandon his scorched earth tactics against Democrats and adopt a few rational mainstream policies. Like raise taxes to try to bring down the deficit.

If one thing is clear, Bush is not a conservative. What has he done that is conservative? Will he become a real conservative at some point?

Another question is what would be better for the future of the country-- Bush imploding or the 9/11 fraud being exposed?

Since uncovering 9/11 would bring down Bush, I think the latter. But the former is of course much more likely.

Paranoid Shift

I don't think I've linked to this article before, so I will now.

In fact, my personal "paranoid shift" probably began with the disillusionment I felt when I realized that the story of American foreign policy was, at the very least, more complicated and darker than I had hitherto been led to believe.

But for most of the next 30 years, even though I was a radical, I nevertheless held faith in the basic integrity of a system where power ultimately resided in the people, and whereby if enough people got together and voted, real and fundamental change could happen.

What constitutes my personal paranoid shift is that I no longer believe this to be necessarily true.

In his book, "Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower," William Blum warns of how the media will make anything that smacks of "conspiracy theory" an immediate "object of ridicule." This prevents the media from ever having to investigate the many strange interconnections among the ruling class—for example, the relationship between the boards of directors of media giants, and the energy, banking and defense industries. These unmentionable topics are usually treated with what Blum calls "the media's most effective tool—silence." But in case somebody's asking questions, all you have to do is say, "conspiracy theory," and any allegation instantly becomes too frivolous to merit serious attention.

On the other hand, since my paranoid shift, whenever I hear the words "conspiracy theory" (which seems more often, lately) it usually means someone is getting too close to the truth.

A really good piece overall.

9/11 Articles at inn.globalfreepress.com

The Inn World Report was one of my favorite places to go for 9/11 news, but the site was taken down about a month ago.

However, I see that Ewing2001 (Nico Haupt) brought back the site and has archived all the old articles at the old address-- for now anyway. Although this site is no longer an active news portal, it looks like he might start a new site soon.

Anyway, there are some really interesting pieces there, particularly the series on the "Lost Terror Drills".


http://inn.globalfreepress.com/modules/news/

Mike Ruppert Wants to "Move On" from 9/11?

Interesting discussion here.

Without listening to the speech in question, it's not clear to me if Ruppert is saying that it's not important now who was behind 9/11, or if he is saying that the window of opportunity for exposing the truth on 9/11 is closed and that our actions are better spent focusing on the future.

I suspect Ruppert means the latter. To a certain extent I agree. Of course we should keep trying to expose the truth about 9/11. But for some time now, I have realized that 9/11, the way it was set up in the first place, is simply something that is too big to be exposed as a fraud. Most Americans simply don't want to believe it, the media doesn't want to touch it, and thus, the story will not budge.

However, I still think it is worth spending time pounding away on 9/11. The same crew is in power, and they are still accountable to some extent. And there is always some slight chance the 9/11 truth movement could catch the attention of someone important who is willing to do something about it.

As far as Ruppert-- he constantly generates controversy in the "conspiracy community", for reasons I don't exactly understand. Probably partly because he is somewhat more mainstream and has maintained a higher profile than other conspiracy types. He mostly seems to be a bit of a old-fashioned guy who has been embraced by the counter-culture for his research on 9/11. He is somewhat conservative in his political beliefs, as far as I can tell. And he is a bit pompous.

BUT-- I have read "Crossing the Rubicon", I've read his free pieces at his "From The Wilderness" site (I'm not a subscriber), and I have listened to a couple of speeches he gave (via the internet). I have a generally good impression of him. I think he is a smart, interesting, entertaining and very substantial figure involved in researching a very dark area of US governmental operations. I won't vouch for everything Ruppert says or writes, but I think mostly he has gotten it right on 9/11.

My major criticism of Ruppert is that he is far too pessimistic on the implications of Peak Oil. I think Peak Oil is a major problem, but my opinion is that it is quite possible that dwindling oil is something that this world can deal with without major upheavals and major loss of life. Of course, I could be wrong, but my prediction is that there simply won't be rapid and calamitous changes from dwindling oil supplies. Certainly there will be major change of a type which is impossible to predict, but these changes will play out over several decades. This is what history suggests, anyway.

If Mike Ruppert wants to "move on" from 9/11, I imagine it is mostly for practical reasons-- not because he isn't interested in justice. And I can sympathize.

The cold, hard reality is that, in the absence of an incredibly organized and diligent effort, 9/11 truth or 9/11 skepticism will never move mass public opinion. And unfortunately, the movement HAS been fairly disorganized, one reason being that people can't seem to agree on what they think happened on 9/11. There are too many red herrings and the people can't even agree on the red herrings. And of course, most people have families and jobs, and life really isn't so bad overall, and thus they simply can't commit to full-time activism. This is understandable.

For what it is worth, I will keep pushing 9/11 here on this blog-- for a while anyway.

I have this kooky idea that if I read, write and think about 9/11 long enough, then eventually the simple weight of my work will mean something, and perhaps will be enough to change someone's mind.

We'll see!

Whoa-- this is interesting, if true

Condi Rice was the person who warned San Francisco mayor Willie Brown not to travel on 9/11???

Says so here.

Interesting-- though certainly hard to know if this is legit.

But it would make some sense. Condi worked at Stanford, and could have known other high profile African-Americans in the area.

The Most Pressing Issue of Our Age

Competition for diminishing oil reserves.

China's risky scramble for oil

Look at this imbalance: The average American consumes 25 barrels of oil a year. In China, the average is about 1.3 barrels per year; in India, less than one. So as the 2.4 billion Chinese and Indians move to improve their living standards, they're going to want more oil - likely more than can be produced.

That perceived shortage is setting off an intensifying scramble to tie up oil reserves around the world. So far, China has been the most aggressive player. But the competition is just getting going.

The pattern is clear. China has been weighing buying Unocal, a major US oil firm. Last month in Beijing, Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez promised to open that nation's oil and natural gas fields to China. Russia, in effect renationalizing the giant oil subsidiary of Yukos, may offer China a 20 percent chunk of the new firm. China's efforts to tie up oil and gas resources - in places such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan - have not been cheap....

The challenge is huge. For China and India to reach just one-quarter of the level of US oil consumption, world output would have to rise by 44 percent. To get to half the US level, world production would need to nearly double.

That's impossible. The world's oil reserves are finite. And the view is spreading that global oil output will soon peak.

