The 9/11 Post 11807


Having complained of people posting off topic, it seems a reasonable solution to give an opportunity for people to discuss the topics I am banning from other threads – of which 9/11 seems the most popular.

I do not believe that the US government, or any of its agencies, were responsible for 9/11. It would just need too many people to be involved. Someone would have objected. There are some strange and dangerous people in America, but not in sufficient concentration for this one. They couldn’t even keep Watergate quiet, and that was a small group. Any group I can think of – even Blackwater – would contain operatives with scruples about blowing up New York. They may be sadly ready to kill people in poor countries, but Americans en masse? Somebody would say it wasn’t a good idea.

I asked a friend in the construction industry what it would take to demolish the twin towers. He replied nine months, 80 men, and 12 miles of cabling. The notion that a small team at night could plant sufficient explosives embedded at key points, is laughable.

The forces of the aircraft impacts must have been amazingly high. I have no difficulty imagining they would bring down the building. As for WTC 7, again the kinetic energy of the collapse of the twin towers must be immense.

I admit to a private speculation about WTC7. Unfortunately in construction it is extremely common for contractors not to fix or install properly all the expensive girders, ties and rebar that are supposed to be enclosed in the concrete. Supervising contractors and municipal inspectors can be corrupt. I recall vividly that in London some years ago a tragedy occurred when a simple gas oven explosion brought down the whole side of a tower block.

The inquiry found that the building contractor had simply omitted the ties that bound the girders at the corners, all encased in concrete. If a gas oven had not blown up, nobody would have found out. Buildings I strongly suspect are very often not as strong as they are supposed to be, with contractors skimping on apparently redundant protection. The sort of sordid thing you might not want too deeply investigated in the event of a national tragedy.

Precisely what happened at the Pentagon I am less sure. There is not the conclusive film and photographic evidence that there is for New York. I am particularly puzzled by the much more skilled feat of flying that would be required to hit a building virtually at ground level, in an urban area, after a lamppost clipping route – very hard to see how a non-professional pilot did that. But I can think of a number of possible scenarios where the official explanation is not quite the whole truth on the Pentagon, but which do not necessitate a belief that the US government or Dick Cheney was behind the attack.

In my view the real scandal of 9/11 was that it was blowback – the product of a malignant terrorist agency whose origins lay in CIA funding and provision. Also blowback in a more general sense that it was spawned in the nasty theocratic dictatorship of Saudi Arabia which is so close to the US and to the Bush dynasty in particular. As with almost all terrorist activity, I do not rule out any point on the whole spectrum of surveillance, penetration and agent provocateur activity by any number of possible actors.

But was 9/11 false flag and controlled demolition? No, I think not.

(Now I have given full opportunity to discuss 9/11 here, any further references on other threads will be instantly deleted).


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11,807 thoughts on “The 9/11 Post

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  • Paul Barbara

    ‘Trump to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move US embassy – White House’:
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/06/trump-recognise-jerusalem-israel-capital-move-us-embassy-white-house

    ‘..Officials confirm that US president will break with decades of diplomacy in a move many warn will trigger unrest in the region..’

    There is a silver lining to this – Erdogan has warned Trump against it – the more blue water between Turkey and US/Israel, the better.
    And it should make Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States less open about their rosy relations with Israel.

    • Dave

      The irony is, moving the capital to Jerusalem, creates the one state solution, that results in victory for Palestine. Or put another way the two state solution is already dead, and the creation of the one state will enable the Palestinians to mitigate, with international support, the excesses of the Likud-Zionists, because de facto the Palestinians will become citizens of Israel, enjoying rights they don’t have at the moment and as citizens they will win by the ballot box.

      • SA

        I have argued before that for Palestinians the one state solution would be the logical answer. However, under existing conditions of the powerful nations accepting the contradiction of having a Jewish and democratic state which unfortunately does not seem to include the Palestinians in that democratic bit. A one state solution under current conditions will only lead to further fragmentation of the existing bantustans. The one sided treatment of the issue was legitimised when Britain washed its hand off Palestine and withdraw after the terrorist acts of Irgun and stern gangs after only fulfilling part of the Balfour declaration promise thereby leaving Palestinians under the mercy of these gangs.

      • Paul Barbara

        @ Dave December 6, 2017 at 07:11
        The good news is the sh*t is about to hit the fan; the Moron Trumpeter has really upset the applecart.
        But what can you (or I) expect from one of Lucifer’s apparatchiks?
        Erdogan had warned the ‘Trumpeter’ to ‘cease and desist’ re US Embassy.
        Good; the silly born c*nt, previously sent packing by one of the ‘Rolling Stones’, has managed to unite a groundswell of Muslin disgust. One Yemeni leader has been murdered; fancy your chances, Mr. Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz bin Saud.
        True Muslims detest you; how can a ‘so-called’ Muslim ally with Israel?
        Not that I agree with Islam: but as a Christian, who has travelled extensively through the Muslim world, I can testify as to their genuine belief, and to their acceptance of a Christian (or for that matter a member of any other religion or none) passing through their territories. I have been snowed under by Muslims hospitality in my travels.

      • Clark

        …so we should hang on to our (tinfoil) hats!

        Does anyone know the origin of the “tinfoil hats” phrase? I have often wondered if it derived from the story, covered in Spycatcher, about powerful microwaves being beamed at the Russian Embassy in London, to excite a passive audio bugging device shaped as a bronze bust of Lenin, given to the Embassy as a gift from the British government. It would be highly ironic if wearing a tinfoil had originated as a sensible precaution.

  • SA

    So the Jerusalem embassy story is another one of those distractions used to divert attention from one subject to another.
    Trump of course knows not only that this action is provocative but that it is also highly symbolic but practically meaningless. He also knows that it will split the democrats some of whom are equally supportive, if not more so, if this idea. Thirdly the mild criticism that will follow from places like Saudi Arabia will be used to distract from the closer collusion between Israel and KSA that is trying to formulate a new war in the ME against Iran. In fact any pronouncements from Iran in this subject will quickly be used to trigger action by Israel, which by the way seems to have escalating the attacks against the SAA around Damascus. Also any Palestinian violence or intifada will be heavily suppressed.
    All in all very clever but we must always see beyond the headlines but the bottom line here is how can the US and Israel and KSA stop the influence of Iran and start a war.

    • Dave

      Alas its called “facts on the ground”. The fact is the two state solution is dead and therefore to continue to offer it as a solution perpetuates the war and dispossession of Palestine. And the assumption moving the one state capital to Jerusalem is a victory for Israel ignores the fact it becomes the capital of Palestine too. Thus the Zionist victory heralds their defeat, in the sense Israel becomes a plural rather than Jewish state which enables the US to end the war on behalf of the Zionists.

      • SA

        A big dollop of wishful thinking there Dave. The one state solution will never be approved by Israel because it would effectively mean that the state will cease to exist as a Jewish state, unless there is continued institutionalisation of of two tier citizenship.

        • Dave

          I agree it seems odd the apparent Zionist victory would herald their demise, but no accounting for madness and the way of the world. It was the same dilemma facing De Gaulle over French Algeria. The French Algerians hated De Gaulle for betraying the Republic, but he reasoned to protect the integrity of France, Algeria should become independent to stop the many Arab and Muslim Algerians from having a deciding vote in French elections. He betrayed France to save it, not expecting the Algerians to move en mass to France.

    • Paul Barbara

      @ Peter Beswick December 7, 2017 at 09:01
      I’m sure he would have ‘admitted’ being the guy who shot King Arthur if they asked him to, or to piloting the lead bomber in the Pearl Harbour attack. It is indicative of the state of our ‘civilisation’ that so-called free and democratic countries (like the UK) say sod all about a close ally running torture camps, flaunting international conventions and constituting a ‘Crime Against Humanity’.

      • Dave

        Guantanamo acts as window dressing, along with false flag attacks, for the war on terror. Its a pretence that the prisoners have any useful information to divulge and are held in legal limbo to avoid the matter being highlighted, resolved in any court, except in the court of MSM public opinion, where they’re paraded as the enemy.

        • Clark

          Even if the prisoners did have any relevant information, torture corrupted it and rendered it useless:

          “Just tell me the right answer. Is it good to say yes or to say no?” I asked. At that point I hoped I was involved in something so I could admit to it and relieve myself of writing about every practicing Muslim I ever met, and every Islamic organisation I ever heard of. It would have been much easier to admit to a true crime and say that’s that.

          https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/16/-sp-guantanamo-diary-false-confession-slahi

          “…and every Islamic organisation I ever heard of” – but the CIA already knew which organisations had been involved. It cannot be ruled out, and indeed seems likely, that these false confessions were forced specifically to provide cover for groups routinely exploited for covert US operations.

  • Paul Barbara

    ‘Pentagon: US Troops Will Stay In Syria “As Long As We Need To”:
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-05/pentagon-us-troops-will-stay-syria-long-we-need

    ‘US forces plan to stay in Syria “as long as they need to” support local partners and to ensure that terrorists will not return, a Pentagon official told AFP on Tuesday. The announcement comes as the Islamic State has ceased to be a reality, and as the Syrian Army is on the cusp of final victory over ISIS in remaining pockets of eastern Syria.

    “We are going to maintain our commitment on the ground as long as we need to, to support our partners and prevent the return of terrorist groups,” Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon said. “To ensure an enduring defeat of ISIS, the coalition must ensure it cannot regenerate, reclaim lost ground, or plot external attacks.”……’

    ‘…Though American officials have from day one emphasized the short-term and temporary nature of the Pentagon operations, last summer Turkey controversially exposed the locations of 13 US bases in Syria, and the US-backed Syrian YPG had previously indicated seven American military bases in northern Syria. The Pentagon, however, has never confirmed base locations or numbers – though less than two years ago the American public was being assured that there would be “no boots on the ground” due to mission creep in Syria….’

    International laws and treaties? Not applicable to ‘Exceptional’ regimes like the US and Israel.

  • Clark

    A friend bought me a ticket for City of Ghosts, about a group called RBSS – Raqqa is Being Silently Slaughtered. I got home a little while ago.

  • Paul Barbara

    Dirty Three + three (Jerusalem) and the Dirty Four + two (Occupied Golan):
    ‘Declaring Israel’s Actions in Syrian Golan, East Jerusalem ‘Null and Void’, General Assembly Adopts Six Resolutions on Palestine, Middle East’: https://www.un.org/press/en/2017/ga11982.doc.htm

    ‘….After the debate concluded, the Assembly adopted the draft resolution “Jerusalem” (document A/72/L.11) by a recorded vote of 151 in favour to 6 against (Canada, Federated States of Micronesia, Israel, Marshall Islands, Nauru, United States), with 9 abstentions (Australia, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Honduras, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, South Sudan, Togo).

    By that text, the Assembly reiterated that any actions by Israel, the occupying Power, to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on the Holy City of Jerusalem were illegal and therefore null and void. It further stressed the need for the parties to refrain from provocative actions, especially in areas of religious and cultural sensitivity, and called for respect for the historic status quo at the holy places of Jerusalem.

    By that text — “The Syrian Golan” (document A/71/L.17), adopted by a recorded vote of 105 in favour to 6 against (Canada, Federated States of Micronesia, Israel, Marshall Islands, United Kingdom, United States) with 58 abstentions — the Assembly declared that Israel had failed to comply with Security Council resolution 497 (1981) and demanded its withdrawal from the occupied Syrian Golan.

    Adopting the draft resolution “Peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine” (document A/72/L.16) by a recorded vote of 157 in favour to 7 against (Canada, Federated States of Micronesia, Israel, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Solomon Islands, United States) with 8 abstentions (Australia, Cameroon, Fiji, Honduras, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, South Sudan, Tonga), the Assembly called for the intensification of efforts by the parties towards the conclusion of a final peace settlement, stressed the need for resumed negotiations and called upon Israel to cease all unilateral actions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory…..’

