I agree with that completely. Note the word gradual. We have graduated to what we have now. IMO this is pretty much what I was saying. There is little difference between this administration and others in my lifetime. I never said bush was akin to Washington or Jefferson. I said he was like Clinton, Reagan and Carter.

Which is why I believe the administration IS being held accountable.

Again, this is where I think your miopic view is clouding you.

You're just plain wrong, erik. But I'm mature enough to know you'll never be convinced of that. You can argue the Iraq war, but the pipeline bull**** is just that. You need to broaden your horizons. Read your leftist stuff, but read the rest too. And give both sides the same shake. At this point it looks like you're drinking koolaid.

Erik, one of the two of us isn't getting facts. I believe I am. This story is out already in the last week or so. BUT... according to EVERY news outlet You have it wrong. THIS NEVER HAPPENED... but was something Bush proposed to Blair. If you have any actual evidence of it occurring, I'd be more than happy to look at it.

I believe according to the popular mechanics story, which is better researched than anything you or I are saying, says NORAD DID RESPOND. There is no doubt there were many failures in communication and intelligence. But to put that on Bush's administration as either something they purposely did, or their own failure, I think is nothing more than politics and doesn't reflect the way things actually work in government. Are you saying the administration stopped these various sectors of our defense from operating?

Come on... Using this as a source is laughable. Is this where you get your info from?

As an example: from the PM story that might be in the vicinity of 100% more credible.

CLAIM: "It has been standard operating procedures for decades to immediately intercept off-course planes that do not respond to communications from air traffic controllers," says the Web site oilempire.us. "When the Air Force 'scrambles' a fighter plane to intercept, they usually reach the plane in question in minutes."

FACT: In the decade before 9/11, NORAD intercepted only one civilian plane over North America: golfer Payne Stewart's Learjet, in October 1999. With passengers and crew unconscious from cabin decompression, the plane lost radio contact but remained in transponder contact until it crashed. Even so, it took an F-16 1 hour and 22 minutes to reach the stricken jet. Rules in effect back then, and on 9/11, prohibited supersonic flight on intercepts. Prior to 9/11, all other NORAD interceptions were limited to offshore Air Defense Identification Zones (ADIZ). "Until 9/11 there was no domestic ADIZ," FAA spokesman Bill Schumann tells PM. After 9/11, NORAD and the FAA increased cooperation, setting up hotlines between ATCs and NORAD command centers, according to officials from both agencies. NORAD has also increased its fighter coverage and has installed radar to monitor airspace over the continent.

You don't buy it based on what exactly? You have any evidence to the contrary?

I've seen the documentary. Maybe read this:

Flight 77 Debris
CLAIM: Conspiracy theorists insist there was no plane wreckage at the Pentagon. "In reality, a Boeing 757 was never found," claims pentagonstrike.co.uk, which asks the question, "What hit the Pentagon on 9/11?"

FACT: Blast expert Allyn E. Kilsheimer was the first structural engineer to arrive at the Pentagon after the crash and helped coordinate the emergency response. "It was absolutely a plane, and I'll tell you why," says Kilsheimer, CEO of KCE Structural Engineers PC, Washington, D.C. "I saw the marks of the plane wing on the face of the building. I picked up parts of the plane with the airline markings on them. I held in my hand the tail section of the plane, and I found the black box." Kilsheimer's eyewitness account is backed up by photos of plane wreckage inside and outside the building. Kilsheimer adds: "I held parts of uniforms from crew members in my hands, including body parts. Okay?"

I've read a bunch of his stuff on the subject and almost every single point has been successfully refuted by people with more than a theology degree. I find it funny that some are so willing to listen to him ONLY because he's a naysayer. If Bush had brought in a theologian to tell the government's account, those same people would be screaming at the top of their lungs that he was a religious zealot.

It's obvious we will never agree on this. At least not any time soon. The future will vindicate one of us. I'm confident it is me, considering pretty much every main stream expert is out there calling the conspiracy theorists some form of the word "wacko."

Every answer to the questions that can be answered, has been given. They're there... they're everywhere. But some still would rather believe something else.