As a result, "the growing demand for oil is leading to a growing global conflict," warns Amos Nur, a geophysicist at Stanford University. The 1991 Gulf War, the 9/11 attack, and the current war in Iraq are skirmishes that could "pale in comparison with the looming potential conflict over oil with China....

"There is a growing recognition of future oil scarcity, or at least the end of growth," says Jim Meyer, director of The Oil Depletion Analysis Centre in London. "The challenge of producing more and more oil is getting more and more difficult."

(story found via Rigorous Intuition) Funny how they mention 9/11 there, huh?

Anyway, I have tended to have the view that the coming oil shortage will not be a huge crisis due to the way the market works. As the article points out, as oil becomes more expensive, it will force people to change and become more efficient, and further to utilize alternative energy sources more.

That is the way it SHOULD work-- if we had rational leadership in the US, that is.

Unfortunately, we have the Bush administration.

Let's really hope their vision of spreading "freedom" is not just simply fancy window dressing for a policy of attacking all the oil rich nations.

They can't be THAT crazy, can they?

"Fire in the Mind"

While in general I find Justin Raimondo rather tedious to read, I thought his column on Bush's inaugural speech was excellent.

Midway through his inaugural address, when the president proclaimed "the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world," I wondered if Bush or his speechwriters knew or cared how alien this ultra-revolutionary rhetoric would seem to conservatives of the old school – and soon had my answer:

"Because we have acted in the great liberating tradition of this nation, tens of millions have achieved their freedom. And as hope kindles hope, millions more will find it. By our efforts we have lit a fire as well, a fire in the minds of men. It warms those who feel its power; it burns those who fight its progress. And one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world."

A fire in the mind – surely, I thought, Bush's speechwriters can't have inserted this phrase without knowing its literary origin. It is taken from Dostoevsky's novel, The Possessed, a story set in pre-revolutionary Russia in which the author chronicles the intrigues of the emerging revolutionary movement: one of the main characters is based on the infamous nihilist Sergei Nechaev, whose aim is to make a revolution of such destructive power that bourgeois society will be completely destroyed. Their strategy is to provoke a violent crackdown on all dissent – which will then spark an explosion of revolutionary violence. To this purpose the nihilist Peter Verkhovensky worms his way into the confidence of Lembke, a provincial governor, convincing him of the need to crush rebellious workers who are distributing revolutionary leaflets and generally agitating against the government. The result is an uprising of murderous anger, a volcanic eruption of nihilistic violence that consumes the provincial capital in a great fire. In the end, Governor Lembke stands amid the crowd watching his mansion go up in flames:

"Lembke stood facing the lodge, shouting and gesticulating. He was giving orders which no one attempted to carry out. It seemed to me that every one had given him up as hopeless and left him. Anyway, though every one in the vast crowd of all classes, among whom there were gentlemen, and even the cathedral priest, was listening to him with curiosity and wonder, no one spoke to him or tried to get him away. Lembke, with a pale face and glittering eyes, was uttering the most amazing things. To complete the picture, he had lost his hat and was bareheaded.

"'It's all incendiarism! It's nihilism! If anything is burning, it's nihilism!' I heard almost with horror; and though there was nothing to be surprised at, yet actual madness, when one sees it, always gives one a shock.

"'Your Excellency,' said a policeman, coming up to him, 'what if you were to try the repose of home? . . . It's dangerous for your Excellency even to stand here.'

"This policeman, as I heard afterwards, had been told off by the chief of police to watch over [Lembke], to do his utmost to get him home, and in case of danger even to use force – a task evidently beyond the man's power.

"'They will wipe away the tears of the people whose houses have been burnt, but they will burn down the town. It's all the work of four scoundrels, four and a half! Arrest the scoundrel! He worms himself into the honor of families. They made use of the governesses to burn down the houses. It's vile, vile! Aie, what's he about?' he shouted, suddenly noticing a fireman at the top of the burning lodge, under whom the roof had almost burnt away and round whom the flames were beginning to flare up. 'Pull him down! Pull him down! He will fall, he will catch fire, put him out! . . . What is he doing there?'

"'He is putting the fire out, your Excellency.'

"'Not likely. The fire is in the minds of men and not in the roofs of houses. Pull him down and give it up! Better give it up, much better! Let it put itself out.'"

In Dostoevsky's novel, that fire in the minds of men is not a yearning for liberty, but a nihilistic will to power that can only end in destruction. Put in George W. Bush's mouth, those words are not a paean to freedom, but a manifesto of pure destructionism. Like Governor Lembke, President Bush has no dearth of hardline advisers who counsel him in ways calculated to provoke a violent reaction: unlike Lembke, however, there is little chance George W. Bush will learn his lesson, even if it comes too late.

The fiery imagery that pervades the text of Bush's second inaugural address is disturbing because it is so constant. He describes the course of history in the last fifty years, and "the shipwreck of communism," followed by "years of sabbatical" that ended in "a day of fire." The fiery prose heats up quickly, raising the rhetorical temperature to a fever pitch:

"Hope kindles hope" – "By our efforts we have lit a fire, a fire in the minds of men."

The flames leap up, as the mad Governor Lembke cries out.

"It warms those who feel its power," avers the President, "it burns those who fight its progress."

The revolutionary nihilists in Dostoevsky's novel, and those real-life nihilists in pre-revolutionary Russia on whom the characters were based, believed themselves to be agents of progress, destined by History to sweep away the old in the purifying flames of a great uprising that would be the prelude to a new world. A similar messianic sense of being on the right side of history pervades Bush's polemic:

"History has an ebb and flow of justice, but history also has a visible direction set by liberty and the author of liberty."

snip

This is quite possibly the most worrisome and even frightening speech ever delivered by an American president. Its imagery of a fire burning up the world, coupled with the incendiary promise to aid "democratic reformers" against "outlaw regimes" worldwide, evokes the spirit of another murderous "idealism" – one that made the 20th century the age of mass murder. As he ranted on and on – "the expansion of freedom in all the world"; "Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our nation"; "When you stand for your liberty we will stand with you." – Bushed sounded more like Trotsky addressing the Red Army than an American president addressing his people.

It was a strange speech, short and strident, far too idealistic, far too ignorant of practical matters-- so strange such that the speech really took on messianic overtones. That's really NOT the tone a president should be aiming for, and as Raimondo notes, it IS scary.

