That truly is a tough job

10 April 2007
By Boris Epstein

Defending the indefensible, that is. That must be one of the reasons why few people seem to be willing to argue in defense of the official theory of 9/11.

It's not like they don't get an opportunity. The 9/11 skeptics, or 9/11 truthers, or 9/11 conspiracy theorists - pick your term - have challenged them to a debate time, and time, and time again. Here's independent journalist Ed Haas' experience (Change in Venue or Date will not Alter Decision, July 3, 2006):

The fact is that scientists outside the government’s control have been conducting peer evaluation of the NIST scientists and their “pancake theory” for years now, and the government theory has failed to pass the test. Its failure to pass the test means that the government has yet to provide a sustainable explanation of how the twin towers collapsed.

This is not unusual in the scientific community; the process of working hypothesis, research, presenting a theory, subjecting the theory to peer evaluation, and then if failing peer evaluation, returning to the research and even the hypothesis. What is different in this instance though is the stakes; and they couldn’t be higher because so much of what the U.S. government has done since 9/11 is contingent on the majority of the public believing that those twin towers collapsed as the result of the airplane impacts. With an estimated 42% of the American public now skeptical of the 9/11 Commission Report as well as the NIST “pancake theory”; the government knows it is losing the information war on 9/11, and has recently began to mount its predictable counter-offensive.

...

When faced with the challenge of a National 9/11 Debate, the Muckraker Report turned to the well-respected work of Professor Jones and Professor Fetzer at Scholars for 9/11 Truth. The Muckraker Report contacted Professor Fetzer and asked if he could assemble a highly qualified seven-member civilian debate team that would be willing to debate a seven-member government debate team regarding the government’s account of 9/11 events. Professor Fetzer had a team assembled in two weeks. With the civilian debate team in place, the Muckraker Report identified twenty-nine potential government debate team members to include the ten members of the 9/11 Commission and the thirteen NIST scientists responsible for the government’s “pancake theory” of collapse. Each of these potential government debate team members was mailed numerous invitations. Five of the 9/11 Commissioners had staffers contact the Muckraker Report via telephone to decline invitation due to “prior commitments”. However, the thirteen NIST scientists remained silent.

After three separate mailings of hard copy invitations to the NIST scientists, on June 8, 2006 the Muckraker Report received e-mail from NIST that said, “The project leaders of the NIST World Trade Center investigation team respectfully decline your invitations to participate in the National 9/11 Debate on September 16, 2006.” Not to be deterred, on June 20, 2006 the Muckraker Report e-mailed Michael E. Newman, NIST Director of Media Relations, and asked if there was a better date, time, and location for NIST to participate in the National 9/11 Debate.

On June 25, 2006, NIST Director of Media Relations, Michael E. Newman responded:

The members of the NIST WTC Investigation Team has [sic] respectfully declined your invitation to participate in the National 9/11 Debate. A change in venue or date will not alter that decision.

A change of venue or date will not alter that decision. Fascinating! What Newman is telling the world is that the public servants at NIST, the people paid by the U.S. taxpayers, will never, ever publicly debate their peers regarding the “pancake theory” of collapse of WTC-1, WTC-2, and WTC-7. Taxpayers should be outraged! The public needs to demand accountability. Apparently, the Gang of 13 at NIST does not believe they are accountability to the people. That needs to change, pronto! Newman has repeatedly told the Muckraker Report that NIST “stands solidly behind the collapse mechanisms for each tower and the sequences of events (from aircraft impact to collapse) as described in the report.” The truth is that NIST is hiding behind its unsustainable theory and dares not publicly debate the merits of its report.

Recently, Ann Arbor 911 Truth had a similar experience (9-11 Truth Event in Ann Arbor, April 10, 2007):

On April 7 annarbor911truth.com hosted Kevin Ryan, Kevin Barret and William Rodriguez for an unforgettable afternoon of truth in the League ballroom. We filled over three hundred chairs for this event called "TRUTH STRIKES BACK".

Originally, the group had planned to sponsor a debate. We invited the members of YAF, a popular rightwing organization on campus to to debate us on the following issue: "Have the government and media lied to the public about the events of Sept 11."
Though we issued several polite invitations these were declined.

Next we tried the physics department at the University of Michigan as well as three departments in the school of engineering, Civil, Materials Science and Mechanical. We sent each faculty member a personal invitation as well as a copy of "Improbable Collapse" All of the invitations were declined or not answered; that's over three hundred invitations total for the University faculty. No one would defend the official story as related in the NIST, FEMA and 9-11 Commission Report.

Since we had advertised a "debate", out of desperation Kevin Ryan and Kevin Barret did a mock debate and took turns representing the official story as outlined in NIST and the 9-11 Commission report. Then they took turns showing how these reports failed the public.

Like this author mentioned earlier, "the roar of that silence is deafening." And by all appearances people are slowly waking up to that roar.

"Mainstream Media & 9/11 - Blatant Mind Control Propaganda!"

