Two Previews In One Day

How lucky can we get? First, and more important, are a couple of pages from the Rick Veitch Truther comic book.

The artwork looks pretty good, but the story... not so much. It looks like they're going for the full-on paranoid style with this one. See, the gal who comes back in time to save her husband at the WTC? Well, her hubby works for "Stephen" (strongly implied by the context of the discussion as Spielberg). And "Stephen is adamant that the collapsing skyscraper finale be a real building--not a model."

Not only that, but Stephen wants scenes shot in Iraq as well. So 9-11 was a Dreamworks job?

On the comedy front, Richard Gage has released the trailer for his new nutstravaganza:

I love that they got Lynn Margulis, National Medal of Science winner to tell us about the problems with NIST. She must have won her medal in structural engineering, right? Well, no, she won it for microbiology. Which, if we were talking about multiple prokaryotic organisms, would make her an expert. Unfortunately for her, we're discussing steel-framed skyscrapers, on which she's no more educated than your average cab driver.

We get the usual quote-mining of Danny Jowenko, RIP. The Troofers never mention that he debunked the supposed controlled demolition of the Twin Towers.

Update: Gage must have ordered them to pull the original version of the trailer; a revised version is above. Not sure what they changed, Margulis is still there, as is Jowenko.

Yet Another Film The Truthers Think Is About Them

Close Encounters of the Truther Kind:

Richard Dreyfus' character in Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind, Roy Neary, struggles with an obsession to recreate a mountainous shape out of anything malleable he touches. During the movie he regularly interrupts some normal, everyday event by suddenly falling into an artistic obsession to represent a vision apparently burned into his brain. His struggle to bring meaning to his vision doesn't end until he completes a perfect model of the Devil's Tower in Wyoming, recognizes it for what it is, and then succeeds in reaching the tower in spite of cordons of troops and helicopters.

The real life version of that Close Encounters' moment, that instant when there is a perfect vision of what happened, is nearly here for 9/11.

There is something in the nature of fiction that requires that the obsessive and paranoid individual is always proven right in the end. I suppose it is simply that if the Richard Dreyfuss character was wrong, the whole subplot with him constructing representations of the Devil's Tower would simply be a red herring; an irrelevant bit that simply leads us astray.

Indeed, the only counter-example I can think of for this is A Beautiful Mind. There we learn eventually that Nash's zany conspiracy theorizing is simply a reflection of mental illness. And of course, that was based on a true story.

About "They Hate Our Freedoms"

This is not a topic I generally cover, but I did think it was worth talking about. Former President Bush, in an address to a joint session of Congress, noted:

Americans are asking, why do they hate us? They hate what we see right here in this chamber -- a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.

It is safe to say that there are probably a fair number of non-conspiracy theorists who disagree with Bush's formulation. Over at Truth Action, in a fairly good post, JimD3100 says:

We were not attacked on 9-11 because some retards hated our freedom. They hated our government and what it does. They were also brainwashed by religion. Frankly whatever your reason is for wanting to park a passenger jet into a skyscraper---it aint good enough. There is no reason good enough to do that. But how about some reality? Israel was founded by terrorists. It worked. Israel itself is proof, to the terrorists, that terrorism might work. And Israel is proud of their terrorists past (and some say present).....

But gosh Jimd3100Stein you're starting to sound anti-Semitic! No I'm not calling for the destruction of Israel, what I'm saying is ground zero on "the war on terror" is not lower Manhattan it's the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and it's about time someone said so. We were not attacked because "they hate our freedoms" we were attacked because of our governments inference in the internal affairs of other countries and our governments unwavering support for Israel no matter what it does.

There are a lot of Truthers and even non-Truthers who would like to reduce the terrorism to nothing more than our support for Israel. But in the fatwa that Osama Bin Laden pronounced against the United States, support for Israel was only third on the list of grievances. The number one reason was the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia, where they had been since the first Persian Gulf War. Number two consisted of the sanctions against Iraq that had been in place following that war.

But I would like to return to the freedoms issue, because I think that is definitely a major key. Bush phrased it badly, with "They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other."