Bush the Idealist

Oh yeah-- he is definitely an idealist. Seriously, I think he is. I think he really thinks that he is spreading liberty and freedom and democracy.

That's the scary part.

Because if he tries to spread any more of his brand of freedom, the world is going to be in a world of hurt.

And obviously just talking about freedom and democracy is nice, but the question is, WHAT do you do about spreading freedom and democracy?

The devil really is in the details.

Take Iraq. (please--take Iraq!)

I have never had a problem with getting rid of Saddam Hussein and trying to fix the country. The question was ALWAYS exactly how do you do it?

And clearly the Bush administration did it almost the worst way possible, such that I think there is no way for a good outcome in Iraq. And certainly there is no way it is going to come out to make worthwhile the massive cost in human lives and dollars.

I really have to wonder if once the Republicans finally get a dose of reality (it has to come sooner or later), if they will look back at what a collossal fuck-up they had as their poster-boy. It still amazes me the way the have happily followed this self-centered spoiled little prick down the primrose path into complete disaster.

9/11 Co-conspirators

Okay, so let's say you really do believe that 19 Middle-eastern men armed with box-cutters, small knives, mace and fake bombs could take over four large commercial jets without any significant trouble, and then pilot three of these planes hundreds of miles perfectly into relatively narrow targets (the WTC was vertically narrow, the Pentagon was horizontally narrow).

Let's say you believe this happened according to the official story.

Now, can you also believe that no one else in the US knew of this plot?

Can you believe that these 19 men got no assistance from any one inside the US who knew what they were up to?

Is this feasible at all?

However, according to the official 9/11 story, this is what we are expected to believe. For damn sure, no one else in the US has been prosecuted for any 9/11 related crime, with the exception of Zacarias Moussaoui.

Are we really to believe that NO ONE ELSE IN THE US KNEW ABOUT THE 9/11 ATTACKS BEFORE THEY HAPPENED BESIDES ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI?

And if Moussaoui knew about the attacks, why haven't we prosecuted him up the wazoo? Shouldn't he be a slam-dunk case for conviction?

But no, this Moussaoui, who is by all acccounts a simpleton, has been representing himself in court (!) and he has been holding the BEST PROSECUTION LAWYERS THE US HAS TO OFFER AT BAY! The one guy they can actually prosecute for 9/11, and they can't nail him down?

Are you fucking kidding me?

Does this make any fucking sense? ANY OF IT?

Who out there believes that no one else in the US besides Zacarias Moussaoui knew of the 9/11 plot?

If you believe this, I'd LOVE to talk to you.

I have some real estate I'd like to sell you....

Fox News Fun

Yesterday I tuned into Fox News very briefly, at two different completely random times.

The first time, the big story was "What will the Bushes wear to the Inauguration?" and the blonde woman announcer seemed rather excited about talking about that. This immediately caused bile to rise in my throat and I rushed to change the channel.

The second time, I got treated to the spectacle of Newt Gingrinch on "HANNITY and colmes", comparing Barbara Boxer to Michael Moore and essentially calling them the conspiracy wing of the Democratic party. This was because Boxer had the temerity to challenge Condi Rice on a few of her lies. Newt gave the standard Republican puffery of Rice and all her qualifications. Then he let loose with this-- "Clearly the Democrats haven't learned the lesson of Tom Daschle". The subtext I assume being that Tom Daschle dared challenge the Republicans and this is why he lost his re-election. Of course this was pure horseshit, since Tom Daschle was about as meek and mellow a politician as you are going to find, and the reasons he lost were certainly much more complicated than simply that he mildly challenged the Bush administration. Watching old Newt spew this crap was maddening, and my anger lasted for far too long after I turned off the TV. Finally I realized Newt was just putting on a show, serving up the old propaganda for the Fox News masses-- although I couldn't quite figure out if Newt really believed what he was saying. I mean, how can any sane person defend Condi Rice's lies over the past four years? I don't care if she's black, that she has a PhD, that she plays wonderful piano -- that doesn't immunize her from criticism over her horrible job performance as National Security Advisor. You don't have to be a rabid partisan to see that Condi Rice was a pathetic shill and blatant liar who helped get the US into a tragic war.

In any case, while Fox news is fun to check in on once in a while, I surely would go insane if I had to watch it for longer then a few minutes.

Partially Cooked Rice

I just heard Barbara Boxer on the radio refuse to confirm Condi Rice for Sec. State, and she had some strong cogent criticisms of Rice's actions in selling the Iraq war. This was all good to hear-- someone speak up to the unbelievable duplicity of Condi Rice. However, no one (probably not surprisingly) touched Rice on the most appalling aspect of her record: her behaviour regarding 9/11.

As THE NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR, she failed catastrophically in doing one concrete thing to try to prevent 9/11, despite multiple warnings. She simply has a disgraceful and criminal record on 9/11.

After 9/11, her record is just as bad. The worst part of course being her bald lying about the US never imagining airplanes could be used as missiles by terrorists. Read the post below this, and you'll see what a SICK JOKE she is.

Beyond Bush and Cheney, the person I have the most disgust for is Condi Rice.

Unfortunately, the Democrats simply don't want to touch her failures regarding 9/11, perhaps afraid it is too sensitive of an issue, or that they will be called unpatriotic, or that it will open a can of worms they would rather not deal with.

And the country suffers as a result.

(sigh)

The Biggest Unresolved Question About 9/11

--in my mind anyway: were the planes that flew into the WTC and Pentagon part of the live-fly hijacking exercise (Operation Vigilant Guardian/Vigilant Warrior)?

This is really the linch-pin of the MIHOP (Make It Happen On Purpose) theory.

The LIHOP (Let It Happen On Purpose) theory doesn't make much sense, since the outcome was too unpredictable. The HIHOP (Help It Happen On Purpose) suffers from the same problem.

So really, we have two extremes:
the conventional official story of 9/11, or a full-on deep-in-the-woods conspiracy-land tin-foil-hat-territory theory where somebody in the US government "made" 9/11 happen.

But the thing is, there are just TOO many things wrong with the official story for it to be true.

Thus we are left with MIHOP.

So how on earth would someone in the government "make" 9/11 happen?

Here's the overall theory.