    ‘…Syria’s representative, stressing that Israel’s actions in the occupied Syrian Golan were both supported and emboldened by certain permanent members of the Security Council, noted that Israel’s systematic and discriminatory policies amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity….’

    What’s the odds a few micro-nations’ leaders have boosted their tax-haven numbered accounts?

  • Clark

    Irrationality by Stuart Sutherland, 1992
    Excerpts from chapter 5, “In Groups and Out Groups”:

    Group membership brings many benefits – a feeling of belonging, a sense of cohesion, assistance in the pursuit of common goals and the receipt of favours from other members. People usually belong to groups whose attitudes are similar to their own, thus ensuring support for their own beliefs. In the terms of the psychologist’s trade, any group to which a person belongs is an in-group, those to which he does not belong are out-groups.

    The previous chapter dealt with the ways in which a person’s behaviour tends to conform to that of any group of which he is a member. Belonging to a group, however, has other and more complicated consequences. The interaction between its members has some remarkable effects on their attitudes and on their behaviour towards other groups.

    The individual conforms to the group, but something considerably more surprising happens to the group as a whole. From the ground already covered, one might expect that the attitude of each member would drift towards the mid-position held by the rest of the group. In practice, if the members’ attitudes are biased in one direction, simply by interacting together their attitudes become even more biased in the same direction. This was nicely demonstrated in a real-life study undertaken at Bennington, one of the most prestigious women’s colleges in the US. The prevailing political ethos there has always been liberal, but it was found that the students became more liberal the longer they stayed. This suggests that the members of a group do not merely move towards the group norm: if there is a prevailing attitude in the group, it becomes accentuated in its members.

    One study measured the attitudes of individual French high school pupils to President de Gaulle and to Americans. They then had a discussion on each topic and had to come to an agreement on their attitudes. Needless to say, the individuals’ attitudes to de Gaulle were in general highly favourable, while those to Americans were moderately unfavourable. But the agreed attitude after group discussion was even more favourable to de Gaulle and even less favourable to Americans. Once again, the attitudes of the group were more extreme than those of the individual.

    This phenomenon occurs for several reasons. First, the members want to be valued by the group; if the group attitude lies mainly in one direction, its members may try to obtain the approval of the others by expressing extreme attitudes in the favoured direction; they may suppress arguments going in the other direction, and they may be prepared to be more extreme in the group because, as we have seen, membership of a group reduces individual responsibility. Several studies have shown that in addition to making more extreme decisions than individuals, the members of a group are more confident about the correctness of the group’s decisions than about that of their own. Such faith in group decisions, which in general are worse than those made by individuals, presumably arises from the feeling of solidarity given by the group. If all or most agree, they are unlikely, the members feel, to be wrong.

    Irvin Janis, following George Orwell, has called the tendency for the attitudes of a tightly knit group to become extreme ‘Groupthink’. According to him, the members of a group may develop an illusion of invulnerability coupled with extreme optimism; they ignore inconvenient facts; their belief in their own morality may lead them to commit immoral actions as a means to an end; they hold stereotyped views of rival or enemy groups whom they regard as evil or weak; individual members attempt to silence dissent from others in the group; each member suppresses his own doubts in order to conform; there is an illusion of unanimity resulting from this suppression; and finally, they protect other members by concealing information not in line with the group’s views.

    • Clark

      I have witnessed every one of these tendencies right here on this thread. If it can happen in a small group like this, how much stronger must these effects be in a great media organisation or a government? This is where so-called conspiracy theories come from – Russiagate and Twin Tower demolition theory included.

      “Human nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above”.

    • Node

      There is something of a circular definition at work here: to patronise someone is to behave condescendingly toward them, and to condescend is to behave in an arrogant manner by patronising those whom you consider inferior. I’d say they’re fully denotationally equivalent. Connotation-wise, however, there is a slight difference: “patronising” implies behaving as a parent does toward a child, while I think “condescending” is more general.
      https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/4632/what-is-the-difference-between-condescending-and-patronizing/4703

      • glenn_nl

        Hmm, I don’t know. One doesn’t always realise when they are being patronising – it’s something a person gets called out for. Condescending on the other hand is out in the open, it’s meant to imply a relationship disparity. Just my 0.0000002 bitcoin.

      • Clark

        “There is something of a circular definition at work here

        Where? Your comment’s position implies it is a reply to mine of December 9, 10:05, which includes neither “patronising” nor “condescending”. The most recent patronising and/or condescending thing would seem to be the linking of a video about building collapses set to the song “I Believe in Miracles”.

  • Paul Barbara

    ‘Saudi poisonous gas behind Yemen’s cholera epidemic: Official’:
    http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2017/10/29/540281/Saudi-poisonous-gas-behind-Yemens-cholera-epidemic-Official

    ‘…Yemen’s army spokesman Brigadier General Sharaf Luqman said on Sunday that Saudi Arabia is the main culprit for the current cholera epidemic among Yemen’s vulnerable population as Saudi fighter jets continue to spread biological agents in the air, which subsequently contaminate water supply systems.

    Luqman further described Yemen’s cholera outbreak as a “bio-terrorism plot” hatched by the United States, Saudi Arabia and the Zionist regime of Israel.

    He stressed that the outbreak of highly contagious diseases, especially cholera, is directly related to the Saudi regime’s aerial bombardment campaign.

    The senior Yemeni military official went on to say that Saudi warplanes have on occasions released poisonous gases, which mix with the surrounding air, come down in the form of rain and cause groundwater pollution at last.

    Luqman emphasized that children began to show symptoms of cholera ten days after Saudi jets bombarded an area in Yemen….’

    Wouldn’t surprise me one bit. No UN ‘Investigators’ gone to get samples for testing, I suppose? Testing would likely expose the source of the strain.

    • Clark

      Saudi Arabia are certainly responsible, by smashing the infrastructure thereby letting sewage into the water supply; that’s what causes cholera.

      PressTV do themselves no favours by resorting to sensationalism; what Saudi Arabia is doing with the help of its allies (they left the UK off the list) is quite appalling enough without making stuff up.

    • SA

      A bit fanciful Paul. There are enough explanations for the cholera outbreak without inventing others. We know that the cholera epidemic is related to the harsh siege and bombardment in Yemen and who is responsible for it.

  • John Goss

    This is a simple graphic (Charles Baldwyn) shows how impossible it was for the weak floors at the top of twin tower 1 (cube 7 in the diagram) to have penetrated through the much more substantial floors below. It also answers Node’s and my own conjecture on the tapering of the steel sections the top cube only represents 1.4% of the tower’s total steel content, the lower part being progressively stronger.

    http://api.ning.com/files/sildw7rpAa6RZHWMvwzbu4I6lm91em6OezOa5V*6Q*O*cpMCAfk9Yg4qJKY6Iq6viN4ldIY*UfGayWsN4tzV4njysipjyuTd/TwinTowerWtDistAnalysis.jpg

    • Clark

      John, they’ve used the word “floors” when what they mean is “storeys”. That’s why I use the terms “floor assemblies”; to avoid confusion with “storeys”. Just to make matters worse, in the US they write “stories”.

      The floor assemblies were the same on every storey – four inch concrete on one inch bar joists – lightweight. All except for the “mechanical floors”, ie. the floor assemblies of the storeys that were used for equipment like lift winches and transformers, and did not have any office space.

      All this stuff is documented, and can be seen in the films made at the time of construction. It’s just silly to pretend that the floor assemblies lower in the building were stronger and more substantial than the ones higher up; it’s provably untrue, and what would be the point? Floor assemblies don’t support higher floor assemblies; that’s the job of the core and the perimeter. Making lower floor assemblies stronger would just add to the weight and cost, and prevent the Towers from being built so tall.

      Still, it’s interesting to see the thickness of steel quoted, though I have a feeling it may be somewhat confused. Do you know where that page sourced the figures?

    • Clark

      John, do you really not get it? Do you not understand how the design of the Twin Towers worked, how they managed to build so high?

      Building high is a matter of balancing the strength of the materials against weight of the materials. Stronger and lighter equals higher.

      So they picked the lightest design of floor material they could get away with. By “floor” I mean just the material that people walked on and that furniture stood on. I do not mean the level or storey, as in “first floor”, “second floor” etc. I just mean the bit underfoot at each level. When I mean level or storey, I’ll write “storey”. Do you understand the distinction I’m making here?

      So the material the designers chose for the floors was four inches of concrete on a thin corrugated metal deck, in turn supported on one inch joists. These were the same from bottom to top of the Twin Towers; the lower ones were no more sturdy than the higher ones, because the lower ones did not support the ones above.

      ALL of these horizontal floor structures were supported by the vertical frame, which consisted of the core and the perimeter. The frame structures WERE more sturdy lower down the buildings, because the lower sections of VERTICAL FRAME did support more weight than the higher sections.

      Do you understand this?

      • John Goss

        I am sorry to say Clark that it appears to be you who does not get it. Most of the aspects you are trying to preach to me are what I, Nikko, Node and a few others were telling you years ago. I cannot deal with your comments because you appear not to understand the very basics. You are confused yourself with ever-changing philosophies none in line with Newtonian science. You say that they kept the floor assemblies light, which is true. In fact you write:

        “Floor assemblies don’t support higher floor assemblies; that’s the job of the core and the perimeter.”

        But as we have pointed out to you even if the floor assemblies could “progressively collapse”, which they could not, it would still leave the even progressively stronger core and perimeter structures which in your collapse scenarios defy science. It is as simple as the pastic children’s building blocks stacked one on another. That is why the beer-can analogy proves collapse could not have happened from the top down (your argument).

        https://johnplatinumgoss.wordpress.com/2017/12/04/a-single-twin-tower-from-beer-cans/

        It takes a tremendous force to crush a beer can. And the thickness of the beer can is constant. Ask youself if the beer-can was progressively thicker towards the bottom how much more force it would take to crush it.

        Now do you get it? I have a suspicion the answer will be no!

      • Clark

        “…even if the floor assemblies could “progressively collapse”, […] it would still leave the even progressively stronger core and perimeter structures…”

        Yes! It did! Watch the videos! They confirm all this.

        The internal collapse proceeded fastest, through the floor assemblies, producing the descending wave of ejections and the big cloud of dust as it hit bottom. The wave of outward toppling of the perimeter was following close behind. That left the core, for a few seconds. The paths of increasing resistance are fully confirmed; it all proceeded just as Newton could have predicted.

        The graphic you linked, John, challenges Bazant’s theory of vertical columns being crushed. Why bother with it? It’s observably wrong.

        • Clark

          John, I have posted my 12:29 reply to my own comment, because your 11:48 again verges on ad hominen, again accusing me of incompetence. You need to ask yourself why you need to do this repeatedly, over a matter of simple Newtonian mechanics.

        • Nikko

          Clark at 12.29 The internal collapse proceeded fastest ….etc, etc.

          What happened inside the buildings was not observed and therefore the above statement is pure speculation unsupported by any evidence. Even if that did happen, nobody has yet presented a meaningful scenario whereby the internal collapse of very flimsy and light weight floor assemblies leads to the break up and destruction of the perimeter walls and internal columns.

          • Clark

            But you are subtly changing the subject Nikko. Do you support John Goss’s claim that progressive collapse of the Twin Towers defied Newton’s laws due to the design of the buildings? This is a question; please answer it.

