9-11 was an inside job

[jaqeboy]

Rudy lies on camera about the command center to avoid responsibility:

[youtube=425,350]T0E0wfShJ58[/youtube]

New film, The Real Rudy; Command Center, by Robert Greenwald, Brave New Films

[jaqeboy]

Painful 9/11 Truth
Written by Joel S. Hirschhorn
Published September 04, 2007 on BlogCritics

Author of Delusional Democracy - Fixing the Republic Without Overthrowing the Government; formerly a senior staffer for the U.S. Congress and the National Governors Association. Co-founder of Friends of the Article V Convention www.foavc.org. Also a member of Patriots for 911 Truth and Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth.

[Insurgent]

Today marks the 6th anniversary of this awful event; I had to work today and couldn't participate in any of the vigils, protests or activities during the day, but had the thought that at 9:11pm tonight I could observe a moment of silence to remember all the lives that were lost on that day.

[error]

I observed the day Bruce Schneier style.

[mvpel]

http://www.physorg.com/news108737007.html

A new mathematical analysis of the collapse of the World Trade Centre has been published by a Cambridge University academic, with results that challenge conspiracy theories surrounding the September 11th attacks.

The new paper, by Dr Keith Seffen, uses established engineering models to demonstrate that once the collapse of the twin towers began, it was destined to be rapid and total.

Although the causes that initiated the collapse of the twin towers are now well understood, engineers continue to speculate about the speed and totality with which the buildings were demolished during the fateful attacks.

Some have even dared to suggest that the catastrophic events that followed two planes being flown into the buildings were the result of a conspiracy that extended to the top of government itself.

Dr Seffen, a Senior Lecturer in the Structures Group in the Department of Engineering, was moved to find a scientific explanation for the collapse when he heard about reports of possible insider involvement. Claims of "controlled demolition" were being suggested, in order to explain the speed, uniformity and similarity between the collapses of both towers.

"I thought immediately that there had to be a rational explanation for why collapse happened as it did, one which draws on engineering principles," he said. "After searching the current literature, it became clear that many studies focused on the phase just before collapse settles in.

"They rightly show that the combination of fire and impact damage severely impaired those parts of the building close to where the aircraft hit to hold the weight of the building above. The top parts were bound to fall down, but it was not clear why the undamaged building should have offered little resistance to these falling parts."

Dr Seffen's new analysis, which will be published in a forthcoming issue of the American Society of Civil Engineers' Journal of Engineering Mechanics, focuses on calculating the residual capacity of the building to resist the weight of the floors above under collapse conditions.

He then develops a dynamic model of the collapse sequence, which simulates the successive squashing, or "pan-caking" of individual storeys based on the residual capacity already identified. The process is already well known from other studies of progressive collapse, but usually applies to other structures such as undersea pipelines, rather than buildings.

This allowed Dr Seffen to predict that the residual capacity of both buildings was limited, and once collapse had started, it would take only 10 seconds for the building to go down - just a little longer than the free-falling of a coin dropped from the top of either tower.

"The aim was to produce a credible scientific explanation for the totality of collapse once it began," he said.

"In all senses, the collapse sequence was quite ordinary and natural. The World Trade Centre towers were designed to absorb an aircraft impact, but an accidental one with much less fuel and speed. It is widely acknowledged that the impacts on September 11th were extraordinary, which led to consequences well in excess of the design capacity for the buildings. The original design of both towers must be praised for standing as long as they did, saving more lives than might have been expected."

[jaqeboy]

Richard Gage, founder of Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth gave one of the presentations at the "911 Truth - Ready for Mainstream" event sponsored by New York 911 Truth and held at Cooper Union in New York over the past weekend. He is showing himself to be a very credible source and very effective presenter.

His new video, "9/11: Blueprint for Truth; The Architecture for Destruction" will be shown in several locations soon by Merrimack Valley 911 Truth - an announcement of the dates, times and places will be made on this forum and on the website for MV911T. This would be a good opportunity for those curious about what the controversy is all about.