Bu the simple answer is run a military operation where planes are targeted to fly by remote control into buildings and NORAD is supposed to shoot down the planes before they get reach the targets. Let's call it a "live-fly hijacking exercise". This in fact is similar to exercises NORAD is known to have run prior to 9/11. Then someone at NORAD makes the exercise harder, and confuses the interceptors by inserting extra blips onto the radar simulating other hijacked aircraft. Sounds impossible? Yet we know there was a live-fly hijacking exercise being run on 9/11 AND someone did insert extra blips onto NORAD and probably FAA radar (see here as well as "Crossing the Rubicon" for sources on this).

At minimum, if the 9/11 hijackings were unrelated to the "live-fly hijacking exercise", the exercise confused NORAD when they needed to respond to flight 11.

At the natural extreme, however, we have a clear mechanism for how someone in the government could have set-up 9/11.

Facts in favor of the 9/11 planes being part of the "live-fly hijacking exercise":
1) it is unlikely the 9/11 hijackers could navigate the planes so perfectly to the targets and fly the planes so skillfully into three targets.
2) even though black boxes were recovered from the WTC, they have been kept a secret.
3) black boxes were supposedly found at the Pentagon, but never released the contents.
4) the many other incongruities of the attacks-- in particular lack of real weapons used by the hijackers and the odd and improbable phone calls from the hijacked flights.
5) the clear post-attack cover-up.

Problems with this theory:
1) presumes a large-scale covert operation the likes of which has never been run before.
2) either presumes there was a plane-swap of the passenger jets with remote-controlled drones (a tricky operation), OR the passenger jets were taken over by remote-control presumably after the hijackers killed or otherwise incapacitated the pilots (also tricky but perhaps more likely than the plane-swap).

It's a hard call, but I think what tips the balance overall towards a "Happen On Purpose" scenario and thus towards MIHOP and thus to the "live-fly hijacking exercise" mechanism is:
1) the clear advance warnings of attacks
2) the clear infiltration of Al Qaeda by US and Pakistani (and Israeli?) intelligence
3) the reasonably clear fact that the WTC underwent controlled demolition
4) the clear motive the Bush administration had for the attacks
5) the clear evidence that the Bush administration is composed of ruthless liars.

So, again-- were the planes that flew into the WTC and Pentagon part of the live-fly hijacking exercise (Operation Vigilant Guardian/Vigilant Warrior)?

Excellent Run-Down on the Condi Rice Confirmation Hearings

by the consistently excellent Fred Kaplan.

The most substantive—perhaps the only substantive—exchange came late in the afternoon, during the second round of Q and A, when Biden asked Rice the question that he said everyone, including U.S. military officers, had asked him during his most recent trip to Iraq: Are we really staying? Or does the planned scenario go like this: The election is held Jan. 30; the new leaders tell us to get out; we declare victory (Saddam's gone, the WMD have vanished) and leave? Biden, who opposes leaving under these circumstances, asked more specifically, "Is there any reasonable possibility that the U.S. will withdraw the bulk of its forces before the end of 2005," when the second round of elections is scheduled to take place?

Rice replied, "I can't judge that, but I will say we will help the Iraqis get that done"—that is, get the second round of elections accomplished—with "whatever force levels" are required. This wasn't even a "non-denial denial." It wasn't a denial. She declined to assure the Iraqis or anyone else that the United States is firmly committed. Biden threw her a softball pitch, but she didn't swing. The question that Biden said everyone is asking in Iraq—are we staying, or are we plotting to cut and run?—remains, remarkably, unanswered.

In a similar exchange, Biden raised Seymour Hersh's claim, in the latest New Yorker, that Pentagon civilians are pushing for an airstrike against Iran, as a means of toppling its fundamentalist regime. Biden emphasized he wasn't asking Rice to confirm the report. He just wanted to know if she believes it's possible to topple the Iranian regime through military action—and whether regime change in Iran is the administration's goal.

Rice replied that the administration's goal is to have a regime in Iran that's responsive to U.S. concerns. She then noted that the current regime stands "180 degrees" in opposition to those concerns—on nuclear weapons, relations with al-Qaida, and support of Hezbollah. She added, "The Iranian people, who are among some of the most worldly that we know—in a good sense—do suffer under a regime that has been completely unwilling to deal with their aspirations."

Once again, Biden gave Rice a chance to dismiss the hottest rumor of the moment. And, again, she demurred.

It's 7 Tuesday night on the East Coast as I write this, and the hearings drone on. A few Democrats have tried to lay into the secretary-to-be. Sen. Boxer has yelled at her and called attention to various misstatements and contradictions that Rice has uttered the past two years about Iraq and other matters (leading Rice to say, with a slight quiver in her voice, "We can have this discussion in any way you want, but I hope that you would not impugn my integrity"). Paul Sarbanes has bemoaned our growing trade deficit and its impact on our diminishing power in the world (Rice suggested that she address such questions to the treasury secretary). Christopher Dodd interrogated her about the semantics of torture (she doesn't condone it but declined to define it). Russ Feingold decried the war in Iraq as a distraction from the war on terrorist networks (she disagreed).

But at no point in these hearings, which will certainly result in her confirmation, did Rice give the slightest indication of how foreign policy in Bush's second term will be any different from the first term.

Just in case you thought things might get better in the boy-king's second term.

Spies--Good God, Huh! --What Are They Good For?

Absolutely nothing, say it again!

Confronted with all the shortcomings of the secret services, its supporters reply that it would be unthinkable not to have a secret service, forgetting that we did not have one until 1911. Anything is better than nothing. But is this true? According to a study by the Royal Institute for International Affairs, western intelligence’s success in predicting Soviet moves was no better than that of America’s think tanks. The intelligence community does everything it can to avoid assessment of its efficiency, usually by falling back on the unanswerable statement: “We have had some marvellous successes but we can’t talk about them because they’re secret.”

A bold government could try an experiment to decide whether, stripped of its legends, the intelligence game is a vast confidence trick. The other great world collector and assessor of information is journalism. Let’s give a team of journalists and a team of spies an assignment to report on a specific international development and, based on that report, to produce an assessment of what is likely to happen.

The spies would use their usual covert sources, the journalists their open ones. The test would show us who had performed better. The odds look good for the journalists.

This is something I've long wondered-- do spies and covert operations really do that much good overall?

Isn't a sunshine or open-source policy better?

I think it would help diplomatic relations around the world. Maybe defuse a lot of situations.

Isn't it better to negotiate form a position of honesty and good ethics?

Interesting...