            There is extensive evidence of progressive collapse. Ejections followed onset of collapse and did not precede it. Sounds were consistent with progressive collapse. The ejections of air and dust progressed at a reasonable rate considering momentum transfer between floor assembly material. Perimeter sections are seen to topple outward as would be expected due to the pressure of internal collapse, and debris distribution was consistent with outward toppling. Perimeter sections show expected damage of stripped bolts. It is entirely unsurprising that the consensus among engineering, physics and fire protection communities is progressive collapse.

            Progressive collapse matches all observations very well, physical and social, and it integrates well into the overall event of damage, fire, tipping of top sections and observed buckling of the perimeter. To challenge progressive collapse, you need to present a theory that is at least as complete and as well integrated, or you need to find a strong objection to progressive collapse. Over pages and pages, you have presented neither, and intellectual honesty demands that it is time to stop messing about. If you persist without presenting either your objection or your superior theory, I will be forced to assume you have ulterior motives.

          • John Goss

            Last night I posted an answer to Clark but then it appeared the CM blog went down. I took a screen dump of this. Did anyone else experience this? Or was it reserved for me?

          • Nikko

            But you are subtly changing the subject Nikko. Do you support John Goss’s claim that progressive collapse of the Twin Towers defied Newton’s laws due to the design of the buildings? This is a question; please answer it.

            Clark, why do you say I am trying the change the subject when my comment was directly in reference to your comment? And yes, I am with John Goss.

            Progressive collapse according to Clark is due to floor assemblies falling on top of each other; all consistent with Newton we are told.

            Newton tells us that when two objects collide, their momentum is conserved; so conservation of momentum must apply to the floor slabs impacting each other, such that at each impact some velocity is lost due to the added mass. If I understand the “progressive collapse” theory correctly, the uppermost 10 floors start falling as one, hitting the floor below and so starting a progressive reaction. Ignoring all resistances and assuming that no mass is lost when the floors impact, the time taken to fall the distance of the first storey is equivalent to g of 9.81m/s2. The equivalent g for the next storey would be 8.1m/s2, down to 4.1m/s2 for the 10th storey. It would have taken 3 seconds for the collapse to progress through 10 storeys.

            Thanks to Chandler, we know for a fact that for the first 3 seconds, WTC 1 accelerated uniformly at 64% of g.

            How is the “progressive collapse” theory consistent with Newton, when observation tells us otherwise?

          • Clark

            Nikko, thank you for returning to John’s question of consistency with Newton’s laws.

            You seem to be raising two issues; acceleration of collapse, and uniformity of acceleration of collapse.

            On acceleration of collapse, your latest figures seem at odds with your spreadsheet model which we discussed before. As I remember, that model showed overall acceleration of collapse, with the collapse hitting ground in around sixteen seconds, slowed somewhat by a term included to represent ejection of a proportion of material at each storey. Have I remembered this correctly?

            May we deal with this issue before moving on to measured acceleration rates?

          • Nikko

            Clark, I am only raising one issue and that is that the observed collapse at constant acceleration is at odds with the law of conservation of momentum which predicts loss of velocity after each impact and, therefore, a reducing acceleration rate.

            It is all consistent with what we have discussed previously – just different aspects of the same thing – so let’s stick with this before adding more complications such as the loss of mass.

          • Clark

            What, you’re saying that for the first few storeys’ drop, the acceleration as measured was too slow compared with theoretical figures? But surely that’s the opposite of John Goss’ argument, which you claim to be defending! And your latest figures still seem to be at odds with your earlier ones, so I think they might be wrong. And on a point of pedantry, you can’t go changing g; please use a for acceleration.

            Chandler didn’t measure uniform acceleration, but approximately uniform acceleration, derived from points sampled at the rate he chose. But of necessity we are playing with simplified models; we could just as easily contrive a theoretical situation of constant acceleration by simply tipping the top section to an inclination of one storey across the width of the tower, such that falling and stationary floor assemblies collided progressively across the tower’s width, rather than impacting instantaneously by being perfectly parallel.

          • Nikko

            The Chandler plot of velocity against time had a correlation coefficient of 96%. His time interval was constant. There is no evidence that the acceleration was anything but constant.

            Your description of progressive collapse involves colliding floors with loss of velocity at each collision to conserve momentum implying that acceleration cannot be constant but will reduce at each impact. Address that.

          • Clark

            I already addressed that. The top section was seen to tip, so we would expect progressive rather than discrete collisions of floor assemblies.

            There IS evidence that the acceleration varied. Chandler’s correlation coefficient was ONLY 96%; no evidence would have yielded 100%. And he could have chosen a shorter sample period, too.

            But what are you suggesting even if it had been 100%, at the shortest sample period available? A conspiracy that installed a secret hydraulic descent system perhaps?

            And how does this relate to the violation of Newton’s laws that John Goss alleges? It looks more like a subtle change of subject to me.

          • Nikko

            This is the first time I raised this particular point but you say that you already addressed it. Brilliant foresight on your part.

            You dismiss observed evidence with 96% determinance coefficient but are very happy treat as fact the collapse of the internal floors which were not observed and for which there is precisely zero evidence. Says all we need know about your theory.

          • Clark

            Nikko, you wrote: “..loss of velocity at each collision to conserve momentum implying that acceleration cannot be constant but will reduce at each impact”. But I had already written:

            “we could just as easily contrive a theoretical situation of constant acceleration by simply tipping the top section to an inclination of one storey across the width of the tower, such that falling and stationary floor assemblies collided progressively across the tower’s width, rather than impacting instantaneously by being perfectly parallel”,

            so I had already addressed that point. I did not “dismiss observed evidence with 96% determinance coefficient”; I addressed it, pointing out that 96% is less than 100%, so there was variation in acceleration.

            And the evidence of internal collapse is the wave of ejections of air and dust between the perimeter columns which were seen to descend the buildings. So. To return to the point, exactly how is all this repetitive waffling supposed to support John Goss’ false assertion that the collapses in some way contravened Newton’s laws? Wouldn’t it be much simpler if you simply admitted that it doesn’t?

          • Nikko

            – “we could just as easily contrive a theoretical situation of constant acceleration by simply tipping the top section to an inclination of one storey across the width of the tower, such that falling and stationary floor assemblies collided progressively across the tower’s width, rather than impacting instantaneously by being perfectly parallel”,

            Indeed we could, but only in a world of fantasy evidence and science. WTC 1 went down perfectly straight and besides, even if the floor slabs did collide inclined, all that would have changed is that the increase in mass would have been gradual, but once complete the reduction in velocity would have been just the same.

            And if the squibs were evidence of colliding floors, how come they were not seen at every floor level. Could there have been other reasons for the squibs?

            Of course, it is much easier to consider fantasy scenarios in support of one’s pet theory rather than consider the reality of the situation.

          • Clark

            I doubt that the top section of WTC1 “went down perfectly straight” [my emphasis], but I do not have time to review the evidence right now. Just off the top of my head, it couldn’t have been perfectly straight because bowing of the perimeter walls was recorded, so geometry insists that the top must have been tilting to a calculable extent.

            Please define what you mean by “squibs”.

            Assuming you mean ejections, which floor levels did they appear and not appear at? Please post evidence.

            But you remain resolutely silent on the point of consistency of the observed collapses with Newton’s laws. This is a major problem typical of the debating techniques used to support so-called conspiracy theories – no point is ever conceded; instead, the subject is always changed, and the discredited point resurrected like a zombie, over and over and over.

          • Nikko

            But you remain resolutely silent on the point of consistency of the observed collapses with Newton’s laws. This is a major problem typical of the debating techniques used to support so-called conspiracy theories – no point is ever conceded; instead, the subject is always changed, and the discredited point resurrected like a zombie, over and over and over.

            I think that you are confusing me with you because that is a perfect description of how you operate. Most people have sussed you out long ago but why draw their attention to it? You say:
            But you remain resolutely silent on the point of consistency of the observed collapses with Newton’s laws.
            It does not make any sense, does it? Anyway, I think that you need reminding how this particular exchange started. In my comment of 14 Dec @10.48 I pointed out the your theory of self-sustained progressive collapse due to floors pancaking cannot happen at constant acceleration and is therefore at odds with the reality of the collapse, to which you have not responded, except with incorrect points about floors falling at an incline, or irrelevancies.

            Care to answer that instead of resorting to adhominens. Remember the forum rules.

          • Clark

            No Nikko. This conversation between you and I started because you tried to change the subject, apparently deploying the typical conspiracy theorist’s distraction policy, to lend some false respectability to John Goss’ fallacy that collapse was impossible – not collapse at some acceleration or another – completely impossible:

            https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/the_911_post/comment-page-130/#comment-711268

            “You are confused yourself with ever-changing philosophies none in line with Newtonian science […] even if the floor assemblies could “progressively collapse”, which they could not

            When I questioned you about this, you very clearly wrote:

            https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/the_911_post/comment-page-130/#comment-711484

            “And yes, I am with John Goss”

            I am totally sick of this intellectually dishonest farce designed to convince non-technical readers of a false case.

          • Clark

            “progressive collapse due to floors pancaking cannot happen at constant acceleration”

            I shall overlook the fact that you’re arguing that the acceleration was too slow to be realistic – ie. you’re now arguing against John Goss’ argument. But never mind.

            Considerations of momentum merely place limits upon maximum acceleration of collapse. They do not rule out lower accelerations, because other effects could be slowing the collapse. Nor do they rule out constant acceleration – not that the acceleration was constant – so long as the acceleration remains within the maximum bound imposed by momentum transfer.

          • Clark

            I’m sure there are plenty more straws you can grasp at. This is why serious academics don’t bother answering conspiracy theorists – they’d never get any proper work done, and we’d all be poorer for that.

          • Clark

            And now it is time I reminded you of this:

            ” To challenge progressive collapse, you need to present a theory that is at least as complete and as well integrated, or you need to find a strong objection to progressive collapse. Over pages and pages, you have presented neither, and intellectual honesty demands that it is time to stop messing about. If you persist without presenting either your objection or your superior theory, I will be forced to assume you have ulterior motives”

            https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/the_911_post/comment-page-130/#comment-711325

            So. Why are you inventing false objections, Nikko? I’ve already been through enough technical arguments with you to know that you have sufficient technical ability to have answered your own objection above, so what are you up to and why?

          • Nikko

            Nikko – “progressive collapse due to floors pancaking cannot happen at constant acceleration”
            Clark – “I shall overlook the fact that you’re arguing that the acceleration was too slow to be realistic – ie. you’re now arguing against John Goss’ argument. But never mind.”

            Rather than invent what I am arguing and then proceed to argue against these strawmen, why don’t you take my words at face value and answer that. We might then get somewhere.

            I have no further intention to waste time on your waffling and running away from the point of the argument.

          • Clark

            A brick will accelerate roughly constantly under gravity through air, constantly transferring momentum to the air, for velocities which are small compared with terminal velocity.

          • Nikko

            You are deliberately dishonest by completely misrepresenting the reality of the situation. A perfect example of what the proponents of the official theory do.

            We are discussing the acceleration of impacting floor structures. In your example above, what happens when your falling brick hits a stationary brick, then the two bricks hit another stationary brick?

          • Clark

            Nikko, when sand runs through an hour glass, momentum is transferred between the grains of sand. Likewise as the grains of sand fall upon the accumulated cone of sand beneath. But the overall motion looks smooth.

            You seem to be trying to consider 22 metre by 100 cm floor slabs as compact bricks. The situation was not so simple. At the scales of the components of the Twin Towers, the ends of two floor slabs can impact and start transferring momentum, before the rest of the slabs have contacted each other. This will cause both slabs to start flexing and cracking, as more of the two slabs come into contact. The momentum transfer can be progressive, but the total momentum transfer will be the same overall.

            The momentum examples we were taught at school were idealisations, deliberately chosen to be simple, so that we could learn to do the maths. The real world is more complex, but overall conservation of momentum still applies.