Those are the basic building blocks of our freedom, but let's talk about some more. Let's talk about the freedom of our women to participate freely in our society as equals with men. Maybe it's not perfect, maybe it was a lot less perfect in the past. But is there any real doubt that it's better than in, say, Saudi Arabia? Or in Afghanistan during the Taliban?

Remember, Mohamed Atta's will? Yeah, it was a bit goofy when he talked about how his genitals should be washed, but what about this part:

5. I don't want a pregnant woman or a person who is not clean to come and say good-bye to me because I don't approve it.

And:

11. I don't want any women to go to my grave at all during my funeral or on any occasion thereafter.

Remember that the type of rule the Islamo-fascists would like to institute everywhere already exists in one country: Iran. A country which, coincidentally, no doubt, leads the world in deaths by stoning:

Death by stoning came into use in Iran after the 1979 revolution.
Iranian protest outside Iran's embassy in Ankara, Turkey, 9 July The case has sparked an international outcry

Amnesty International says that at least eight people were stoned to death in 1986.

Homosexuals? Although Iran's President and 9-11 Truther Ahmadinejad claimed there are none in Iran, they do exist and their situation is even more dire:

Sodomy (lavat) is a crime for which both partners can be punished by death. If the participants are adults, of sound mind and consenting; the method of execution is for the judge to decide. If one person is non-consenting (ex. a rape), the punishment would only apply to the rapist. A non-adult who engages in consensual sodomy is subject to a punishment of 74 lashes.

So maybe Bush phrased it poorly. But do they hate us for our freedoms? Yep.

Backyard Nanothermite

Mostly interesting for that little auto-stirring doohickey, which is pretty cool. Obvious question for the Waterboy: Did the nanothermite burn for weeks, creating large pools of molten iron?

The 7/22 Truth Movement

Will probably turn out much like the 9/11 Truth Movement, riddled with Jew-bashers, Israel haters, and Holocaust Deniers. The 9/11 Oz forums get things going:

Conspicuously absent from the mainstream coverage of these twin attacks is this Israeli connection with the bomber clearly being a pro-Israel supporter.

One must also take note of the fact that Norway has officially backed a Palestinian bid for statehood in the United Nations, something which made Israel quite unhappy.

Norway has also said they will pull out of the bombing campaign in Libya, all of which will undoubtedly irk the banking and industrial defense contracting interests that fund and profit from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Libyan bombing campaign, and the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen.

This is just the beginning; the coincidences here, if they are coincidences and nothing more, are uncanny.

Webster Tarpley sees another false-flag attack, only he sees NATO as the culprit:

The tragic terror attacks in Norway display a number of the telltale signs of a false flag provocation. It is reported that, although the world media are attempting to focus on Anders Behring Breivik as a lone assassin in the tradition of Lee Harvey Oswald, many eyewitnesses agree that a second shooter was active in the massacre at the Utøya summer youth camp outside of Oslo. It has also come to light that a special police unit had conducted drills or exercises near the opera house in downtown Oslo which involved the detonation of bombs during 2010– exactly what caused the bloodshed a few hundred meters away this Friday. Further research reveals that United States intelligence agencies had been conducting a large-scale program of recruiting retired Norwegian police officers with the alleged purpose of conducting surveillance inside the country. This program, known as SIMAS Surveillance Detection Units, provided a perfect vehicle for the penetration and subversion of the Norwegian police by NATO.

This is typical conspiracy theory thinking; initial, rushed reports were correct, and the subsequent corrections when all the facts are in are evidence of the coverup.

Note as well that the "false-flag" aspect is bogus; as far as I know, Breivik wasn't flying any flag at all during his rampage.

Hat Tip: Paul W, in the comments.

Update: Should have guessed that Kevin Barrett would be quick to hop aboard the Blame Israel First bandwagon:

Israelis have a long history of dressing up as Arabs, or fabricating Arab patsies, to take the blame for their mayhem. Just about all of the most notorious "Arab terrorist attacks" in history have been revealed as Mossad operations, often by former Mossad officers themselves.