Was "The Manchurian Candidate" a model for the RFK assassination?

Both Evans and Sirhan's lawyer, Larry Teeter, are convinced that the Palestinian activist was chosen to be a Manchurian Candidate-style assassin. In the 1962 film, remade last year, and based on a novel by Richard Condon, a former prisoner of war from the Korean conflict is brainwashed by Communists into becoming a political assassin.

Evans and Teeter believe that while Sirhan fired several shots, none of them hit Kennedy. The assassination, they say, was carried out by a professional hitman who fled immediately, leaving Sirhan to take the blame.

It was only because Kennedy had dismissed his Los Angeles police bodyguards that Sirhan survived and was not gunned down on the spot as his controllers had intended, reports Evans.

Two related points--
1) there was a FOX TV show pilot ("The Lone Gunmen") where the plot involved remote-controlled planes being flown into the WTC-- this was BEFORE 9/11. It's sort of like Hollywood writes the script for the CIA sometimes.

2) Tim McVeigh of OK City bombing fame always seemed a little robotic. It seems quite likely that he was a patsy programmed by hypnosis-- especially considering his truck bomb wasn't strong enough to tear down the building AND they found other bombs planted around the Murrah building.

UPDATE: Jeff Wells knows a hell of a lot more about the JFK assassination than I do. I was pretty young when it happened, and have never read anything significant about it since. All I really remember was how nasty the sixties were-- the Vietnam war, and the JFK, RFK, MLK and Malcolm X assassinations.

Interviewing the President

I guess no "real" journalist would ask these questions, but still...

"Mr. President, do you know how many people's lives have been destroyed by the war in Iraq?"

"Mr. President, how many lives are you willing to sacrifice in Iraq?"

"If you are so concerned about bringing democracy to Iraq, why did you plan so poorly for the post-invasion period?"

"Isn't your agenda really to destroy social security as we know it?"

"How do you feel about the use of torture on prisoners obtained in your 'global war on terror'?"

"Do you believe in the concept of innocent before proven guilty?"

"So, when is the next terror attack coming?"

"How much did Rove tell you about how they rigged the election?"

"When you said you the first plane hit the tower on TV on the morning of 9/11, were you lying?"

"Do you really believe in god?"

"By any chance are you trying to speed up the coming of the rapture?"

"Mr. President, why do you hate America so much?"

When He's Tired, He Forgets To Be Misleading

The Washington Post interviews Bush.

"The Post: Will you talk to Senate Democrats about your privatization plan?

THE PRESIDENT: You mean, the personal savings accounts?

The Post: Yes, exactly. Scott has been --

THE PRESIDENT: We don't want to be editorializing, at least in the questions.

The Post: You used partial privatization yourself last year, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes?

The Post: Yes, three times in one sentence. We had to figure this out, because we're in an argument with the RNC [Republican National Committee] about how we should actually word this. [Post staff writer] Mike Allen, the industrious Mike Allen, found it.

THE PRESIDENT: Allen did what now?

The Post: You used partial privatization.

THE PRESIDENT: I did, personally?

The Post: Right.

THE PRESIDENT: When?

The Post: To describe it.

THE PRESIDENT: When, when was it?

The Post: Mike said it was right around the election.

THE PRESIDENT: Seriously?

The Post: It was right around the election. We'll send it over.

THE PRESIDENT: I'm surprised. Maybe I did. It's amazing what happens when you're tired. Anyway, your question was? I'm sorry for interrupting. "

Quite an amazing exchange.

I think this commentator at The Politcal Animal put it pretty well:
"Bush is a moron. Sure, he wasn't really confused by this. The Bushies called it "privatization" until they realized that it didn't poll well, and then they changed the name. His problem wasn't that he was confused, his problem was that he's an idiot who didn't know how to fix his own mistake. SNL had it right last night. Had Clinton been caught changing terms in such a matter, he would have quickly bailed himself out in way a much less obvious manner. And he sure as hell wouldn't have pretended that he didn't know what they were talking about. It doesn't take a lot of brains to lie, but you certainly have to be clever when you're caught lying. And Bush is not a clever man, so he shouldn't try to be one.

Another part of Bush's moronity was that he was trying to accuse the reporters of something in the first place. He's so wrapped up into his own hubris that he screwed himself up by pretending that it was never his word. The reporter was clearly going to change his terminology until Bush tried rubbing his face in it. And then the reporter wouldn't let it drop and brought up that they weren't being fooled by Bush. What a moron. He should have let the matter drop, rather than drawing attention to it.

Another of Bush's problems here was that he's overly competitive and sees a competition between him and the media; with them trying to trick him into saying things while he tries to avoid the traps and stays on-topic. And that certainly is what's happening. But he makes it so OBVIOUS that this is what he's doing. He openly says it repeatedly, with stuff like "Nice try, but it didn't work", or "trying to trip me up again, eh". Sure, reporters always try to get their interviewees to say more than the interviewee wants to, but you're not supposed to make that the point of discussion. Any intelligent person knows how to deal with that, without outright saying that everything's a trick question. He's such a damn boob it's frightening.
Posted by: Doctor Biobrain"

Depressingly Frightening or Frighteningly Depressing

Seymour Hersh on the Bush administration's plans to go after Iran by empowering the Pentagon to launch covert operations that cannot be accountable to congress.

"“Rummy’s plan was to get a compromise in the bill in which the Pentagon keeps its marbles and the C.I.A. loses theirs,” the former high-level intelligence official told me. “Then all the pieces of the puzzle fall in place. He gets authority for covert action that is not attributable, the ability to directly task national-intelligence assets”—including the many intelligence satellites that constantly orbit the world.

“Rumsfeld will no longer have to refer anything through the government’s intelligence wringer,” the former official went on. “The intelligence system was designed to put competing agencies in competition. What’s missing will be the dynamic tension that insures everyone’s priorities—in the C.I.A., the D.O.D., the F.B.I., and even the Department of Homeland Security—are discussed. The most insidious implication of the new system is that Rumsfeld no longer has to tell people what he’s doing so they can ask, ‘Why are you doing this?’ or ‘What are your priorities?’"

This is the Bush administration in a nutshell-- avoid accountability at all costs. Lie, obfuscate, do whatever it takes-- just avoid accountability from sane and rational people.

And yes-- according to the article, the US has forces on the ground in Iran.