Gage works full-time as an architect designing steel-framed buildings and makes a presentation every Friday at lunchtime to a different architecture firm. He claims that after each presentation he leaves his colleagues 100% convinced that the 3 WTC skyscrapers were destroyed by explosive demolition.

There is a simple, effective postcard tool on the Architects and Engineers site here: http://www.ae911truth.org/cardsorder.php

[KBCraig]

I was curious about Richard Gage and his credentials, so I searched for information about his credentials and specialization. After all, an architect can be a member of AIA and design nothing more complex than wood-frame tract houses.

Twelve pages in to a google search for "Richard Gage, AIA", I gave up on finding anything other than 9/11 sites. The one exception was a brief bio on Randi Rhodes' show (emphasis mine):

Richard Gage, AIA is the founding member of ae911Truth.org. He has been a practicing Architect for 20 years and has worked on most types of building construction including numerous fire-proofed steel-framed buildings. He is employed with a San Francisco Bay Area architecture firm and has most recently performed Construction Administration services for a new $120M High School campus including a $10M steel-framed Gymnasium. Currently he is working on the Design Development for a very large mixed use urban project with 1.2M sq.ft. of retail and 320K sq.ft. of high-rise office space — altogether about 1,200 tons of steel framing.

Points:
- The plumbers and drywall hangers can also say they have "worked on" numerous buildings. That doesn't mean they designed, engineered, or served as architect on them.
- Performing "Construction Administration services" means he did not design the project. And even if he had, a $10M gym is a piddling one story project. That's damning by faint praise.
- Wow, 320,000 square feet of "high rise office space", huh? The WTC was 8.9 million square feet (just counting the twin towers; the complex was 13.4 million square feet). How "high rise" is this building? If it had the same footprint as one of the twin towers, it would be 8 stories tall.
- Again, he is not the architect of this new project, but "working on the Design Development", which could mean almost anything (none of which requires any engineering skills or knowledge).

I am not an architect. I am not an engineer. I was an engineering major once upon a time, but life circumstances caused me to choose another degree route. I have had a lifelong fascination with building design, and seriously contemplated going back to grad school to become an architect.

While studying the options in architecture education, I learned there are two major schools of schools, if you'll pardon the repetition. Architecture schools are focused on either engineering, or design. The difference in coursework should be obvious. One can graduate a "design" school with a degree in "Environmental Architecture" or "Landscape Architecture", draw lots of pretty pictures, join the AIA, and have not the faintest notion of the load bearing rating of a 2x4.

If anyone has any information on Richard Gage's actual CV, degree, projects where he was the architect, etc., please post them so that we may judge his credibility as a source.

As I have often said: skepticism works both ways. Be equally skeptical of those who support your prejudices, as you are of those who oppose them.

Kevin

[jaqeboy]

I am not an architect. I am not an engineer. I was an engineering major once upon a time, but life circumstances caused me to choose another degree route. I have had a lifelong fascination with building design, and seriously contemplated going back to grad school to become an architect.

If your are committed to the goals of ae911truth, you may join if you are not an architect or engineer, but there is a check box for that so they show their "professional" member count separate from their non-professional membership count.

You can see one of his presentations - linked to from MerrimackValley911Truth.org | About Us | Videos, or hear an interview of him MerrimackValley911Truth.org | About Us | Interviews. You won't have to be an architect or engineer to understand his points.

You could probably email him to request his CV. I'm sure he's got it posted somewhere on the ae911truth.org site or on a personal site.

[alohamonkey]

I just finally got around to watching the History Channel's debunking of 9/11 conspiracy theorists, "9/11 Conspiracies - Fact or Fiction."

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6099377220232534455&q=fact+or+fiction+911+duration%3Along&total=20&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

Has anyone else seen this?  If so, what did you think.  IMO, the producers picked some of the most outlandish "conspiracy theorist" claims and disproved them to discredit the movement.  Also, the film seemed to be lacking facts and just going on the assumption that "the experts" know best. 

[Russell Kanning]

some of us are just bumpkins looking for thruth ... where does that put us on your "able to see truth" scale kbcraig?

have you actually seen his presentations ... or are you just going to condemn him based on professional certifications and references?