Err, except that the Norway attacks weren't pulled off by someone dressed up as an Arab. Not to worry that doesn't change Barrett's conclusion:

So if Israel was responsible for the terrorist attacks in Norway, as many credible observers suspect, why didn't they set up the usual Muslim patsy to take the fall? Why use a guy whose background pointed straight to the Zionists themselves?

Maybe they wanted to send a message.

Notice That There is No Time to Read It

Matt Naus branches out from his annual book-burning.

Chapter from Fenton Book Available Online

It mostly concerns the CIA's failure to notify the FBI that al-Hazmi and al-Midhar were in the United States, and goes over in some detail George Tenet's inconsistent responses to inquiries about the same. It's all familiar stuff, gone over in detail in Shenon's The Commission. Fenton's main addition to the story is his implication that the failures of the CIA were intentional and not simply mistakes or incompetence as here:

Some of these errors, such as the failure to pick up surveillance at the airport, may seem genuine errors of the sort made by all complex organizations. However, Bangkok station’s behavior when being queried about the cable is highly suspicious. Why claim it did not have the departure information and would have difficulty obtaining it, when it probably already had it or could get it easily? And why omit Almihdhar’s name from the March 5 cable?

Philip Zelikow, generally portrayed by the Truthers as one of the villains, actually comes off pretty well in this chapter:

Philip Zelikow, one of the staffers who interviewed Tenet, later said there was no one “a-ha moment” when they realized Tenet was not telling them the full truth, but his constant failure to remember key aspects disturbed them, and in the end “we just didn’t believe him.” After the meeting, Zelikow allegedly reported to the Commissioners that Tenet perjured himself. The staff and most of the Commissioners came to believe that Tenet was “at best, loose with the facts,” and at worst “flirting with a perjury charge.” It seems that even Commission Chairman Tom Kean came to believe that Tenet was a witness who would “fudge everything.”

Kibbles and Bits

Truther lady trying to give out pamphlets in Massachusetts. Not much interesting here, but I do find the musical choice which opens it particularly appropriate:

I'm a fool to do your dirty work, oh yeah,
I don't want to do your dirty work, no more...

Note as well that when they gave out lightsticks, they got interest, but when they ran out, the reception turned more ambivalent.

Remember the nutty professor, Anthony J. Hall? He was caught puffing himself up on Wikipedia:

Should there be an entry on him at all....? He is actually better known for being a conspiracy theorist. He has recently started publishing in Holocaust denial publications (see his article in "Veteran's Today" which is not linked to any formal veterans organisation)and is known as a conspiracy theorist. Most of his stuff is not taken seriously by almost anyone...If you look at some of the videos he posts on the web he appears rather unbalanced.

Hat Tip: Commenter Richard Gage's Testicles

Indeed. The Truthers have maintained their silence on the arrest and continuing incarceration of Manny Badillo. Here's Manny improperly interjecting the wacky NYC-CAN nonsense at the reading of the names on September 11, 2010:

9-11 Was a Soap Opera Job

The girl's cute, the characters are wooden, the storyline is boring, the acting is strictly from Ed Wood, and I didn't get through more than 15 minutes. Double Indemnity, this is not.

Something We Can Agree Needs Investigation

Is the phone-hacking scandal involving the Murdoch empire.

Mr Murdoch arrived in London yesterday, wearing a Panama hat and clutching a final copy of the News of the World, in a bid to save his crumbling organisation after the phone-hacking scandal saw the 168-year-old paper axed.

But he flew straight into another storm as it was claimed 9/11 victims may have had their mobiles tapped by News of the World reporters. And there was more bad news when it was revealed nine reporters ­allegedly at the centre of the phone scandal and claims of police corruption could face jail, along with three officers.

As you can imagine, this story has caused a firestorm of commentary from the Truthers, those self-appointed representatives of the family members. Here's a legitimate conspiracy, involving people who died on 9-11 and corrupt government officials. Surely this is a prime opportunity for the Truth Movement to coalesce around a story and push their agenda forward.