Oy

Due to shielding of the sun's radiation by pollution, the effect of greeenhouse gasses on global warming may be much worse than previously thought.

The real problem is if pollution decreases-- then the greenhouse effect may really cause catastrophic changes in climate.

But it now appears the warming from greenhouse gases has been offset by a strong cooling effect from dimming - in effect two of our pollutants have been cancelling each other out.

This means that the climate may in fact be more sensitive to the greenhouse effect than previously thought.

If so, then this is bad news, according to Dr Peter Cox, one of the world's leading climate modellers.

As things stand, CO2 levels are projected to rise strongly over coming decades, whereas there are encouraging signs that particle pollution is at last being brought under control.

"We're going to be in a situation unless we act where the cooling pollutant is dropping off while the warming pollutant is going up.

"That means we'll get reducing cooling and increased heating at the same time and that's a problem for us," says Dr Cox.

Even the most pessimistic forecasts of global warming may now have to be drastically revised upwards.

That means a temperature rise of 10 degrees Celsius by 2100 could be on the cards, giving the UK a climate like that of North Africa, and rendering many parts of the world uninhabitable.

That is unless we act urgently to curb our emissions of greenhouse gases.

Or, we can just keep polluting, right?

Insider Trading on 9/11

As noted in the previous post, Karl Schwarz seems to have some important information about illegal monetary transactions that were covered up by the destruction of 9/11. The transactions Schwartz refers to may well be real, but their linkage to 9/11 seems far from clear.

What is very clear is that there were strange financial dealings right before 9/11 that suggested that someone had insider knowledge of the catastrophes involving American and United Airlines.

The 9/11 insider trading story is laid out very clearly in Ruppert's "Crossing the Rubicon", in Chapter 19-- "9/11 Insider Trading, or 'You Didn't Really See That, Even Though We Saw It'".

Right after 9/11 there were several articles in mainstream sources describing the insider trading. Then, the media just completely forgot about these stories and now pretends they never existed.

We have to assume the media is covering for the government or somebody very powerful-- because the only people who might know of the attacks ahead of time and who would never get prosecuted for insider trading are 1) the terrorists, and 2) extremely powerful US officials.

The key point is that if the insider trading was done by the terrorists, there is no reason, a priori, for the media to cover this up.

Thus, by default, the insider trading HAD to be done by powerful US officials.

Moreover, given the clear connections with CIA officials and Wall Street bankers AND the known connections between the 9/11 hijackers and the CIA, the insider trading was almost certainly done by CIA officials or somebody powerful with CIA contacts. And this means of course that the CIA had foreknowledge of the attacks.

You can see why the media likes to ignore this story now, can't you?

It Sure Sounds As If Karl Schwarz Is Onto Something Important Regarding 9/11

But damn if I can figure out exactly what he's got. It would also help if he could write a little more succinctly.

This intelligence file, one that has been suppressed by our government as they have suppressed all other matters relating to 9-11-2001, has names, banks, account numbers, wire transfer instructions, security codes, and more information to clearly show who was involved in a $120 billion debt due and that debt was definitely due in September of 2001. It did not get paid, and had it been paid, our information shows that a ring of robber barons would have been exposed to be misusing fake gold collateral certificates to borrow money under false pretenses (very large sums of money at that) and then never repay it. In short, had it been paid, they were caught red-handed.

Snip

You will learn in Part VI that the "9-11 doers" probably trained in Canada (not Florida) and took advantage of technology developed in that nation that was in place in New York and in planes used in war games between the U.S. and Canada. The name of 9-11 Commission member John F. Lehman surfaces in Part VI and it also apparently surfaced in the documents we just handed over to Spitzer and Morganthau and cited herein, so if you are not paying attention yet it is time you did start paying very close attention.

And on and on he goes. Basically he is pushing the idea that 9/11 was about covering up some large illegal money transaction-- which is not a new concept-- but he seems to have a lot of details. He has too many details but not a coherent story line that I can see. Unfortunately his story is beginning to veer into Wayne Madsen territory.

Bush's win was a historical anomaly-- is this evidence of fraud?

Initially I wanted to see if the 11.5 million votes Bush got compared to 2000 was unusual for an incumbent president.

What I found was that his increase in votes, compared to the overall percentage increase in voters, was not unusual.

Thus, Bush got 11.5 million new votes from 2000-- but this was really an increase of 9.5% over his totals from 2000.

What is strange is if you compare Bush winning percentage, 2.5% over Kerry, with his increase in new votes, Bush's win really stands out.

Thus looking at incumbents winning the presidency in the past 75 years, and I count Truman winning in 1948 and Johnson winning in 1964, there have been 10 elections where the incumbent has won (FDR, FDR, FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton and Bush). Of these 10 elections, 7 times the incumbents received more votes than he did 4 years earlier.

Now look at this list of incumbents who increased their votes from the previous election:

1st number is % margin of victory
2nd number is % total increase votes (compared to previous election)

FDR 1936 / 24% // 5%
Eisenhower 1956 / 15% // 2.3%
Johnson 1964 / 23% // 12.8%
Nixon 1972 / 23% // 20%
Reagan 1984 / 18% // 11.4%
Clinton 1996 / 8.5% // 2.6%
Bush 2004 / 2.5% // 9.4%

So Bush's increase in votes is right in the middle-- but when you look at his margin of victory, it is way way far off from the other president's margins.

While this clearly doesn't prove anything, it makes Bush's 2004 vote increase very strange. Of course, one explanation is fraud-- switching votes from Kerry to Bush.

In fairness, if you go back to Wilson's win in 1916, he had only a 3% margin of victory and he picked up 15.6% more votes than in 1912. But the 1916 election had a 29% increase in voters compared to 1912, which was one of the highest increases ever (I'm not sure why-- maybe because of the start of WW I). In 2004, there was a 16% increase in voters, high but not unusually high.

So I think Bush's win can either be seen as fraud, or due to some world-transforming event like 9/11, which could have caused to the electorate to behave like 1916.

But for many other reasons, I think fraud is the most likely explanation.

Update: A simple way of explaining this finding is this: normally when an incumbent picks up a lot of new votes, he wins the election by a very large percentage margin (e.g. Reagan's 18% margin and 10.6 million new votes in 1984). In the case of Bush in 2004, he picked up a very large number of new votes (11.5 million) without much of a winning margin (2.5%).