[jaqeboy]

I just finally got around to watching the History Channel's debunking of 9/11 conspiracy theorists, "9/11 Conspiracies - Fact or Fiction."
...
... IMO, the producers picked some of the most outlandish "conspiracy theorist" claims and disproved them to discredit the movement.  Also, the film seemed to be lacking facts and just going on the assumption that "the experts" know best. 

This seems to be a favored tactic. Penn & Teller use this in their de-bunking vid. Does that mean that they believe everything the Bush/Cheney cabal will dish out and attack then any questioning of this one official story? It almost seems so. There seems to be a psychological barrier to some believing someone would kill their own countrymen to further the imperial agenda - a barrier so high that some ban themselves from surmounting it to peek over to view the truth. Note that some on these forums won't even view some of the videos, interviews, etc. offered and instead engage themselves in the faux battle of credentialling the presenter to death rather than considering the material presented. There must be a name for this logical fallacy, eh? Would that be the ad hominem attack?

The trend in the 911 Truth movement seems to  be predominately to clearly establish that the administration's story is a fabrication, so we may empanel an objective body (no ties to the administration like the Zelikow-controlled Commission farce) to re-investigate (with subpoena power) to establish then what did really happen. Meanwhile brave independent researchers continue to unearth nuggets of truth and present them. Some will insist on positing theories, but they have the same problem over and over - the material evidence has been destroyed!

[kola]

...and the list grows.. as 7 CIA agents will be sent to the gulags.

Yavolt!! (click boots together)

Extremist Kola

[jaqeboy]

An engineering professor joins the dissidents:

Online Journal
Painful 9/11 truth
By Joel S. Hirschhorn
Sep 12, 2007, 01:31

Many technical analyses cast doubt on the official explanation of the collapse of three World Trade Center buildings, including those presented by an impressive new group: Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth.

More difficult than discovering the truth, however, is convincing most of the public to accept the bitter truth. Americans easily block out painful truths. Powerful societal forces keep much of the population distracted and uninterested in complex issues. Entertainment-oriented mainstream media contribute to mass ignorance. And the political establishment often buries the truth, uses propaganda and manipulates citizens.

Intelligent, strong-willed people can fight all these. But on a deeper level, many truths are blocked psychologically, because they produce too much pain. This results when truths sharply disagree with strongly held beliefs. The conflict produces cognitive dissonance that can block full acceptance of the disturbing truth. People fall victim to self-manipulation and self-delusion. Truths are dismissed and false beliefs remain embedded.

When it comes to 9/11, we face the strong belief that only Al-Qaeda caused 9/11. But analyses by many experts reveal the collapse of three WTC buildings was not caused by the two airplanes exploding into the two towers. Without getting into details that one can spend many hours examining on a number of websites, the general view is that the buildings were brought down by controlled demolition.

If correct - IF - the immediate reaction is like a cosmic big bang. It would have taken considerable effort by a number of people with expertise and access to the buildings to rig them so that they could be intentionally collapsed when the two jets hit the towers.

Tough questions flood in: Who could have engineered all this? Could foreign agents accomplish such complex actions - and if they did, why not take credit for it? If Americans did it, why would they intentionally inflict inevitable mass death and devastation? Worse, they seemingly knew about the plan to fly the jets into the towers.

Post-9/11, why have the government and official investigations not come to the same controlled demolition conclusion? This might be explained if the government was involved. Pull one string and the whole 9/11 story unravels as your imagination triggers unending questions. Can Americans support a reinvestigation and rethinking of the 9/11 event? Or would they rather avoid even more pain and preserve the official account that places all blame on Al-Qaeda?

So easy to criticize those who offer different explanations as conspiracy nuts. After all, the new truth would be so shocking that we would have to question our political and government system. Could there have been such malevolence somewhere in our government? Did a monumental conspiracy push us into attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq? Did petroleum and corporate interests shape 9/11?

Like other groups, Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth wants a new, honest and comprehensive study that considers all the evidence for controlled demolition. First, let the technical truth emerge. Then, if necessary, cope with the inevitable political, conspiracy and other questions. But let us not allow a possible painful truth block the primary task of determining once and for all what caused the collapse of the WTC towers and building no. 7.