Or not. The 9-11 Blogger post on the story by Matt Naus (he of book-burning fame) has a grand total of four comments so far, three of which concern his misleading title of "9/11 Victims Phones Tapped For Details in the Days Before 9/11/01 ?" In fact, the phones were not tapped, what appears to have happened is that reporters from News of the World tried to get phone records of the victims, not nearly the same thing.

Truth Action? Inaction. No mention of this story whatsoever. 9-11 Truth News copied a Sydney Morning Herald article a week ago, with no commentary added. Jon Gold did post a paragraph about it in the comments on another copied newspaper report.

Today, Sen. Frank Lautenberg released a statement pertaining to the allegation that Fox hacked 9/11 family members’ phones. He said, “any violation of these innocent victims must be taken seriously and acted upon immediately.” I agree. Like preventing real justice and accountability for what happened. That violation should be acted upon immediately.

Of course compared to the Truthers' lack of discussion about Remember Building 7 spokesman Manny Badillo's arrest on charges of having sex with somebody under 16, the Troofers response to this news story has been relatively verbose and active.

Remember Building Seven Spokesman Badillo: Busted!

This is Manny Badillo on the left, Box Boy Gage on the right:


Note the We Are Change Florida shirt.

Manny has emerged as one of the more eloquent and presentable 9-11 Truthers who are family members. He's also one of the major faces of the Building 7 campaign:



Here he is addressing the Hartford conference a few months ago:



And here's Manny in his mug shot from the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office:

Here are the charges:

LEWD LASCV BEHAVIOR - VICTIM 12YOA UP TO 16YOA OFFENDER 18 YOA OLDER
LEWD LASCV BEHAVIOR - VICTIM 12YOA UP TO 16YOA OFFENDER 18 YOA OLDER
LEWD LASCV BEHAVIOR - PROMOTE SEXUAL ACTIVITY VICTIM LESS THAN 16
LEWD LASCV BEHAVIOR - PROMOTE SEXUAL ACTIVITY VICTIM LESS THAN 16
SEX ASSLT - BY 24 YOA OLDER SEX BATT VICTIM 16 OR 17 YOA

If Manny's convicted on those charges, he's looking at a very long stretch in prison.

You can look up the booking information at the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office. Click on Arrests and Jail Info and click Booking
Search. Change the start date to 06/05/11 and search for Badillo Manuel; his record will pop right up.

More info here. See also Louie Bee's post where he states:

In a phone interview With Manny Badillo’s Stepmother she informed me that the charges against him are true and that he is indeed guilty.

More Mohr

Discussing the fires in Building 7:

He's far too generous to the Troofers in describing this series as "Not a Debunking"; of course most of what the movement says about 9-11 and particularly Building 7 is a heaping pile of bunkum.

I'm sure Brian will moan about how bored he is. I suppose when you're used to listening to a dynamic presenter like Box Boy Gage, Tony Robbins would seem dull.

Many more videos by Chris here. Excellent job of "rebuttal."

And Now, A Word from the No-Planers

Yep, this guy has proven that if a computer flight simulator doesn't generate the same shadows as real photos of 9-11 Flight 175, the real photos must have been faked. There are no words.

The First Rule of Holes

When in a hole, stop digging. Now April Gallop's lawyer, William Veale, not only has to argue why he shouldn't be fined for filing a frivolous lawsuit, but has to argue why he should not be fined for filing a malicious response to being asked why he shouldn't be fined for filing a frivolous lawsuit. Good fun all around. Another nod towards LashL, the Goddess of Legaltainment for providing the court documents.