1 April 2007
By Boris Epstein

YouTube link

This is a presentation worth watching to get a glimpse into how the modern media can by way of selective censorship cover a topic in a way that ridicules one of the sides in the debate from the start and denies the audience an opportunity to acquire knowledge of the subject or form an informed opinion of said subject. It is, of course, shocking when the subject at hand is something as crucially important as the tragic events of 9/11 - which, aside from their own enormity, have since been presented as basis for a revolutionary transformation of the American policy.

It also shows how myths are created by way of presenting certain opinions as apriori unassailable and subject only to unquestioning acceptance. The "9/11 heretics" are given some air time, of course. I must say that only started after the 9/11 Truth movement has grown too large to be ignored by the mainstream media but let us not dwell on that point. However, when those "heretics" are given the light of day it is generally only after a somewhat derisive introduction, only very briefly and only in such a way as to deny them an opportunity to present their views in any fashion that even smells of seriousness. That is a subtle, though effective, way to reinforce the official 9/11 myth.

For more on the myth making see an excellent article titled 9/11: The Myth and the Reality by Dr. David Ray Griffin's who also happens to be featured in the video above.

The blast in Manhattan and the ever-present shadow of terror

Yesterday morning, at about 8:40 AM a gas explosion caused a building on Upper East Side to collapse. There were no fatalities in the blast though several people sustained injuries of various degrees of severity.

I first heard about this event from Marc Parent who also asked, "Will a sudden announcement be made that an Iranian suicide bomber did it?" So far that has not happened and by now I doubt it will. However, some very peculiar happenings are associated with this situation, and I definitely think they are worth a mention.

The New York Times published a detailed article about this event today (Blast Levels Manhattan Town House; Inquiry Focuses on Injured Owner, July 11, 2006). The prevalent version of the events according to the authorities appears to be that one of the destroyed building's occupants, Dr. Nicholas Bartha, was going through a difficult divorce and experiencing bouts of severe depression, and that this could have been a suicide attempt on his part. If so that attempt failed; it appears that Dr. Bartha is the most severely injured of all the victims. "He had second- and third-degree burns over 30 percent of his body, one law enforcement official said."

And this version of the events could be true. It could also be a case of a genuine gas leak and subsequent spontaneous explosion, even though that is a little harder to fathom given an e-mail Dr. Bartha sent out earlier that morning that reads a lot like a suicide note:

Law enforcement officials said the explosion rocked the neighborhood less than two hours after Dr. Bartha had addressed a disjointed, erratically punctuated e-mail message to his former wife, Cordula, with copies sent to Gov. George E. Pataki and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, and to the Fox News personalities Sean Hannity and Brit Hume, among others.

In the message, he told her: "“You always wanted me to sell the house. I always told you, 'I will leave the house only if I am dead.' You ridiculed me. You should have taken it seriously."

He also wrote, "When you read this lines your life will change forever. You deserve it. You will be transformed from gold digger to ash and rubbish digger."

He sent the message at 7:30 a.m. Twenty-one minutes later, Con Edison received a call from employees of the private club next door, the Links Club organized early in the 20th century to promote golf saying they smelled gas. Michael S. Clendenin, a spokesman for Con Edison, said it sent a mechanic, who arrived at 8:20.

Mr. Clendenin said the mechanic called in at 8:45 to report the explosion. The mechanic was not injured.

So the situation seems to be reasonably clear - a psychologically unstable man going through a difficult phase in his life decides to self-destruct taking some of his surroundings with him. However, there are still questions to be asked. According to the same New Your Times article,

In a sign of the concern the blast generated, the first official word came from the White House, which announced that it did not appear to have been the work of terrorists. And detectives began piecing together a New York story of real estate and divorce, anger and money— and a house valued at $6.4 million.

I would certainly be curious to know how the White House could determine that the situation was devoid of the tell-tale signs of a terror attack even before the local police officers working the scene had a chance to make their own conclusions. It almost makes it sound like the detectives began to "piece together" their investigation after the White House gave them directions to follow in their work.

Here Marc Parent expresses incredulity at the fact that the building was pretty much completely flattened. That does seem curious but in my opinion it is possible that a gas explosion - especially in the basement of the building - could have brought it down. I have once seen consequences of an oxygen tank explosion and it does create some massive devastation, destroying brick assembly structures and bending metal ones. I have no relevant expertise but would imagine a gas explosion could wreak similar type of destruction. And if this was a terrorist attack - whether a genuine one or of the false flag variety - it would be a very inefficient one. All the perps would have had to do was wait another hour for all the office workers to arrive and they would have had lots of victims to show for their effort. That alone makes it doubtful that this was a terrorist attack.

It is unmistakably clear, however, that the management of terrorism-related news has become completely politicized and largely divorced from the real life. When the hapless terrorist wannabes like the "Miami seven" make front-line news whereas William Krar, a man prepared to launch a major terror strike and only stopped by a chance arrest, remains in obscurity you start wondering if the real-life events matter to those who are supposed to inform us of them. And both the government and the media seem to be carefully editing the terrorism-related news to formulate a certain message, not to present the situation as it really is.