Because we know Democrats were very united against Bush, and the electorate was very polarized, there can't have been much switching from 2000. This means Bush got something like 60% of the new voters who didn't vote in 2000. But given Bush's overall vote percent was 51%, this means new voters behaved very different from the electorate as a whole--- and it is very hard to believe this was the case, especially given that new excited voters tend to go 1) for Democrats and 2) for the challenger.

The question has remained as ever since Nov.2, 2004-- where the hell did Bush get all his new votes from?!?!

The Abu Ghraib Torture Scandal Patsy

Charles Graner Jr.

Graner's attorney, Guy Womack, contended that his client and other Abu Ghraib guards were under extreme pressure from intelligence agents to use physical violence to prepare detainees for questioning.

"It was a persistent, consistent set of orders," Womack said in his closing argument. "To soften up the detainees, to do things so we can interrogate them successfully in support of our mission. ... We had men and women being killed."

Womack described the notorious photos taken inside the prison as "gallows humor" arising from unrelenting stress felt by the Abu Ghraib guards.

He reminded jurors that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) was not yet in U.S. custody when the alleged abuse happened.

"There was somebody very important on everybody's mind," Womack said. "Wouldn't it be logical to have your interrogators use pressure to get information to try to find him?"

He also tried to plant the seed that Graner and the other low-level guards were being used in a cover-up to protect Army officers once those photos went public.

Graner is obviously a sick fellow, but are we really suppsed to believe he did all this abuse by himself, without any orders from the top? That he came up with the idea for pyramids made of naked men, among other things, all by himself?

What's more, it's clear from the Alberto Gonzalez hearings that the Bush administration sanctioned some forms of torture for holding prisoners from the "war on terror".

When will someone fucking hold the Bush administration accountable for anything?

Deception Dollars

They're not just for breakfast anymore!

I've gotten a few from here and there. They are pretty cool-- and they have a lot of really good 9/11 links printed on them.

Looking at the site, THIS is news to me. I had no idea Deception Dollars had made it to the US Congress (via Congressman Jim McDermott)!

Chances: LIHOP, HIHOP, MIHOP

Nothing in this world is for certain, of course, and thus I cannot say I am 100% convinced of anything about 9/11. But, there are many aspects of 9/11 of which I am fairly confident than other aspects. The following are my current chances for various theories and stories about 9/11:

1) Some officials in the US government had specific foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks: 99%

2) Some officials in the US government aided the hijackers at various points before 9/11: 99%

3) Some officials in the US government had a direct hand in carrying out the attacks: 50%

4) All 19 of the hijackers named by the FBI were really on the four hijacked flights: 1%

5) The hijackings occurred according to the official story-- by force with small knives, boxcutters, mace, pepper spray and fake bombs: 10%

6) The hijackers actually piloted the planes into the WTC and Pentagon: 10%

7) There was some sort of plane switch, where the original hijacked planes landed and other drone planes took over the flight path and then crashed into the WTC and Pentagon: 50%

8) The hijackings took place as part of a pre-arranged drill: 50%

9) Flight 77 really crashed into the Pentagon: 25%

10) A Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon: 50%

11) There were extra explosives planted at the WTC that helped bring down the towers: 50%

12) The Pentagon security camera video was altered: 99%

13) Extra explosives were planted at the Pentagon: 50%

14) Dick Cheney was intimately involved in the 9/11 attacks: 50%

15) Bush had some specific foreknowledge about what was going to happen on 9/11: 75%

16) The civil air defense (NORAD) response to the hijackings was distracted and/or disbaled by wargames being run on 9/11: 90%

17) The 9/11 attacks did not involve any planes and were a massive deception perpetrated by the government: 1%

18) There is a large cover-up about the 9/11 being maintained by the government: 100%

19) There is a large cover-up about the 9/11 being maintained by the airlines: 100%

20) There is a large cover-up about the 9/11 being maintained by the media: 90%

Thus, in terms of overall scenarios, this gives an extremely high likelihood for Let It Happen on Purpose (LIHOP) and for Help It Happen on Purpose (HIHOP). The odds for Make It Happen On Purpose (MIHOP) are roughly 50-50.

BUT-- the problem I have had with LIHOP for some time now is the unpredictability. It's hard to see that the government would not have any control over what buildings were hit-- it's simply too risky. Thus, in a sense, you have an all-or-none option-- where either the attacks are MIHOP all the way OR the official story where the government really tried to do everythng it could to prevent the attacks but was incompetent in stopping the attacks. But since there clearly was significant foreknowledge, this swings the pendulum to MIHOP.

This is why, despite the seeming improbability of it and the dark conspiracy theory nature of it, I have leaned towards MIHOP.

9/11 Discussions at Democratic Underground

Lately I've been spending (wasting) a lot of time at the 9/11 forum at Democratic Underground.

At least they are keeping the site open for now and there are a lot of 9/11 skeptics there. It's a good place for exchanges, though most of the discussions that I have had have been fruitless so far.

This picture, that started a particularly long and silly thread, shows the gash in the WTC tower made by the plane. Despite the silliness of the thread, the picture is very interesting-- especially when you compare it to the hole made by a 757 crashing into the Pentagon. What happened to the solid floors between the stories in this hole in the WTC? Four stories of floors seem to have been completely blown away. By what? The wings of the plane? Why didn't the wings of the plane do this much damage to the Pentagon? It's very curious.

Granted, the exterior walls of the Pentagon were very different than the exterior walls of the WTC-- the Pentagon walls were reinforced concrete. But the steel columns that were on the outside of the WTC should have been pretty tough too. Not to mention that once the walls of both structures were penetrated, the floors between the stories should have been relatively equivalent structures. But the hole in the Pentagon hardly shows even ONE floor being blown away, whereas the in the WTC, several floors were demolished at the impact site.

The whole point being, what caused the damage at the Pentagon? I'm simply not convinced it was a Boeing 757.

A Grand Unified Theory for 9/11?

Although examining physical evidence is a bit of a trap for 9/11-- in that you will probably never convince anyone of government complicity from the physical evidence that internet researchers have access to-- I find that in the case of the Pentagon, examining the physical evidence is simply irresistible. The fact that so many people have examined the Pentagon hit means two things really:
1) that they find it an irresistible puzzle as well, and
2) that they find something very strange about the Pentagon hit overall.

Jean-Pierre Desmoulins, who I linked to a few posts back regarding the Pentagon security camera video, has an interesting take on the Pentagon hit.