If there were non-Muslim forces - possibly U.S. government ones - that played a major role in the WTC catastrophe, then let us have the courage to face the truth. Suppose some element of our government played a secret, awful role. If we do not uncover it, then we are vulnerable to repeat nefarious and unimaginable activity in the future - possibly to impact the 2008 presidential election.

Discovering 9/11 truth would enshrine the wisdom of the old adage: the truth hurts. That means suffering the pain of revealing lies and cover-ups. Mourning over the deaths of building victims and heroic first responders would expand with new anger. And another reason to hate and oppose the Iraq war would surface.

If those who believe the official 9/11 story - especially elected officials - trust their views, then let them support a serious investigation to test the validity of the controlled demolition hypothesis. If they fear and reject doing so, then let us see that as suspicious and unacceptable.

As a former engineering professor with growing skepticism about the official WTC story, I joined Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth; you can learn about the controlled demolition findings and other similar truth-seeking efforts at www.ae911truth.org. You choose: seek the truth yourself or take the easy way and just criticize those who question the official story.

To sum up, horrific possible answers can cause us to shun a question. But clearing our minds of fears of painful truths is essential to clearing our nation of destructive lies. Otherwise, we stay stuck in a delusional democracy.
--------------

Joel S. Hirschhorn was a full professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a senior staffer at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the National Governors Association. He is the author of "Delusional Democracy -- Fixing the Republic Without Overthrowing the Government" and a founder of Friends of the Article V Convention. He can be reached through www.delusionaldemocracy.com.

[jaqeboy]

Details are finalized for the Hartford 911 Conference in early November. A great opportunity for the curious, the critics and the convinced - all. Kind of "put up or shut up" time for 911 Truth de-bunkers. Hartford is only 2 hours from Nashua and several of us will share rides and rooms for economy. If you want to question the active players, like Stephen Jones et.al., be there or be square!

Info will be at http://merrimackvalley911truth.org (including local carpooling and room-sharing info) - write merrimackvalley911truth@gmail.com to discuss joining in on the shared operations).

The organizers' site is: http://911hartford.org
----------------------
From the site:
Join us for a powerful one-day symposium
Saturday November 3, 2007
Saint Joseph College,
West Hartford, Connecticut

Sponsored by: Citizens for a New 9/11 Investigation

Co-Sponsored by: Architect & Engineers for 9/11 Truth - Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice - The FealGood Foundation - Student Scholars for 9/11 Truth - 911truth.org

Join us for an authoritative one-day symposium exploring the questions that still surround the events of September 11th, 2001. Our intention is to bring the undisclosed stories, testimony and evidence concerning 9/11 into mainstream public discourse. It is our belief that an educated public will demand new independent investigations that will ultimately lead to our larger goals of justice and redress for the countless victims of 9/11 and its aftermath.

Time: 10:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m. with lunch and dinner breaks

Program: The program starts at 10 am with a showing of the first part of the documentary film "9/11 Press for Truth" introduced by Robert McIlvane, 9/11 family member who lost his son on 9/11 followed by presentations and panels through to 10 pm.

William Pepper
International Human Rights Attorney - Commissioner of the New York City 9/11 Ballot Initiative

John Feal
9/11 First Responder - Founder of the FealGood Foundation, a non-profit organization advocating for 9/11 first responders

Steven Jones, Ph.D.
Physicist - Founder of Scholars for 9/11Truth & Justice

Donna Marsh O'Connor
9/11 Family Member - Mother of Vanessa Lang Langer, WTC Tower II, 93rd floor and www.911truth.org Advisory Board member

Richard Gage - AIA Architect
Founder of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth

Robert McIlvaine
9/11 Family Member - Father of Robert G. McIlavine, 106th Floor, North Tower

Sofia
Producer & Director of groundbreaking film "911 Mysteries"

Gordon Haberman
9/11 Family Member – Father of Andrea Lyn Haberman, 92nd Floor, WTC Tower I

[bill rose]

always fun to read