Note: Here's a sample comparison:
David Ray Griffin, a professor of theology. (Not engineering or terrorism, or even conspiracy) and Paul Thompson (someone I've been able to find nothing about)... a guy who cites no actual sources..

VS

Popular Mechanics who credit:

PM consulted more than 300 experts and organizations in its investigation into 9/11 conspiracy theories. The following were particularly helpful.

Air Crash Analysis
Cleveland Center regional air traffic control

Bill Crowley special agent, FBI

Ron Dokell president, Demolition Consultants

Richard Gazarik staff writer, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Yates Gladwell pilot, VF Corp.

Michael K. Hynes, Ed.D.,
ATP, CFI, A&P/IA president, Hynes Aviation Services; expert, aviation crashes

Ed Jacoby Jr. director,
New York State Emergency Management Office (Ret.); chairman, New York State Disaster Preparedness Commission (Ret.)

Johnstown-Cambria County Airport Authority

Cindi Lash staff writer, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Matthew McCormick manager, survival factors division, National Transportation Safety Board (Ret.)

Wallace Miller coroner, Somerset County, PA

Robert Nagan meteorological technician, Climate Services Branch, National Climatic Data Center

Dave Newell director, aviation and travel, VF Corp.

James O’Toole politics editor, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Pennsylvania State Police Public Information Office

Jeff Pillets senior writer,
The Record, Hackensack, NJ

Jeff Rienbold director, Flight 93 National Memorial, National Park Service

Dennis Roddy staff writer, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Master Sgt. David Somdahl public affairs officer,
119th Wing, North Dakota
Air National Guard

Mark Stahl photographer; eyewitness, United Airlines Flight 93 crash scene

Air Defense
Lt. Col. Skip Aldous (Ret.) squadron commander,
U.S. Air Force

Tech. Sgt. Laura Bosco public affairs officer,
Tyndall Air Force Base

Boston Center regional air traffic control

Laura Brown spokeswoman,
Federal Aviation Administration

Todd Curtis, Ph.D. founder, Airsafe.com; president, Airsafe.com Foundation

Keith Halloway public affairs officer, National Transportation Safety Board

Ted Lopatkiewicz director, public affairs, National Transportation Safety Board

Maj. Douglas Martin public affairs officer,
North American Aerospace Defense Command

Lt. Herbert McConnell public affairs officer,
Andrews AFB

Michael Perini public affairs officer, North American Aerospace Defense Command

John Pike director, GlobalSecurity.org

Hank Price spokesman, Federal
Aviation Administration

Warren Robak RAND Corp.

Bill Shumann spokesman,
Federal Aviation Administration

Louis Walsh public affairs officer, Eglin AFB

Chris Yates aviation security editor, analyst, Jane’s Transport

Aviation
Fred E.C. Culick, Ph.D., S.B., S.M. professor of aeronautics, California Institute of Technology

Robert Everdeen public affairs, Northrop Grumman

Clint Oster professor of public and environmental affairs, Indiana University; aviation safety expert

Capt. Bill Scott (Ret. USAF) Rocky Mountain bureau chief, Aviation Week


Bill Uher News Media Office, NASA Langley Research Center

Col. Ed Walby (Ret. USAF)
director, business development, HALE Systems Enterprise, Unmanned Systems, Northrop Grumman

Image Analysis
William F. Baker member, FEMA Probe Team; partner, Skidmore, Owings, Merrill

W. Gene Corley, Ph.D., P.E., S.E. senior vice president, CTL Group; director,
FEMA Probe Team

Bill Daly senior vice president, Control Risks Group

Steve Douglass image analysis consultant, Aviation Week

Thomas R. Edwards, Ph.D. founder, TREC; video forensics expert.

Ronald Greeley, Ph.D. professor of geology, Arizona State University

Rob Howard freelance photographer; WTC eyewitness

Robert L. Parker, Ph.D. professor of geophysics,
University of California, San Diego

Structural Engineering / Building Collapse
Farid Alfawakhiri, Ph.D. senior engineer, American Institute of Steel Construction

David Biggs, P.E. structural engineer, Ryan-Biggs Associates; member, ASCE team for FEMA report

Robert Clarke structural engineer, Controlled Demolitions Group Ltd.