In his affidavit in support of Gallop’s motion for disqualification, William Veale—one of Gallop’s counsel of record—“demand[s]” not only that the panel, but “any other members of the bench of this Circuit who share their feelings[,] be recused.” Motion to Disqualify (Veale Aff. ¶ 2). We know of no precedent for recusing unnamed judges based on a prejudice, the only evidence of which is manifested in a decision adverse to an attorney’s (or a party’s) interests. Cf. In re Nettles, 394 F.3d 1001, 1003 (7th Cir. 2005) (recusing all district and circuit judges where the defendant acted on a threat to destroy the federal courthouse in which those judges worked by means of a truck bomb); but see Tapia-Ortiz v. Winter, 185 F.3d 8, 10 (2d Cir. 1999) (recognizing that under the rule of necessity, where all judges would be disqualified in a suit brought against every district and circuit court judge in the circuit, none are disqualified). Veale certainly points to none. Indeed, rather than pursuing his client’s interests, Veale’s actions appear to be malicious—intended, in bad faith, to use his position as an attorney of record to harass and disparage the court. See Tapia-Ortiz, 185 F.3d at 11. Such conduct, in our view, is ground for consideration of further appellate sanctions. See In re 60 E. 80th St. Equities, Inc., 218 F.3d 109, 119 (2d Cir. 2000).

Accordingly—wholly apart from the order to show cause required pursuant to our decision in Gallop, ___ F.3d ___, 2011 WL 1565858, at *5, for which briefs are now due on July 11, 2011 (for Gallop and her counsel) and July 14, 2011 (for the government)—William Veale is hereby ordered to show cause in writing within thirty days from the date of entry of this order why this Court should not impose additional sanctions pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 38, 28 U.S.C. §1927, and the inherent authority of the Court, requiring him to provide appropriate notice to any federal court before whom he appears of any sanctions that may be imposed against him by this Court.

Entertainment?

The author of the Swallowing the Camel blog gives an interview on Jonathan Kay's book, in which she spends quite a lot of the time talking about us. She refers to us, in a somewhat favorable way as an "entertainment" blog, not a "primary debunking resource" and then scolds us and others for not being nice to Truthers, saying that we should be respectful.

OK, let me respond to that. I would have to agree that I wouldn't refer to us specifically as a debunking site, since that is only part of of what we do. As a primary resource I would recommend 9/11 Myths, 9/11 Debunking or the JREF forum. That does not mean, however, that we are not a debunking resource. We have done over 4,000 posts in the last 5 years, probably over a thousand of them on what you would refer to as "debunking" issues. Yes, that is one of the limits of the blog format that the 100+ posts we have done on nano-thermite don't immediately pop up. You have to search for them.

As far as "entertainment", yes, both Pat and I try to present things in a lively and entertaining manner, let's face it, Truthers can be pretty funny, and it can be pretty dry discussing the finer points of thermite for the 500th time. There is very little new in the "truth" movement, it has been 10 years after all, so yes, long ago we moved on to writing mostly about the sociological aspects of the movement, Kay did in his book.

As far as whether we are civil? Well, I will be the first to admit that we do not like truthers. They are dishonest, paranoid, and often stupid and reprehensible people. Yes, there are some that aren't too bad, and I will be at least civil to them, but in general it is stupid for me to sit here and pretend that I have respect for them, because I don't. They call us far worse names all the time, to the point of vague threats that we will be killed after the revolution, and it does not bother me at all. There is no point getting upset at those who are not tied to reality. I have tried debating Truthers in a civil and respectful manner, but it is pointless. You cannot debate conspiracy theorists. It is like debating a religious fanatic, you cannot debate beliefs which are not falsifiable.

It's Not a Bug, It's a Feature

The Truthers continue their usual backbiting, schisms, and mutual accusations of being government operatives. This is no surprise, when a movement does not have reality to give them a common foundation, these types of things happen. What is amusing though, is the complete lack of self-awareness on this point. A post on Truth Action makes this point:

In my opinion, the Truth Action forum is the most important 9/11 truth forum. Regular posters here are among the most thoughtful and broadly aware of those participating in 9/11 truth. To post here is to stand up to total scrutiny. We try to set the bar as high as the stakes. No time for wackiness.

But there's something missing. Certainly the elephant in the room.

I believe, based on a good deal of direct experience as well as an awareness of social movement history, that this movement has been heavily subverted by dishonest people.

But we don't talk about it much. Why?

He then goes on to list all the people who he thinks is dishonest. Of course what he fails to mention, is the people he lists make the same accusations about his faction.