            I am not being dishonest, and there is not a single “official theory” that has been imposed upon physicists and engineers. Rather, there is a broad consensus that progressive collapse occurred, and there has been a healthy technical debate about the infinitely complex details of the progression of the collapse.
            – – – – –
            Nikko, your approach seems to be entirely reductionist; attempting to reduce complex interactions into the sort of idealised collisions we were set as examples at school. But to be convincing, a scientific theory must work in both directions. Not only must the theory imply consistent details, it must also integrate into the broader picture.

            You are picking on the roughly constant acceleration of the upper section of WTC1 as some sort of anomaly, but you are not showing this observation to be consistent with any bigger picture. You postulate that the acceleration was precisely constant (though the data does not remotely demand this). So where are you going with this? If established, what would this constant acceleration imply, and is it anything remotely feasible?

          • Nikko

            The history of science is about simplifying and modeling observed behavior within the available means. The momentum exercises we did at school was not because they were simple but because they gave an acceptable result.

            Make it as complex as you like but PROVE that the fall of impacting floors in a gravity only situation can match the observed evidence of constant acceleration.

          • Clark

            Consider a body falling through vacuum under gravity. Kinetic energy gained per distance fallen is constant.

            Consider the top section of WTC1 descending through the structure beneath. It is a reasonable assumption that on average, the energy required to destroy a given vertical section of structure is constant – until the stronger structure of lower sections of the building are encountered, but this did not happen within Chandler’s measurements.

            The first constant minus the second constant is a third constant. Accumulation of kinetic energy in the top section is therefore roughly constant, so roughly constant acceleration is to be expected.

          • Nikko

            “There was no observation of constant acceleration.”

            You know very well that that is not true.
            Now you are not only denying Newton, but you are also denying the evidence.
            You are not fooling anybody except yourself.

          • Clark

            Chandler’s measurements showed approximately constant acceleration, but the line he plotted was not perfectly straight.

            You seem to be assuming – nay, insisting – that if some data points are in a roughly straight line, they must of necessity be in an exactly straight line. Care to tell us exactly where this magical cut-off occurs? How wiggly must a line be before we can admit that it’s wiggly?

            Do you recognise “ley-lines” as a scientific reality, Nikko?

          • Clark

            Ooh! I missed this one:

            “Now you are not only denying Newton…”

            Sorry, where have I denied Newton?

            Chandler’s line isn’t a fraction as wiggly as you, Nikko; that was absolutely bent.

          • Nikko

            It s you who is wiggling

            Chandler’s linear regression has a correlation coefficient of 96%. That is as near a straight line as it gets in the real world.

            You are denying Newton because conservation of momentum suggests a polynomial type relationship between average velocity and time.

          • Clark

            “Suggests”? “Polynomial type”? – Second order, presumably 😀

            Your use of sciency words notwithstanding, I have contradicted Newton not in the slightest. If you disagree, post quotes and links and state your objection clearly for other readers, not as vague waffle dressed in technical terms to make yourself look impressive. The beauty of science is its simplicity.

          • Nikko

            I am the one trying to keep it simple – you are the one making it complicated and waffling.

            Remember we are trying to reconcile the evidence of a constant acceleration collapse against your theory of floor slab collisions. As far as Newton is concerned the average acceleration would reduce at each impact point. The proof that this is may not be so is on you!

          • Clark

            You have unrealistically assumed impact points, in the chaotic process of collapse.

            The simple explanation is that irregularities, tilting, building contents etc. disrupted the unrealistic scenario of perfectly parallel floor-to-floor collisions.

            Whet your complex explanation might be you seem unwilling to reveal, though I have asked several times.

          • Nikko

            I am more than happy for you consider an inclined impact point, if that is what you think is more realistic.

            Clark, I’ve had enough of your constant slipping away from the point of the discussion. The only thing you have convinced me of is your deviousness. Bye.

          • Clark

            Do please tell me what you find deceptive.

            I have already posted my consideration of inclined incidence between floor slabs. Momentum would be transferred progressively, tending to smooth the acceleration vs. time plot.

            And here is the evidence that the top section of WTC1 tilted as it fell:

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K33s99I2dcU

            …which you claimed was non-existent;

            “…only in a world of fantasy evidence and science. WTC 1 went down perfectly straight…”:

            https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/the_911_post/comment-page-130/#comment-711618

          • Nikko

            OK, I was wrong about WTC 1 going down straight but the discussion moved on since I made that statement. In the post just above at 18.27 I accepted an inclined collapse and invited you to consider that and prove that it can lead to constant acceleration.

            You say that “…I have already posted my consideration of inclined incidence between floor slabs. Momentum would be transferred progressively, tending to smooth the acceleration vs. time plot.”

            What you posted was hardly a “consideration” but I agree with the smoothing effect. But smoothing the plot is not the same as straightening it or flattening it. Evidence tells us that the plot of acceleration vs. time was a straight horizontal line at 63% of g.

            For the nth time, what you need to prove in a scientific manner (which excludes waffling) is how the law of conservation of energy squares with the evidence.

          • Clark

            I already did that, eleven comments above. Below, I have changed a few words (bolded) to improve clarity:

            https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/the_911_post/comment-page-130/#comment-711953

            “Consider a body falling through vacuum under gravity. Kinetic energy gained per unit distance fallen is constant.

            Consider the top section of WTC1 descending through the structure beneath. It is a reasonable assumption that on average, the energy required to destroy a unit distance of vertical section of structure is roughly constant – until the stronger structure of lower sections of the building are encountered, but this did not happen within Chandler’s measurements.

            The first constant minus the second constant is a third constant. Accumulation of kinetic energy in the top section is therefore roughly constant, so roughly constant acceleration is to be expected.”

          • Clark

            Nikko, I was actually rather surprised at my own result, and very surprised how easy it was to derive. It happened when I considered distance rather than time, though that seems the obvious thing to do – in retrospect! But there you go; physics is like that sometimes.

          • Nikko

            But Clark. this is completely meaningless as you are ignoring the impacts of the floors on each other.

          • Clark

            But we already covered that!?! (looks perplexed, tears hair out…)

            The floor slabs are already part of the overall structure. So long as they don’t hit precisely parallel, and if contents etc. cushion the blow somewhat, clear steps won’t appear on the graph. Even if steps do appear, the above reasoning means the smoothed plot should approximate constant acceleration.

            Can you see a hole in my reasoning? I can’t, but then it’s my own thoughts.

          • Clark

            Nikko, I’m going to take a guess at what’s troubling you.

            Is it that, on a consideration of momentum transfer alone, and starting from Bazant’s wrong assumption of an initial acceleration of the top section at g, acceleration would be expected to decrease?

          • Nikko

            No idea what Bazant assumption you mean, but you understand correctly that conservation of momentum predicts that following each impact the acceleration would reduce. This goes against the observed evidence so something must give; either Newton or your theory. It is not troubling me but should be troubling you.

    • Clark

      Good article.

      Sixteen years the “Truthers” have been trying to sanitise the reputation of the Wahhabist-inspired jihadis. Talk about misguided.

      • SA

        Excellent article that exposes the hypocrisy and double standards.

        Clark and Macky. We will really never know the whole truth about 911 and therefore it is futile to argue about particulars of how buildings came down and cellular phone. We know that there was collusion, incompetence and coverup which we can agree on. We know that there is a close collaboration between the KSA and the US. We probably also should discuss that one of the big reasons why Hillary may have lost the election, though not much discussed since, is the collusion with the Saudis. What I am trying to say is that the war against terror has now been shown to be a justification for uncontrolled retaliation against ‘enemies’ but also strangely, a rather cynical whitewashing of terrorism happening ‘over there’.
        And by the way the collusion between Islamists and empire goes back to over a century.
        I remember how one of my first political memories as a child is the Suez War. With no political baggage I could see and it remained with me throughout my life, that the west, at that time U.K. and France, has really no interest in the ordinary Arabs in the street, merely in how to use their countries.

        • Clark

          SA, I appreciate your efforts at peacemaking. However, there is a problem on both small and large scales. Into the mix you describe has been thrown Israel.

          People around me on this thread, who should be my allies, are warping science itself to argue an untruth. I do not know to what extent they are aware that the untruth they are arguing is an anti-Semitic, unwarranted conspiracy theory; warping science to accuse Larry Silverstein of something that provably did not happen, to smear him with an alleged ethnically endemic ruthlessness. Some of these people are clearly not being straight with me. Others may have fallen for the anti-Semitic deception.

          Then we have the entire academic community. To what extent are my adversaries on this thread, who should be my allies, arguing that the whole of academia is under the control of this alleged ethnically endemically ruthless conspiracy? They will not say.

          Trump is an anti-intellectual; he ruthlessly exploits ignorance and dismisses warnings from the academic community; he looks a lot like a neo-Nazi. He is also the commander in chief of the most powerful military that has ever existed. The situation is very convoluted; unstable. We ignore this aspect at our peril.

        • Paul Barbara

          @ SA December 11, 2017 at 06:51
          ‘…With no political baggage I could see and it remained with me throughout my life, that the west, at that time U.K. and France, has really no interest in the ordinary Arabs in the street, merely in how to use their countries.’
          Suez was in fact a three-way conspiracy – you forgot Israel.

          • SA

            I did not. I was talking about ‘the west’. Israel is an implant but we all in those days had high hopes in Britain as the beacon of justice.
            The episode in Egypt is called ‘al Idwan al thulasy’
            ‘The Triple Invasion’ although I think the word
            ’idwan’ in Arabic conveys a slightly different meaning than invasion.

    • Paul Barbara

      @ Macky December 11, 2017 at 02:01
      Yes, very good article. I found a few flaws, however. Here is the comment I posted on the site:
      ‘It’s a very good article, but I have found two items I disagree with, and one error of fact.
      Wesley Clark was told by a 3* serving General on the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the US was going to overthrow 7 countries in 5 years when he visited the Pentagon in 2001, not 2007.
      The other two problems are that though technically correct, the statement ‘..Hence Washington’s joy when the Arab Spring struck Syria in March 2011 and it appeared that protesters would soon topple the Baathists on their own…’ gives the impression it WAS an ‘Arab Spring’, instead of a Western-fomented gambit.
      And of course, there is no evidence that the Jihadis and Al Queda brought down the Twin Towers etc., so alluding to the US backing the forces that brought 9/11 to America as being Al Queda is questionable.
      Sure, they were Western proxies, and still are, doing the West’s and Israel’s will. Both the Yinon Plan and various US reports relish just such an outcome, sowing mayhem in the regions surrounding Israel, Balkanising them and making Israel’s dream of a ‘Greater Israel’ far easier to bring about.’

      • SA

        Paul
        I think I stated this before. I disagree with you on two accounts too.
        I believe and this is a widely held belief in Egypt at least, that the Arab spring initially, especially in Tunisia and Egypt were genuine populist events, perhaps with some input from western NGO sources. Witness how the French were completely wrong fotted about Tunisia and how Obama prevaricated in Egypt. Sadly the next event, in Bahrain was quashed by KSA. At that point the Arab spring was highjacked and not just by the West. I feel the original and main highjackers were the Qataris and Saudis who feared that the action may spread and sadly in both cases of Libya and Syria the Arab League leant upon by those two, the gulf countries and Kuwait, the main financiers, took a leading part in condemning both Libyan and Syrian leaders. Qatar even sent fighter planes to Libya and gave a good figleaf for the Nato bombings.
        As to 911. It is important to note that the main trained patsies were those schooled by the CIA in the killing fields of Afghanistan, the successors of the mujahedeen. The Israelis are too clever to be involved in something so crude, especially since they know that they have such inept allies as the Saudi Royal family on their side working in a clandestine way.
        I think that there are conspiracies but our theories must not be made in such a way as to try and change the facts, better to try and make our theories fit the facts, that way we gain more credibility.