He think it is most likely that a Boeing 757, probably flight 77, hit the Pentagon. He thinks the hole in the side of the Pentagon is essentially consistent with a Boeing 757. The catch is that he thinks the plane was loaded with a massive bomb of some sort. This is somewhat similar to Eric Bart's "plane bomb" theory that I discussed a few months back. However, Desmoulins proposes that is a shape charge, a depleted uranium bomb or a bunker busting bomb.

This is for five main reasons:

1) the degree of damage and penetration into the Pentagon is much greater than one would expect from a Boeing 757 impacting that section of building.

2) the plane impact produced a shock wave that in more consistent with a bomb than a plane hitting a stone wall.

3) a few people who worked inside the Pentagon said they "smelled" explosives.

4) the fact that the Pentagon is clearly hiding something since they altered the first several frames of security camera video.

5) the initial explosion shown in the security camera video does not look like a plane fuel explosion-- it is too white. Plane fuel explosions tend to be orange/red.

Personally, I can't judge these pieces of evidence very critically. They make sense, but I can't really say how accurate some of these conclusions are-- particularly #1 and #2.

But let's say, for the sake of argument, Monsieur Desmolins is correct.

This has some interesting implications.

Namely, if flight 77 was loaded with a bomb, it seems just as likely that flights 11 and 175 were loaded with bombs. Then, such bombs could help explain the incredible collpase of the WTC.

A bomb on board flight 93, that was detonated over Shanksville, PA might explain some of the odd features of that plane crash as well.

The government would clearly be covering up the presence of these bombs, if they existed.

Thus, we have something of a 9/11 "grand unified theory". For fun we can call this theory "NEGUT" (Nine Eleven Grand Unified Theory).

Of course, hypothesizing bombs on board the 9/11 hijacked planes means either:
1) the terrorists were much more sophisiticated than we thought and managed to smuggle huge bombs into someone's luggage, or 2) the 9/11 planes were loaded with bombs by some other group-- some covert organization aligned with the terrorists.

In this scenario, 9/11 would fall into line with two other major terrorist bomb attacks on the US: the first World Trade Center bombing and the Oklahoma City bombing. In each of these two cases, there is compelling evidence that the US government greatly facilitated the placing of bombs-- and in the case of the OK City bombing the government also covered up the presence of extra planted bombs.

It seems to me that there is a pattern here.

Is Iraq to the US

as Afghanistan was to the USSR?

Where of course, the US armed and supplied rebels that fought against the USSR.

Right when the Iraq war started, there were some reports that Russia had given special military equipment to the Iraqi army-- in particular, night-vision goggles as I recall.

It would be ironic if Russia was still supplying the Iraqi insurgency with arms and other military equipment.

It would also be sweet payback for Russia.

According to legend, the Afghani rebels-- the muhajadeen-- eventually turned into militants against the US-- Al Qaeda. Thus to complete the circle, any Russian-armed Iraqi fighters would have to eventually turn against Russia and be the culprits of a massive terrorist attack.

US Representative Jim McDermott-- A Hero or a Traitor?

Op-Ed Piece in Seattle Post-Intelligencer: "Investigate alleged violations of law in Fallujah attack"

The means of attack employed against Fallujah are illegal and cannot be justified by any conceivable ends. In particular, the targeting of medical facilities and denial of clean water are serious breaches of the Geneva Conventions. Continuation of these practices will soon confirm what many already suspect: that the United States of America believes it is above the law.

One thing for sure is that the guy has got guts.

And he's NOT a traitor, in my book.

He's a real American hero.

The Press Covering Up Uncomfortable Facts

An old American tradition.

Upton Sinclair wrote back in 1919:

By far the greater part of the news which the American people absorb about the outside world comes through the Associated Press, and the news they get is, of course, the raw material of their thought. If the news is colored or doctored, then public opinion is betrayed and the national life is corrupted at its source. There is no more important question to be considered by the American people than the question, Is the Associated Press fair? Does it transmit the news?

And so the American media goes, through various major and minor scandals since 1919: the JFK assassination, Vincent Foster's death, the Oklahoma City bombing, the TWA flight 800 crash, and the 9/11 attacks.

Excellent Pentagon Security Camera Video Analysis

Here.

That shows quite clearly there was fraud committed by the Pentagon.

Interesting overall Pentagon analysis here.

This guy (yet another Frenchman) is proposing that flight 77 DID hit the Pentagon, and that it most likely contained a depleted Uranium bomb. He is thus proposing a modification of the plane bomb theory. The guy says he is an engineer, and overall he seems to know what he is talking about. He is also an amateur pilot, and thinks it is possible an inexperienced pilot could have hit the Pentagon in the way that flight 77 apparently did.

Note-- the guy has an unusual (but effective) system for browsing his web site-- just so you're warned.

A Prediction on the Iraqi Death Squad Tactic That Is Being "Floated" to the Press

The Bush administration will back down publicly from this policy, due to reasonable criticism from reasonable Americans. However, the administration will still run the death squads, but in some slightly less obvious and less effective way. The administration will eventually lose the war, and then blame liberals for causing them to lose the war because they objected to the death squad tactic, even though liberals weren't the only ones who objected and even though liberals have absolutely no political power in this country.

Question for Non-9/11-Skeptics

Of the few people who drop by here each day, I have no idea what they think of this site. Do they find the stuff I write absolutely bonkers, do they find it somewhat intriguing but don't know what to make of it or are they mostly people with a similar skeptical world-view?

In any case, here's something for any and all of you.

Remember when the 9/11 commission report came out, they distributed that "security video" to the media supposedly showing the flight 77 hijackers going through security at Dulles?

Did you notice anything funny about that video?

That's right-- it has no time or date stamp!

Has anyone ever seen a security video without at least a time stamp? Has anyone ever heard of a time-stamp being REMOVED from a security video? Me neither.

The big question is-- why on earth would they show this? Doesn't this video attract more questions then it answers? Was this their intent?

In fact it is somewhat reminiscient of the famous Pentagon security camera video of the object hitting the Pentagon and causing a huge fireball. The date stamp was wrong and the object and fireball didn't quite comport with the idea of a 757 impacting and penetrating the Pentagon exterior-- however this didn't seem to bother the government. This was their "proof"!

I'm especially interested in hearing from non-9/11 skeptics about these two video shots. Why do you think the government would release something obviously wrong?