And they are both right.

This type of dishonesty paired with paranoia is not incidental, it is an essential part of the movement, or any conspiracy theory for that matter. As we say in the software world, it's not a bug, it's a feature!

All Quiet on the Saudi Article

I commented at the end of the post on the Vanity Fair article about possible Saudi involvement in financing 9-11 that it would be interesting to see how the Troofers reacted to it.

The answer, for the most part, is crickets. Over at 9-11 Flogger, Jeff (shure) Hill posted it, and there are a grand total of 9 comments. Seven of those are Jeff quoting large chunks of the article with no personal comments from him. The eighth is from "Sitting Bull" and says:

A good job by Vanity Fair even If we were years ahead with most of the infos, I welcome that!

The ninth is Jon Gold bitching that the piece doesn't mention the India Times' claim that the Pakistani ISI wired $100,000 to Atta the day before the attacks. I mean, seriously, Jon, what possible use would Atta have had for $100 large on 9-10? In fact, he was busy wiring back money to Al Qaeda that had not been spent.

These dolts aren't interested in anything that doesn't conclude that Bush and Cheney were behind the attacks.


Truth Action? Crickets, completely.

Vanity Fair on the Saudis

Interesting article on the Saudi connection to 9-11. A lot of it is familiar; for example the Bayoumi/Al Midhar/Al Hazmi menage. On the other hand, it does explain some of the supposed warnings that the Saudis claim to have given:

As the months passed, leading Saudis would suggest publicly that their nation had been entirely open with the United States on the security front all along—even claim that they had alerted Washington in advance to possible calamity.

A year after 9/11, Prince Turki expounded at length on the relationship the G.I.D. had had with the C.I.A. From about 1996, he wrote, “at the instruction of the senior Saudi leadership, I shared all the intelligence we had collected on bin Laden and al-Qaeda with the C.I.A. And in 1997 the Saudi minister of defense, Prince Sultan, established a joint intelligence committee with the United States to share information on terrorism in general and on bin Laden (and al-Qaeda) in particular.”

(two paragraphs snipped)

Though there was no official U.S. reaction to that claim, Michael Scheuer, the former chief of the C.I.A.’s bin Laden unit, later dismissed it in his book Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq as a “fabrication.”

It will be interesting to see the reactions of the various factions of the Truther brigades; I assume that the "Muslims didn't do 9-11" crowd will hate the article.

Grifter Keeps Recycling...

The greenest 9-11 Truther out there; he never comes up with new crap, it's always the same old crap:

Was the now widely unpopular war in Afghanistan ever justified? Why do many otherwise fact-driven journalist still endorse the official account of 9/11, despite the scientific improbability of several important details? Were some of the phone calls that reportedly came from the hijacked airliners faked? Have American Christians been largely blinded to the truth about 9/11 by accepting a nationalist version of faith?

(Bolding added for emphasis).

BTW, Jon Gold called me to task for not mentioning that he no longer endorses Grifter, despite the fact that he has only two reviews up on Amazon, one of which compares DRG to Gandhi and MLK. Well, gee, Jon, what about the folks who are relying on your review of Griffin's book; don't you think you should amend your review? Perhaps you could mention that Grifter will be mentioned in the same breath with Ponzi and Madoff?

And you know, you can't hide behind the idea that Griffin has just recently started acting like a flake; his earliest books are every bit as wacked out as his new stuff.

Not Just Another in the Long Line

Remember Truth Burn, the fiasco where a giant sign was going to be demolished by thermite at Burning Man? Truthers raised $20,000 for that effort and what did they get? A video of some thermite being burned in a bucket.

Remember Box Boy Gage collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations, and paying himself a salary of $75,000?

Remember NYC-CAN, where the Truthers raised a bunch of money in order to get an initiative on the ballot in New York City only to have their efforts laughed out of court?

Well, this isn't like those, apparently. This is a scam, according to the Troof Action dolts.

As of this date, it looks like a total scam and it is most unfortunate that Ken has gotten sucked into this and can't seem to see the real problems.