Glenn Corbett technical editor, Fire Engineering; member, NIST advisory committee

Vincent Dunn deputy fire chief (Ret.), FDNY; author, The Collapse Of Burning Buildings: A Guide To Fireground Safety

John Fisher, Ph.D. professor of civil engineering, Lehigh University; professor emeritus, Center for Advanced Technology; member, FEMA Probe Team

Ken Hays executive vice president, Masonry Arts

Christoph Hoffmann, Ph.D. professor of computer science, Purdue University; project director, September 11 Pentagon Attack Simulations Using LS-Dyna, Purdue University

Allyn E. Kilsheimer, P.E.
CEO, KCE Structural Engineers PC; chief structural engineer, Phoenix project; expert in blast recovery, concrete structures, emergency response

Won-Young Kim, Ph.D. seismologist, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University

William Koplitz photo desk manager, FEMA

John Labriola freelance photographer, WTC survivor

Arthur Lerner-Lam, Ph.D. seismologist; director,
Earth Institute, Center for Hazards and Risk Research, Columbia University

James Quintiere, Ph.D. professor of engineering, University of Maryland member, NIST advisory committee

Steve Riskus freelance photographer; eyewitness, Pentagon crash

Van Romero, Ph.D. vice president, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology

Christine Shaffer spokesperson, Viracon

Mete Sozen, Ph.D., S.E. Kettelhut Distinguished Professor of Structural Engineering, Purdue University; member, Pentagon Building Performance Report; project conception, September 11 Pentagon Attack Simulations Using LS-Dyna, Purdue University

Shyam Sunder, Sc.D.
acting deputy director, lead investigator, Building and Fire Research Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology

Mary Tobin science writer, media relations, Earth Institute, Columbia University

Forman Williams, Ph.D. professor of engineering, physics, combustion, University of California,
San Diego; member, advisory committee, National Institute of Standards and Technology

Make up your own minds.

You're close Erik. Unfortunately neither the US nor any other large democracy I know of is any longer a "people."

We're just too heterogenous in our backgrounds. And even if, as individuals--or perhaps relatively large groups--we have a core set of shared values, there are still sizeable blocks of folks in our country who don't share those values in the same way.

We talk past each other, sometimes it's as if we're not speaking the same language.

So value terms like "justice", "freedom", "equality" "liberty" "fraternity" have to be carefully parsed. Everyone assumes we're using these terms on an equal footing, but I suspect that my notion of what justice is, is quite different from a tribesman's in Afghanistan, or a homeless person in New Orleans.

In the not too distant past, this was not so problematic. Since the people who controlled the newspapers, television and other media were more or less of the same ilk, a (false) shared consensus was more easily reached.

But that's no longer the case. Information is just too widely disseminated. And individuals are no longer dependent on the gov't/media complex for guidance.

But gov't/media still control the power. So you have a huge disconnect. The people who are running things at the national level are not/cannot be held accountable.

So we have a choice: We can line up with Hollywood and the "Liberal" (corporate) Media or the lobbyists on K street. Those are the folks who have the real power in this country. And their counterparts in Europe are no different. Perhaps people living under dictatorships are the lucky ones, at least they know who's calling the tune. They're under no illusions as to who holds power.

Let me ask this question. Suppose everything said about 9/11 being a hoax were true, what would that change?

Not a damn thing.

Ok so Bush would be impeached. (Leave aside the question of whether he shouldn't be anyway)

We'd have a year-long national convulsion and then...what? We'd get another choice between two equally vacuous windbags just like we have for the past several decades.

I think we're looking in the wrong place. I think the "official" story is more or less correct.

Let me ask you this. Do you find it implausible to think that UBL and Al Qaeda are not intelligent or determined enough to have pulled this off?

Do you find it hard to believe that the intelligence communities of the West are inept enough to have let this happen right under there noses?

Do you really think that a conspiracy that large would have not included at least one or two people who, having got wind of it would not have leaked it?

I'm assuming there was some irony intended in that.

In my view no one who rises above the level of city councilman can do so while maintaining much honesty and integrity. They have to sell their souls too many times to get above that level.