  • Paul Barbara

    ‘Towards a « Latino Spring »?’: http://www.voltairenet.org/article196335.html

    ‘With time, many political leaders throughout the world have reinterpreted the « Arab Springs ». What at first seemed to be spontaneous revolutions against authoritarian governments is today perceived for what it is – an Anglo-Saxon plan for the destabilisation of an entire region of the world in order to put the Muslim Brotherhood into power. The memory of the « Arab Revolt of 1916 » – during which Lawrence of Arabia raised the whole region against the Ottoman Empire by feeding the People dreams of liberty in order, finally, to submit them to the British Empire – shows that London has the know-how.
    It seems that the Anglo-Saxons are preparing a new wave of pseudo-revolutions in Latin America. Everything began with a decree by Barack Obama, on 9 March 2015, declaring a state of emergency in view of the extraordiary menace that the situation in Venezuela could bring to bear on the United States. This document caused an upsurge of indignation on the continent, forcing the US President to apologise during an international summit. But the decree was not cancelled, and the preparations for a new war continue.

    Different from the Syrian Accountability Act by George W. Bush (2003), the text by Obama on Venezuela is a presidential decree, not a law. Consequently, the Executive does not need to account for the preparations to the Legislative body. It took eight years for the Anglo-Saxons to pass this act in the Arab world in general, but numerous elements lead us to believe that it will not take them as long to launch a programme for the destruction of Latin America…..’

    On they go with their merry ‘Regime Change’ ‘Revolutions’. If it works, why fix it?
    The Western MSM is continually demonising Maduro, and lying about the true state of the country, and why there are so many problems there. Once again, like Ukraine, Syria and Egypt you have ‘peaceful demos turning violent, with snipers or ‘unknown gunmen’ firing at both sides. That was what occurred in the short-lived coup against Hugo Chavez, but the a REAL spontaneous eruption in his defence led to the plotters releasing Chavez.

    • Macky

      @SA, I hope you noticed that right from the start VB doesn’t have share any naive beliefs about any possible benign intentions the that UK could have in the ME; and I’m glad that she mentioned the Western supported KLA, which was used to destroy Yugoslavia/Serbia, as had social media & independent internet blogs existed in the 90’s, they would have not be able to pull-off the complete “black is white” psychological propaganda operation that they did on the Serbia, and they wouldn’t have even tried to get away with stuff like the White Helmets now; this is why they fear & oppose a free Internet.

      • SA

        Macky

        I note that you are trying to get at me with repeating the word naive. Nevermind . I was going to answer your spurious ‘straw man ‘ arguments but sadly due to the server problems mentioned by sqwounq, I can’t at the moment but I will when this is restored. Meanwhile have a peaceful night.

        • Clark

          SA, the comments that were lost last night due to the server crash are very unlikely to be restored. The reason is that each incoming comment is added to the database, which is backed up once a day. When the server crashed it made inaccessible the database running at the time, so a backup database was loaded instead. That restored all the comments up to the backup time, but omitted comments submitted between the backup time and the crash.

          But since then new comments have been submitted. Even if the database that was current at the time of the crash became available, it would not include these latest comments. To restore them, the running database and the currently inaccessible database would have to be somehow merged; they cannot simply be added together because the vast majority of comments would be duplicated. There may be a way to merge them but it would take time, and in that time yet more comments would be submitted unless commenting was disabled.

          Best just to accept the loss. Commenters can always repost any important points that were lost.

          • SA

            Clark
            Thanks for the explanations and see below. Macky has a record so I ewill respond to him. Thanks.

        • Macky

          @SA If by “trying to get”, you mean me contrasting VB realistic understanding of the West’ s involvement in the ME, with your apparent believe in the fairy-tales of the West’s sincerity in promoting “Freedom & Democracy” in the ME, then yes I’m trying to “get” at you ! 😀

          Anyhow it’s your lucky day, because of the long experience of having comments on this blog mysteriously disappear, I tend to keep copies, which also includes copies of comments that I was replying to (see below), so if you wish to pursue the debate, please feel free to do:

          =========================================================================================
          Macky: “@SA, I have to be frank and state that I find your reply to Paul rather bizarre.

          “I have no doubt that there was some facilitation by the West in building up what is known as a civic movement to try to increase the likelihood of peaceful protests as a way of affecting change. “

          That statement cannot ever be made by anybody with any knowledge or real politic understanding of Western Imperialism. The West has literally been at war with the Third World for centuries,( remember the handful of countries that have never been attacked by Britain ?!). The notion that the West would want positive change for the populations of countries that they target for plunder is simply ridiculous, and to add the notion that they would want anything “peaceful” is simple too absurd to consider; either you are incredibly naïve, or you are pretending to be.

          “This is a strange statement, how otherwise do you start?”

          What’s strange about the strategy of superficial change, by replace one puppet dictator figurehead for another; the existing power structure that enabled the last puppet dictator to serve the West, will of course have to be maintained.

          “They did not have the luxury of us bloggers looking at lofty objectives.”

          That is a very condescending remark to make of ordinary Arabs; the plight of the Palestinians is a major issue for fellow Arabs, tied-up with the West’s support for Israel; it is the most cited grievance, from the normal “Arab in the Street” upto Bin Laden. Why do you think that the Saudi Regime tries so hard to keep secret its relationship with Israel ? Because it’s population would be outraged, as would all Arabs; if we Europeans can care about the injustice & suffering of the Palestinians, do you seriously believe that fellow Arabs can’t sympathise even more ?!”
          =======================================================================================

          SA: “Thank you for taking the time to read my, in your opinion, my bizarre and naive statement. You seem to know more about the Arab man in the street than me without knowing my background. So I have to bow down to the superior knowledge of orientalists who know better. what is condescending is to imply that the Arab spring was merely the west agitating for pseudo democracy. The Arab spring was not about Israel and Palestine.

          You may or may not know what poverty is in Egypt and other countries and third world, You probably do. The Arab spring was at least started because of populations disgruntled by the lavish style of their leaders when they could not eat. Of course I not discounting the role of agitation and even provision of provocations by the west, but what is condescending is to imply that the Arab spring was merely the west agitating for pseudo democracy. Not in so stating do I belittle in any way the role of the injustice to Palestinians which most Arabs feel, but this was not what spurred the Arab world. The Arab world is not a one issue place. What happened in Egypt shows exactly that and the first phase actually was successful in that there were free elections but what happened next was that the Muslim Brothers who have had a very good infrastructure and organisation won these elections. However their behaviour after the election showed that they were determined to take absolute power and form a sharia led state which would be U.N. democratic and trample over the rights of others not holding to their beliefs. The army intervened and reversed this. Now on paper you could argue that the first part of this in Egypt was successful but the second part wasn’t. Now for those who wish to paint the whole of the Arab spring as a Soros and the CIA driven affair I wish to ask a simple question: which part of these contradictory happenings did they support?

          I am truly fed up of orientalist, they are some of the worst friends that Arabs can have because they know better what is good for Arabs. Believe me they come in the arrogant type like Blair and Co as well as those who appear to be wholly sympathetic to the Arab cause. What I have been trying to say, maybe expressed very badly, is that it is time to pay more attention to what is being said and written in the Arab world, not our patronising projection of what is happening.

          Now I am fully in agreement that subsequent to these two events the Arab spring was highjacjed because it attacked countries that the west supports including Bahrain and even KSA but these were quickly suppressed, and later was directed against Libya and Syria which were not in the western orbit. I hop I make myself clear.”
          ============================================================================

          Macky: “@SA; “The Arab spring was not about Israel and Palestine.”

          Straw-man, as I never said or implied it was;

          “You seem to know more about the Arab man in the street than me without knowing my background.”

          Straw-man twice over as I’ve never claim to know more than you, & I can’t possibly know your background.

          “So I have to bow down to the superior knowledge of orientalists who know better.”

          Bizarre & condescending remark, as well as an attempt to use a term as an adhomin .

          “what is condescending is to imply that the Arab spring was merely the west agitating for pseudo democracy”

          Straw-man as never said or implied it was.

          Etc, etc

          Instead of composing a reply to me full of straw-men , why do you not address the actual points that I put to you; about your apparent naively about Western designs, or do you actually really believe that Western involvement in the ME is all about “Freedom & Democracy”?!; what about your bizarre misinterpretation of Paul’s point about replacing autocratic power structure ?

          I’m no expert on the Arab Spring(s), but I do know that it’s spark is attributed to the Tunisian fruit seller who set himself alight after his merchandise was confiscated by Police; additionally I know that Assange has attributed the spark of the Arab Spring to the release of Wikileak files that revealed the corruption of various Arab governments; however I also know that the West would never support, true democracy the Arab countries, as they have spent decades subverting & destroying any manifestation of Arab Nationalism. I know that they have sponsored sedition against any Arab government that showed the slightest resistance to Western interests, and of course they give full support to the puppet Arab dictators who obey their diktats ; yes the revolt spread to spread to countries which the West didn’t want, but they already have well-rehearsed plans in co-opting any such contingency.

          Now, do you want to try again & address the actual points that I’ve made, as opposed to the straw-men points that maybe you would have like me to have made ?”
          =======================================================================================

          Over to you.

          • SA

            Macky
            Thanks so much for this. It is very important for me to answer this and I will do, but rather than an off-the-cuff comment, I would like to write a proper response to you and also to Paul. I will respond in time on a new thread.
            We are basically on the same side but it is a well known fact that those on the left would rather fight each other than the common enemy (don’t take this too seriously). The problem is that there is no simple answer to some complex world problems and seeing everything in black and white may obliterate our sense of judgement. We all of course like to read and believe in sites that we agree with and read with scepticism those we don’t agree with and in the end we have a confirmation bias. This I try to avoid and look at each source critically. I am not in any way implying that any of us here does anything differently but sometimes some hasty comments have been made on very flimsy bases.
            Anyway, more specifics later.

          • SA

            Macky

            Rather than indulge in a point to point refutation of what you and I have written I will discuss under several headings:

            1. You accused me of being naive or pretending to be naive because of your interpretation of what I have written that the west was encouraging peaceful revolutions in the ME for pure interest in democracy. I am sorry if I have conveyed this interpretation, maybe it was a bit of poor writing on my side. I have stated in another post that my realisations of the adverse plans of the west in the ME started in 1956 during Suez, as a child when I realised that even the hallowed BBC to which the whole world turned, was spewing propaganda and that the west in the form of UK and France colluded with Israel against Egypt because it was led by a nationalist Gamal Abdel Nasser. What I said in relation to the Arab spring in Egypt is :
            “I have no doubt that there was some facilitation by the West in building up what is known as a civic movement to try to increase the likelihood of peaceful protests as a way of affecting change. “
            I agree this may have been poorly worded but my meaning was not that the change was a peaceful democratic one but the training in civic movements was a prelude to starting a provocation which can turn into violence as happened in Syria. Incidentally this did not happen in Egypt, there was some violence from the part of the government but it was not sustained, there was also some violence by the Muslim Brother but these were not sustained. What I find somewhat patronising is therefore to take the whole situation in Egypt and claim that it was from beginning to end a western orchestrated movement. The Egyptian Tahrir Square uprising had several precursors, probably not much reported. Even if there were some prominent western trained bloggers, there was a genuine populist uprising. On this subject, these bloggers may have been trained by the west but may also be true patriots. After all we do know that even AQ will take help from the west but without necessarily following western agenda. You can use western methodology and training without necessarily carrying out a western agenda. So I hope that you can see that your accusation of my naivety and being an apologist of the west and innocent intentions in the ME is particularly galling to me.
            2. The question of the importance and relevance of Israel /Palestine to the Arab spring. I was merely saying that even though this is an important issue for the Arab ‘man in the street’, it really was not an important factor in the uprising in Tunisia or Egypt. The reason for this is that those demonstrating had much more pressing needs of hunger and poverty whilst they saw their leaders’ corruption and lavish life styles. That is not the same thing as saying that this is not a very important issue in Arab countries, merely to say that it was not the spark or the paramount grievance. When I wrote:
            “They did not have the luxury of us bloggers looking at lofty objectives.” I meant just that, that the Arab Palestine issue was not what these hungry people thought of, it was a much more lofty ideal to fight for when you yourself are oppressed and hungry and when you know that your rules are in any case in collusion with the West and Israel. Maybe I expressed this in a clumsy way but my intention was clear.
            You then made this statement:
            Macky:
            “That is a very condescending remark to make of ordinary Arabs; the plight of the Palestinians is a major issue for fellow Arabs, tied-up with the West’s support for Israel; it is the most cited grievance, from the normal “Arab in the Street” upto Bin Laden. Why do you think that the Saudi Regime tries so hard to keep secret its relationship with Israel ? Because it’s population would be outraged, as would all Arabs; if we Europeans can care about the injustice & suffering of the Palestinians, do you seriously believe that fellow Arabs can’t sympathise even more ?!”
            Having made this statement Macky you then proceed to make this straw man argument
            Macky: “@SA; “The Arab spring was not about Israel and Palestine.”
            Straw-man, as I never said or implied it was;”
            So do you still think this was a ‘straw man’ argument?
            And this rather belittling statement was what led to my tirade about orientalism.