Part vaporware, part bait and switch. All "trust us." A classic con.

"This" is a new attempt to get an independent 9-11 Commission initiative on the ballot. Somewhere:

Building on the New York experience, I approached the Office of California Legislative Counsel in October 2010 for assistance in drafting a prospective law that would create a new investigative commission––independent of federal and state governments––but with the necessary powers to get to the facts (i.e., subpoena and oath taking). The vision of the commission would be to pursue an investigation wherever the evidence leads. No person would be immune from criminal implication, regardless of political station in or out of government (domestic or foreign).

But not California as it turns out:

We have since concluded that the initiative process in California is overly expensive and otherwise not ideal for a number of reasons, and that we should prioritize our work in three states: Oregon, Massachusetts, and Alaska. You will learn more about these considerations at our website, 9-11cc.org.

The people behind the effort include:

Mike Gravel, the former Senator from Alaska. Gravel's run for President in 2008 included this ad, possibly the greatest in the history of politics:

Byron "Urantia" Belitsos, one of the founders of 9-11 Truth dot org.

Ken Jenkins, 9-11 Truth's #1 psychologist.

And somebody named George Ripley, believe it or not.

One of the more endearing aspects about 9-11 Truthers is the way they can put a smiley face on all their fiascos. But they usually do it after getting the pie in the face; in this case they've already prepared for it:

If we are able to raise the necessary funds for this undertaking, I believe there is no possibility of failure even if no initiative is enacted into law.

Their donations page claims that the contributions are tax-deductible; sounds to me like the money is being laundered through Gage and his gaggle. The home pages notes them as a "sponsor". So far the effort claims to have fleeced, err, raised almost $4900.

Update: One of the members of the advisory board is Fred Burks:

Bat-crap crazy.

Chris Mohr Begins his Gage Rebuttal

When Chris Mohr debated Richard Gage earlier, Gage's organization promised they were going to make a video presentation of the event, they even filmed it with 3 different cameras. After Gage's embarrassing performance though, they immediately decided against that and won't even release the unedited video of the event. Mohr has decided to release the first in what should be a long series of YouTube videos with his rebuttal though. Don't expect to hear anymore from Gage on this though.

Paranioid Truther John Wright on Tulsa Radio

I had to love this show (6/30/11 episode downloadable in MP3 format at website). The segment with LeftWright starts about 75 minutes in. Wright makes a complete ass of himself, starting with his dedication, in which he manages to mention just about everybody but his dog.

He drones on and on, like the Ever-ready Bunny on crack. It's a classic Truther performance and eventually the two radio guys, who have treated him quite fairly, are reduced to talking about their lunch plans in the background while nutbar Wright filibusters frantically.

But not to worry, Troofers! He's doing it on purpose, because he "realized" that they were not having him on the show to treat him respectfully.

When the "hosts" confirmed my suspicion that they only invited me on the show to ridicule me and the movement, I made a tactical decision to filibuster as much as I could. I realize that my long introduction was a bit over the top, but that was a strategic decision to seize the high ground in three ways.

1) By mentioning that I am a United States Soccer Federation certified referee (going on 5 years now) at the outset, the listeners see a regular guy reffing soccer matches and authorized to do so by a national organization which is affiliated to a world governing body (FIFA). We referees are also trained to be impartial and objective, both qualities one wants from someone analyzing data and expressing informed conclusions.

Yep, he thought that mentioning that he's a soccer ref gave him credibility with the listeners.

Wright is of course a classic conspiracy nutbar, as this excerpt shows:

That said, my working hypothesis regarding the presence of individuals on the planes, who would later be identified as "hijackers", is that 19 men fitting their general description were on the planes under one of the following scenarios:

1) They thought they were part of an operation to hijack planes and fly them into targets.

2) They thought they were part of an operation to hijack planes for some other reason, perhaps to make a demand of some kind.

3) They thought were doing more reconnaissance flights to study airline security, etc.

4) They thought they were part of a red team/ blue team exercise of some kind.

Update: I see that James already covered this, but as our posts are substantially different I will leave this one up.