And that's the real problem. I don't think that "democracy" really works when you get a population of more than say, a million people. After that the money and special interests turn it into something else.

But not to worry, at the rate we're screwing things up all this probably won't matter much.

Not an ounce, Andy.

I agree completely. But this statement doesn't contradict what I'm saying. This administration (give or take a little) is at the same level of honesty (or dishonesty, depending on how you look at it) as any in recent memory. I'm not talking founding fathers and we're not discussing city councilmen.

Where's the outrage? If Nixon were President now, we wouldn't think Watergate was anything to get excited about.

SORRY, I'm trying REALLY HARD not to get "political", but perhaps the reason we need a "conspiracy," is because we need more hype to justify righteous indignation at the powers that be. Just plain stupidity and ineptitude are too pedestrian.

Sorry, I don't do outrage. I'm too jaded. I've seen it all. I try to keep the emotion out of it and just look at hard evidence.

Has this administration lied to us? Yeah, I'm pretty sure.
Did clinton lie to us? Yeah, I'm pretty sure.
Did Bush 1? Yeah, I'm pretty sure.
Did Reagan? Pretty sure.
Carter? Pretty sure?
Nixon? Duh!

Now it's all a matter of degrees. IMO if needed any administration is going to lie to us. It reminds me of the old story of (I think it was) Noel Coward. (But I've also heard it told as a handful of other people of noted celebrity.)

This man (Coward or whomever it was) approaches a woman at a dinner party and says, "Would you make love with me for a million dollars?' The woman replies, "Uh... sure. For a million dollars I would make love with you." He then replies, "Would you do it for a dollar?" She gets all insulted and replies, "No! Of course not! What do you think I am?" He retorts, "Oh madame, we've already established what you are. Now we're just working on the price!"

Basically what I'm saying is all high level politics is full of whores. There are no angels.

You've seen the news picture from the 1970s of Donald Rumsfeld meeting Saddam in Baghdad on an official US government visit? Saddam was one of our best buddies in those days.

Osama was also, not a buddy exactly, but received encouragement from the US when he was serving our purposes by harrassing the Soviets in Afghanistan. We seem to have a habit of creating these Frankenstein monsters that turn around and bite us on the butt.

Ken

Which is SOP for us. He was our friend because he was fighting the Iranians who were our enemy. I find it funny that some put so much on the picture of them two together, considering Saddam wasn't on our enemy list at the time. Compare it to FDR sitting with Stalin, who later became our big enemy. Does that somehow make FDR complicit in Stalin's crimes?

According to the now retired operatives who dealt with the Mujahadeen (or however you spell it) in their struggle with the Soviets. Bin Laden and his people were never around, never a part of, and never received any materials or funds from US. His "struggle" was separate but sympatico with the fighters we were aiding. Later, when we were gone, and the soviets were on the way out, is when Bin Laden turned radical and hooked up with these fighters. In the early days when we were aiding the fighters (admiittedly not the smartest move) Bin Laden was building roads and stuff like that. This is one of those connections that has been blown way out of proportion recently. It's all politics.

It's all good interesting stuff, and makes great fodder, but when you cut through it and get to the facts, it's truly nothing.

News story:

http://mensnewsdaily.com/2006/04/04/...-question-911/

Michel,

There's nothing new there. Plus it's a blog. I don't go to blogs for news and don't got to wiki encyclopedias for facts.

As for the idea that we should question authority, I'm all for it. But when one side presents facts and the other presents theories, the whole thing becomes a mess.

There were no implosions in the WTC. The little puffs that pop out below the damage are the floors pancaking on top of one another. Those puffs were furniture, wood, drywall and paper being bellowed out.

The explosions witnesses heard were not bombs. It was the building giving way.

All of this has been proven by real experts.

Conspiracy theories are fun. They're interesting, but they defy so many truths we know about this even and our government. The biggest not being that they wouldn't do it, but that they couldn't pull it off.

So I agree... question authority. But don't comprimise your intelligence while you do it.

You do yourself an injustice if you don't go to credible sources. Anyone can blog. Put credible source up against credible source, and it's plain to see that the major events of the day were as we thought they were.