            3. Orientalism. As I said, I am truly fed up of orientalists who span a whole spectrum from those who wish to bomb the Arabs for their own good to those who are so enthusiastic about the Arabs and want to help without understanding much of what goes on. Allow me to say that there are not many commentators in western media who speak Arabic, Who actually comment from the Arab ‘street’ or who follow closely Arab media in Arabic. Reports from the BBC and the Guardian are often from Correspondents in Turkey and Israel and probably the Gulf but very few mingle with even the rulers, let alone ordinary people. The whole picture is extremely skewed. Even the well-wishers either bemoan ‘the dictators’ or pronounce on how democracy can be achieved in the Arab countries. Many have a one answer which is: ‘If only the West and Israel stop interfering with the Arab world, everything will be so beautifully democratic’.
            I am not sufficiently qualified to expand too much on this nor do I want to in a public forum. But there are inherent problems of democracy in the Arab world. And although we can blame the structure of what happened to western interference since the breakup of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of the Oil rich monarchies, that is not the whole story. Arab nationalism failed because it was an easy target for the west and because the predominant social cohesive factors in the Arab world are religion and tribalism. Where populist movements succeeded to some extent are in Iran (I know not Arab but close) and that lead to an Islamic state. The fleeting success of the uprising in Egypt, was to result in the free election of the Muslim Brothers who quickly sought to dismantle the rights of others and to try an establish an Islamic state in Egypt. The complete grip on power in KSA, Kuwait, Qatar and the Gulf by Islamic Kings and Sheiks is another.
            Macky:
            “…..additionally I know that Assange has attributed the spark of the Arab Spring to the release of Wikileak files that revealed the corruption of various Arab governments;” Typical pompous orientalist statement.
            So the millions of Arabs who are hungry and live in poverty who experience first-hand oppression and see the corruption around them one day opened their Facebook page which showed that Wikileaks have finally come out with something that they have already known, so they turned round and said: “Oh now that Wikileaks has exposed this, I guess we better do something about it”. Is that not the height of condescending orientalism?

            4. The Arab Spring:

            Just to reiterate my thoughts (I am sorry I am not posting any links) are that the beginning of the Arab Spring was genuine with the Tunisian uprising which had little interference from the West, probably because Tunisia is not strategically important but also because the West was taken off guard and the problem was resolved quickly and relatively peacefully.
            Egypt was more complex. There are organised civic movements some probably trained by the west but others not. There has been a long history of civic events, trade union strikes and so on in Egypt, mostly suppressed and it was only the Tahrir Square one that gathered sufficient momentum to succeed. This was as I said multifaceted perhaps with some Western agitators but that was not the main thrust. After the Muslim brothers were democratically elected however then tried to turn the country, against the wishes of many, and this led to a military coup which was supported by some people and probably also by the West.
            The uprisings in Bahrain and some parts of KSA were quickly and efficiently suppressed and I do not think these were western led. The following events in Libya and Syria were in the main either instigated by the West or hijacked by the west for their purposes.

            So to sum up, it is too simplistic to say that the Arab spring was started by the West for their purpose, the west was taken by surprise and then subverted some of these uprisings and started new ones to make use of the situation.
            Of course in the case of Libya and Syria we know of long term aims for regime change but these were always await opportune moments which the west thought had arrived through the Arab Spring.

          • Macky

            @SA Ok, on naivety, you’ve confirm what I actually suspected, which is that is you didn’t express correctly what you really wanted to say, but I couldn’t be sure, and had to respond at face-value to what I was reading.

            Certainly not I, nor any commentator I’ve seen, are trying to deny that those who rose-up against their governments in the various Arab Spring countries, did not do so because of poverty, hunger, corruption, democratic aspirations, etc. For sure these people had genuine grievances that they took to the streets to protest against, yet these grievances were not new, they had existed for decades . It always takes a catalyst for an uprising to start, and putting aside the roles of Western NGO in fermenting, encouraging & organising, I gave two of the most cited other catalysts , being the Tunisian Fruit Seller, and the Wikileaks files. I don’t know why you are so dismissive of the latter, as it’s quite well known & documented, to the extent that even Amnesty International highlighted it. There may even be a direct link between these two catalysts;

            http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/wikihistory-did-leaks-inspire-arab-spring

            Re the role of the Israel/Palestine issue in the Arab Spring, I think that again a lot of unintentional meanings were because of the way that you worded your comments. I think we can both agree that although this was not a main motivating factor, it is always there, in the Arab conscience as a grievance, and people are not stupid, they know that their rulers are complicit in the suffering of the Palestinians.

            Re your comments about Orintalists, again I’m afraid I find them rather confusing; you appear to be saying non-Arabs cannot possible understand Arabs, so they should butt-out, which is rather a reactionary, if not extreme position.

            Also I think that you are factually wrong saying Arab nationalism failed, because it has never ever been given the remotest chance of succeeding; it has always been sabotaged by the West, from Nasser, to Mosaddeq(non-Arab I know), to the wrecking of the once prosperous, peaceful multi-faith, multi-ethnic states of Iraq, Libya, Syria etc. Yes they were never prefect “democracies”, but they could never afford that luxury, because they were always being undermined & attacked by sponsored sedition, so as an inevitable necessity, strong dictator leaders, who could hold their countries together when under such constant attack, took control; and this is not an Arab thing, as the same happened in Cuba, North Korea etc, etc.

          • SA

            Macky
            To follow on from your answer. I am sorry I got rather angry about orientalism but after trying to find primary Arabic sources discovered that Google is ill equipped for the task. My point is that all of us seem to get our information about the Arab World from Western sources mostly MSM and some sympathetic sources. There are few primary sources directly reporting and include reporters like Robert Fisk, Eva Bartlett, Vanessa Bailey and Jonathan Cook and probably a few others. There are some ME media like Al Masdar News which reports from the area with local reporters and some twitter accounts such as Ehsani2 and Elias Magnier who are worth looking at. But it is difficult to get to the real stuff. Therefore we all get a skewed view through western eyes. I blame the Arabs in this, the priority should be to develop this information gateway rapidly to make themselves heard directly, not through advocates from the west. But please forgive my ill tempered misdirected tirade.

            Macky. wrote:

            “Also I think that you are factually wrong saying Arab nationalism failed, because it has never ever been given the remotest chance of succeeding; it has always been sabotaged by the West, from Nasser, to Mosaddeq(non-Arab I know), to the wrecking of the once prosperous, peaceful multi-faith, multi-ethnic states of Iraq, Libya, Syria etc.”

            Never been given a chance may be the cause of failure but nevertheless it was a failure.
            I must say that this is a great disappointment because I would love to see true secular democracy in the Arab world but the battle for this is a serious one.
            As I have written elsewhere in answer to Paul, the Arab world may not be a good place for a democracy at present. This is because religion and tribalism is still an important part of a very paternalistic society. It is not that I am against religion of any kind but I am against its perversion in the ME including in the ‘only democracy’ in the ME.
            A strong political structure and total dissociation of religion from politics are important prerequisites for real democracy. The other main factor in the lack of democratic organisation is the lack of industrialisation which fosters trade unions and similar organisations in arab countries and reliance on oil revenues in many.
            I just want you to consider two examples of how suppression of political movements plays in the hand of political Islam which is fundamentally undemocratic. In Iran during the reign of the Shah there was the most severe oppression of any opposition, but the mosques and religious leaders could not be suppressed. They therefore stepped into the vacuum when the Shah was overthrown, Iran ended as an Islamic republic. Similarly in Egypt the political vacuum created by suppression since the days of Anwar Al Sadat and the 30 years of the Mubarak regime, ended up by the election of Morsi and the uprise of the Muslim Brothers who were about to set up an Islamic Sharia based state in Egypt.

            I know that there is a lot of interference from the west in Arab affairs but other countries, notably Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union, have been able not only to rise from the ashes but to prosper despite the constant plotting. Similarly China has been able to prosper by playing the West’s game better than the west. I hope you can understand my point of view.

          • Macky

            @SA You really should stop putting Arabs down, there nothing special about them that means that they’re incapable of organising successful democratic societies; comparing them to Russia & China is not meaningful, as both these giants, just through sheer size, are uniquely better equip to resist the malevolent of the West.

            I also believe you are wrong to imply that religion is incompatible with democracy; democracy is essential the right of everybody to have equal civil rights , the main one being it having a say in choosing how they govern themselves; religion will only come into this if it’s the democratic will of the people, so trying to pre-emptily exclude religion from politics is oxymoronically undemocratic by definition. Maybe I need to remind you that Ancient Greece, where Democracy first arose, was a very religious society ! Anyhow please refer to the reply that I addressed to yourself & Giyane on the current Thread, as to why I think religion cannot be excluded from any society.

          • Clark

            Macky, you seem to have misinterpreted what SA wrote, and replied to points of your own. I’d appreciate it if you would read more carefully, and try and post a revised comment.

            SA, I have been finding your exposition fascinating. Listening to Moazzam Begg, I gained the impression that US/UK/NATO agencies really do not understand the people and groups they are attempting to exploit. I have a strong suspicion that Israeli agencies understand much better, leaving the US/UK/NATO agencies and their associated governments wide open to Israeli manipulation.

          • SA

            Thanks Clark. It is true that the Israelis understand the Arabs better and that is why they have succeeded in the provocations that put Palestinian reactions to the tyranny always in a bad light and turn the world against them. When the PLO started using airplane hijacking as a tool to attract attention, they made a considerable mistake, culminating in the political own goal of the Munich olympic massacre. Instead it seems to be forgotten that terrorism in Palestine started with the Stern gangs and Irgun and of course continuing to this day.

            As to the West. It looks to me as if they do not start with a question of how to solve a problem but with an answer which is to continue deceiving the rest of the world with a benign narrative that we have good intentions and that Israel is a real democracy and that KSA is reforming and so on. It may be that they believe what they told by the Israelis but it also be that this is irrelevant to them because it allows them to pursue thier agenda.

          • Macky

            @SA,

            Firstly sorry that you feel as if I’m “extremely patronising”, as it’s unintentional.

            “You also draw up the wrong conclusions from almost everything I say.”

            With due respect, it was yourself that initially drew attention to the problem of your “ poor writing “; the inferences that I drew/draw from what you write are my honest impressions.

            I’ve nothing to add about what you’ve just written about religion, all straight-forward stuff, even if you needlessly self-addressed a few wrong inferences from what I’ve written !

            Have no idea why you keep going on about conspiracy theories as a diversion from Syria on a 911 Thread ! Syria is a current tragedy that should be always be brough-up on the current threads of all political blogs; if you’ve been keeping a watch on the current threads on this blog, you’ll find that I’m one of the posters who frequently posts about Syria; it’s not an either/or dichotomy, people can post about 911 without having bizarre accusation s thrown at them about “diverting” about Syria !!

      • John Goss

        I am happy Paul to read anything from Vanessa Beeley or Eva Bartlett (who has had much of her Syrian reporting content removed by FB). Brave women.

  • Dave

    People support different teams, but an appetite for the basics of peace, security and prosperity with good governance is the same throughout the world. The nonsense refrain that they hate us for our freedoms and because we eat hamburgers is just pro-war propaganda. They hate us because we bomb them and kill their families, fund IS and destroy their countries. The urge for reform grows as a population becomes richer and more educated, so a growth in democratic agitation is inevitable, but the ‘West’ seeks to sabotage it as a democratic Arab voice would be anti both Zionist and Wahhabi.

    • Paul Barbara

      @ Dave December 14, 2017 at 05:31
      ‘…a democratic Arab voice would be anti both Zionist and Wahhabi.’
      Yes, and anti US and EU Imperialism, or Neo-Imperialism, or whatever it’s called when we wage war against countries for ‘Regime Change’ if the don’t let our Corporations rob their countries blind.

      • SA

        Dave and Paul

        ‘…a democratic Arab voice would be anti both Zionist and Wahhabi.’
        Yes, and anti US and EU Imperialism, or Neo-Imperialism, ‘

        If only it was that simple. Extrapolating what democracy would be in the ME is a very difficult subject and is one of the reasons why all these pseudo attempts at democratisation fail. Democracy can’t just be wished on people and needs a well informed electorate and strong structures and traditions. I have to also add that another important requirements is secularism, and by this I mean the total dissociation between the governance structure from established religion. This is why any country, including the so called ‘only democracy in the ME’ can’t be truly democratic if heavily influenced by a religious script.

  • Macky

    I’ve just remembered that one of the missing Posts here, was this one containing a link to an interview between Abby Martin & Sibel Edmonds; note that Edmonds states that not only was 911 deliberately allowed to happen, but that certain individuals committed treason; she also highlights the tactic of using the term “Conspiracy Theorists” to attack & deter those who question the Official Narrative:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pTBJmWVXhA

    • Clark

      Macky, I wish you would debate this matter sensibly.

      I have been telling people for years that Facebook is not a safe platform for political activism. Facebook is one of the most useless sites on the ‘net. Shamefully, it is extensively used by Momentum and local Labour Constituency Parties.

      We never had any idea who most of the “people” were on Facebook. I know of at least three dogs with accounts! There are millions upon millions of fake accounts controlled by God knows whom. It is used extensively by ISIS for recruitment and propaganda purposes. Manipulation by PR companies helped secure Brexit and Trump’s election.

      These are the unintended consequences of both excessive ego-gratification and a lazy surrender to corporatism. Yet you have nothing but criticism for this independent site, and you ruthlessly harangue its whistleblower owner and the volunteers who make it possible, even as they try to maintain some standards of honesty and decency.

      What is happening now, which you call “the Internet crackdown as orchestrated by Washington”, is an inevitable result of mistakes made by all of us, failing to press for high standards amongst our own community. Since we have not shown good sense voluntarily it is inevitable that external policing would eventually be enforced. And of course, that policing will be manipulated by the establishment, and due to our own negligence we have little valid argument to present against it.

      All of the above applies equally to YouTube.

  • Clark

    I don’t know how I found the following; it was one of the many tabs I had left open to check up on later. Maybe Macky posted it in a comment which went missing. David Lindorff, independent journalist, interviewed on RT about Facebook, “fake news”, filtering, censorship and who should be responsible for it:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsnPvIuV90c

  • John Goss

    Trump predicts the event. The video gives an interesting perspective on who is, and who is not, allowed to make predictions.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_X–F7-8ns

    You will recall that Trump also spoke openly and honestly about how strong the twin towers were and how aircraft could not have brought them down a couple of days after the event. My latest information on this is that a week after that recording was made he was told to shut up. It is unlikely you will hear from him again on that event.

    • Clark

      “Trump also spoke openly and honestly about how strong the twin towers were”

      No, Trump lied that the Twin Towers were very strong, probably because he’s a property developer and wanted to give a false impression about similar buildings that he profits from. Generally, if Trump says anything, suspect he’s lying. The Twin Towers were probably the weakest buildings of such height ever constructed, before and since. They had a complete absence of concrete in their vertical support members; concrete gives rigidity and fire protection to steel, and the new WTC1 includes such concrete. The Twin Towers had about a third of the overall density of earlier buildings typified by the Empire State Building. As with all technology, advances in building techniques have been used primarily to save costs rather than to increase resilience; this is characteristic of capitalist market economies.

      What fire professionals said about the Twin Towers:

      http://www.oilempire.us/wtc-design.html

      What structural engineer and government critic Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl said about the Tin Towers:

      http://911-engineers.blogspot.co.uk/2007/06/berkeley-engineer-searches-for-truth.html

      What structural engineer Charles Thornton said about the Twin Towers:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2jAgp1slFM

    • Clark

      John, that is an excellent and highly informative video; the minor beginning and end parts about Trump being the least important. The really interesting parts are about Osama bin Laden, his categorical denial of planning the 9/11 operation, the apparently deliberate mistranslation of the supposed confession video (and apparently falsely claimed to be fake), and the discovery of masses of 9/11 material in the house where Osama bin Laden was said to have died, as if he was in fact attempting to research 9/11, just as we are here.

      Also interesting are CIA actions of destroying the tapes of the torture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, as if the CIA wanted to encourage so-called conspiracy theories.

      Typically, Trump bragged much but predicted little. What Trump did say agrees quite closely with what Aaron Russo claimed to have been told by Nicholas Rockefeller; that there would be a major terrorist attack on the US and that Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan would be falsely blamed, Afghanistan would be attacked but Osama would escape.

      In depth look suggesting that the Osama bin Laden “confession video” was probably not faked:

      http://www.911myths.com/html/fake_video.html

      Translation of Spiegel Online page claiming said video tape was deliberately mistranslated to falsely implicate Osama bin Laden:

      http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fpolitik%2Fausland%2F0%2C1518%2C174025%2C00.html&sl=de&tl=en
      – – – – – –

      I think what can be said for certain is that 9/11 was contrived to precipitate the invasion of Afghanistan, so I looked up the Unocal Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline. The consortium behind it was CentGas, and the members make interesting reading, including Unocal (Union oil of California, who pulled out in 1998), Russian Gazprom, and the Delta Oil Company based in Saudi Arabia and privately owned by Badr M. Al-Aiban:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CentGas

  • John Goss

    Apologies if this has already been posted but it is important because with another 41 signatures the number of academically qualified engineers and architects will take the number to an incredible 3000 while those supporting the official view are somewhere in the region of 6 as far as I can see. And that might have gone down because I haven’t seemed to have heard from Z P Bazant, Jia Liang Li, Frank Greening or David Benson recently (not for nearly a decade).

    The testimonies of the three engineers in the link below, geotechnical, chemical and structural, show that the call for a proper inquiry is not going to go away soon.

    http://www.ae911truth.org/news/397-why-have-nearly-3-000-architects-and-engineers-signed-our-petition.html

    I should note that 3,000 qualified engineers and architects putting froward their names and reputations in opposition to state-sponsored orthodoxy is a massive number. Although I am a qualified engineer my qualifications are practical rather than academic and therefore I could not become a signatory. So how many thousands of knowledgeable practical engineers are there also opposed to the official story?

    • Clark

      “…those supporting the official view are somewhere in the region of 6 as far as I can see

      Then I guess you haven’t been looking; progressive collapse of the Twin Towers is almost universally accepted in the structural engineering and physics communities. See my comment here:

      https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/the_911_post/comment-page-130/#comment-711790

      And find many others from here:

      http://911-engineers.blogspot.co.uk/

      The reason it doesn’t get discussed much is because it isn’t controversial. On the other hand, WTC7 would be controversial, but the building had been evacuated, and consequently far less of the international technical community have taken an interest. But if you read mainstream stuff (and why shouldn’t you in the field of engineering? Its not like it’s foreign policy!), you’ll see that WTC7 is regarded as raising far more important engineering questions than the Twin Towers do.

  • John Goss

    Who did the experiment in their schooldays of collapsing an oil drum by creating heat underneath it. For those who did not here is an example.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNfGir5rE44

    What the truth of 9/11 is I still do not know. But for a long time the most convincing argument to my mind has been a thermonuclear device below the ground. What else could have removed the central clolumn and allowed inward buckling like this?

    https://www.metabunk.org/the-pre-collapse-inward-bowing-of-wtc2.t4760/

    • glenn_nl

      Conventional explosives can create a pretty big bang, John – I’m not sure why nukes would be needed. I’m pretty sure a nuke would have left distinctive radiation evidence which (AFAIK) has not been found at ‘ground zero’.

      You’ll be cheered to hear that among my new colleagues on the continent, none of which I’d describe as stupid in the slightest, virtually all have little doubt that we’re talking about a controlled demolition when it comes to the Twin Towers, and especially WTC7. I’m not just talking about the Dutch either, the assumption of a controlled demolition appears widespread.

      • John Goss

        Thanks glenn_nl for your comment. I am pleased to see your colleagues are thinking along the lines of controlled demolition. I wonder what their views are on the downing of MH17 since the inquiry is taking place there. Be careful if you ask because many casualties were Dutch.

        My big difficulty with conventional explosives, though I rule nothing out, is the central core structure. This, as Clark pointed out, was where the cranes were seated to raise the floor structures and prefabricated outer frame assemblies. Practically nothing else I could think of could bring that central core down. It had to fall or be sucked into a hole I believe. That too would account for why ground zero (I wonder how it got that name especially since there is a monument in Nagasaki marking the point of their ground zero?) was still burning underground three months after the event. I ask what else could have caused such intense heat?

        I understand that there was evidence of a nuclear event even though most of the steel left after the demolition was shipped to Japan and government scientists were not allowed to investigate nuclear events. In fact it was the most diabolically inept investigation into a crime-scene I have ever heard of or read about. That in itself ought to raise suspicions.

        PS. I tried to post this before but got another attack on my computer when linked to Craig’s blog.

          • glenn_nl

            Of course, I knew what you meant. If thermite had been used, that would have provided a large heat source which would have been observed for some time afterwards. A friend (not a conspiracy buff) sent me a link to a satellite image which showed considerable heat there long after the collapse.

          • Clark

            Yes, there were high temperatures for a long time.

            Trouble is, I don’t know of any attempts to quantify what should be expected without any hidden energy sources. Without context, measurements of temperature are meaningless.

            There was a huge quantity of potential fuel that got crushed into the central piles. Clearing those piles would have let air into them, permitting further combustion. The ashes of a big bonfire can smoulder for days, yet it is a fraction of the size, has no unburned fuel, and isn’t nicely insulated in a hole. As is well known with bodies of water, as an object gets bigger its ratio of surface area to volume decreases (another scaling problem). More volume can hold more heat, but heat escapes via the surface area, so bigger things cool more slowly than smaller ones. There are plenty of reasons that the debris piles could have stayed hot for a long time; the matter needs to be quantified.

        • Clark

          John; a point of observation; do you agree that the videos of the collapses of the Twin Towers show major portions of the core structures still standing for several seconds after the bulk of collapses have completed?

          I think there may have been a nuclear aspect to what happened in New York on 9/11, but I haven’t yet seen a good exposition of the evidence, nor any good theories derived from it. The little I am sure of is that there has been a documented increase in thyroid cancer among people directly involved – survivors, first responders etc. It is a large increase in percentage terms, but over a very low expected baseline, such that there are only tens of excess cases. This is too large to be insignificant, but far too small to indicate the detonation of even a small nuke.

          Part of what frustrates me so on this thread is that there are so many matters I’d like to investigate, but the immense enthusiasm for myth-magnification keeps throwing sand in my eyes and muddying the water. And my scepticism is clearly resented unless I apply it in the preferred direction – but if comply, it will cease to be true scepticism.

        • Clark

          John I don’t think the steel would have helped much in investigating any nuclear aspect because its major element, iron, doesn’t become activated very well, especially during a short burst of radiation as produced in a nuclear explosion.

          If you’re looking for evidence of a nuke going off, I think you’d do better to look for the characteristic radionuclide reaction products in the dust.

          But I’m pretty sure you’re not going to find evidence of a nuclear explosion, because other countries would have detected it and made a big protest. So I think that if there was a nuclear aspect to events in New York on 9/11, it must have been something else.

          • John Goss

            “John I don’t think the steel would have helped much in investigating any nuclear aspect because its major element, iron, doesn’t become activated very well, especially during a short burst of radiation as produced in a nuclear explosion.”

            That’s what Pommer says. But he gives other explanations for most of the radiation being contained at source, and the short half-life contamination levels (not critical after I think he said three days). Interestingly he found proof in the interference of camera footage of those who left their cameras running within the inner area. Whoever did this dreadful heinous crime I would never defend. But I am not looking for the culprit(s) in Saudi Arabia.

          • Clark

            No I haven’t watched that lecture yet; I haven’t had time. I’m just about to go out, and I’m busy tomorrow and Monday as well… I just happened to know that about iron through my interest in Weinberg and molten salt reactors.

            Still, thanks for finding it, and the other one.

        • Paul Barbara

          @ John Goss December 15, 2017 at 22:12
          ‘…In fact it was the most diabolically inept investigation into a crime-scene I have ever heard of or read about. That in itself ought to raise suspicions….’
          Investigations tend to be inept when the State is the culprit – think Princess Di, Dr. David Kelly, JFK.

      • John Goss

        If you get time Glenn this is a long film which I have just started watching regarding Dimitri Khalezov who believes the WTC demolitions were caused by nuclear weapons. The CIA tried to stitch him up and get him extradited from Thailand by putting out a false story that he supplied one of the hijackers with a passport. As I say I can’t tell you how credible it is till I’ve finished watching it but it does seem to support the underground nuclear weapon theory and he is an expert.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUnjbCxhXh4&feature=youtu.be

        Last year I saw a short edited version but those on this thread who oppose the theory went to Wikipedia which at that time had him labelled as a criminal, and dissed his name, rather than playing the ball.

        • Clark

          Dimitri Khalezov has no Wikipedia page. However he does have a page on Wikispooks:

          https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Dimitri_Khalezov

          which claims he’s a colleague of Victor Bout, who is a Russian arms dealer (my favourite, arms dealers; lovely people. NOT.):

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Bout

          Bout worked with the Liberian warlord Charles Taylor, who I think you will find strongly criticised in Craig Murray’s book The Catholic Orangemen of Togo:

          http://www.killick1.plus.com/craig.html

          • Clark

            Not really. I have posted facts about these people. That I have also stated my opinion is incidental.

            And in any case, the moderation rule applies to commenters, not to the political actors which are commented about. I’m quite at liberty under moderation rules to state my opinion that Bush and Blair are war criminals, and to call them heartless selfish bastards for what they did. I’d hope you’d support that freedom.

      • Clark

        Glenn_nl, December 15, 16:05:

        “…among my new colleagues on the continent, none of which I’d describe as stupid in the slightest, virtually all have little doubt that we’re talking about a controlled demolition when it comes to the Twin Towers, and especially WTC7”

        Who are these colleagues, Glenn? What sort of fields are they qualified and experienced in? And what are they like, and what do they have in common? For instance, maybe they’re generally young, or perhaps they all work for an “alternative” sort of organisation, or something else that might have brought similar sorts of people together.

        This has me extremely worried. There are rational reasons for suspecting demolition of WTC7, but once I’d rid myself of the groupthink, I could see very little for suspecting this of the Twin Towers, and much evidence for structural failure and progressive collapse. The situation is so very post-truth; everyone seems to have abdicated their responsibility to reason! And for me this is NOT a matter of one authority versus another. For instance, I was shocked to find many pages on Wikipedia about how the DNC e-mails were “hacked by Russia”, but the evidence is as bad as for alleged demolition of the Twin Towers. Even the usually sensible Bruce Schneier seems to have fallen for the corporate media chorus – based upon so very, very little.

        I’m probably just expecting too much of humanity. After all, every tribe or group of any sort in the entire history and prehistory of humanity have come up with some kind of unifying but irrational religious belief. These examples of false consensus are probably just what happens as a sort of replacement, in modern societies.

        • glenn_uk

          They make up a fair mixture from around the continent, it’s not possible to generalise that much. All are engineers in the same sort of field as myself, of very varying ages (up to 50s). I don’t want to put down too much that identifies myself, as I’m sure you’ll understand, as there are people around here with less than pure motives. I don’t like to give them levers unnecessarily.

          Put suffice to say, they are all pretty mainstream, and have worked in a variety of industries.

          I was just surprised that it was taken as read that this was an inside job, and almost certainly the result of a controlled demolition.

          As far as the Russian hacked emails are concerned, there doesn’t seem a good reason to dismiss the notion. I listen to Rachel Maddow’s shows, and she has pretty good evidence to suggest a lot of Russian collusion with the Trump regime.

          • Clark

            Any structural engineers among them?

            I dunno – it seems worrying to me. We see videos of aircraft ramming the buildings, great big gashes in the perimeters, huge fires, then the structure starts to crumple just where it has suffered the most, and the top falls onto the bottom, destroying the lot. But no, it was hidden agency…

            It’s as if you saw a car crash and the windscreen breaks, and the occupants get out with cuts on their faces, but observers insist that a hidden agent sabotaged the brakes, fired broken glass using a catapult, and then escaped unobserved.

          • Clark

            As for Trump / Russia, I expect monetary contacts – Russia’s an oligarchy, and Trump has just graduated as an oligarch.

            But we have Craig’s testimony that the e-mails were leaked, not hacked. And there are those unusual disclaimers on the US intelligence agencies’ reports, etc. Of course there were probes and attempts from sources all over the world, but pointing out the possibly Russian ones is meaningless without putting it in the international context. Craig’s little web server comes under all sorts of attack, but it’s almost impossible to work out who’s doing it. Still, I’d appreciate a link to the best pro-Russian hacking evidence you’ve seen.

          • glenn_uk

            No, none are structural engineers. Not a lot of call for those sort of skills among systems engineers for ISPs. I hope I wasn’t giving the impression that these workmates were hard-hitting field experts on building construction – my point was simply that this fairly diverse set of nationalities and backgrounds were pretty unanimous with the general sentiment that this was an inside job and almost certainly a controlled demolition.

            *
            About the Russian connection – here’s something you might like:

            https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/timeline-campaign-knew-russia-had-clinton-emails-months-before-trump-joke/ar-AAufoWt

          • Clark

            Thanks Glenn. Ex NIST employee Ketcham was a software designer. Just a hunch, but I wonder if it’s something in the mindset? Belief on demolition theory also seems to be an on-line phenomena. Maybe it’s to do with the absolutely massive reduction in scale when people watch the collapses on monitors or even ‘phones.

            Thanks for the Russia link; I’ll review it later.

          • glenn_nl

            Interesting thought.

            Anyway, about the Russian thing… try listening to Rachel Maddow sometime. She has a lot of detractors, but I consider her to be honest (if a bit obsessed with the Russian angle), having listened to her shows for well over a decade. For instance, she likes to point out any conflict of interest she might have in presenting a story, such as between the corporation that pays her salary and the target of the reporting.

          • Clark

            Hmm, the msn.com timeline seems full of bald statements but short on evidence and detail. I’m not really sure what to make of it.

            The main thing seems to be Papadopoulos’ statement. But what the hell was happening to Papadopoulos? He met some professor who introduced him to “a niece of Putin”, who turned out not to be. Eh? If the Russian government really wanted Papadopoulos on board, why deceive him?

            Then we have Clinton’s e-mails. Supposedly, the Russian government had them. But the ones released by Wikileaks lack the e-mails Clinton deleted. But wouldn’t the supposed Russian copies have been obtained before the deletions, or have I got the timing wrong?

            Interspersed with all this are attempts to arrange meetings between Trump and the Russian government, but surely, that’s perfectly normal?

            Sorry, it’s all murky stuff. I suppose if I dug long enough I might bash it into some kind of order, but I’m not sure it’s worth the effort; it all looks like a bit of a storm in a teacup to me. Presumably, there was a genuine leak ie. not a hack, because Craig has insider knowledge to that effect, but maybe there were hacks too. The important things seem to be that Clinton and the DNC have not claimed the leaked or hacked e-mails to be forgeries, and that the Democrats had a clean candidate in Sanders but in hubris forced him out. I lay the blame for Trump winning squarely with the Democrat party, just as I would had the Blairites managed to force Corbyn out. So what if Russia played a role? The whole neoliberal movement has for decades been deliberately weakening privacy and computer security for commercial and surveillance purposes, and with passwords like p@ssw0rd, and illegal private e-mail servers, something was going to leak at some point.

            If you were Wikileaks and you received such material, what would you do? If you release it before the election, you’ll be accused of “supporting Trump”. If you release it after, it depends who got in, but you’ll be either accused of holding it back to let Clinton back in, or supporting Trump. Either way, there will be enormous and justified cries of “why didn’t you tell us when it could make a difference?”

          • glenn_nl

            The timeline isn’t anything like as well referenced as I’d like, it’s based upon their far more detailed reporting going back months. What looks like bald statements actually refers to podcasts explaining everything in excruciating detail. I have a huge archive of podcasts like these, if you have some ftp drop I’d be happy to oblige you with them. But they do take a bit of time to go through, I haven’t indexed them.

            Nevertheless, it should not be ignored – I’d invite you to listen to RM for a week or so, on the podcasts/ video which are always available free for a day after broadcast.

            What we should be concerned about is the likes of this:

            http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/dec/18/john-podesta/its-true-wikileaks-dumped-podesta-emails-hour-afte/

            The “Pussy-gate” video came out, in the form of the “Access Hollywood” tape. Less than one hour later, Wikileaks decides the time is right to start providing cover for Trump, in the form of these Podesta emails. Now they didn’t amount to much, but given the “equivalence” obsession of the media in general, and the full blast of the far-right slime machine, this was portrayed as at least just as bad.

            This is all coincidence, perhaps, that Wikileaks just happened to have served the Trump campaign so well, and everything they did just so happened to damage Clinton’s campaign? Wikileaks were being entirely fair and partial the entire time, of course, and just providing whatever they got, from whichever truth-seeker was kind enough to provide. And the timing is also nothing but another coincidence – naturally.

          • Clark

            29 minutes between David Fahrenthold’s Tweet and Wikileaks Tweet. Hmm. I’d like to know when the following page went public:

            https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/

            I’m going to tend toward coincidence unless you can show a consistent pattern. How closely would Wikileaks be watching Fahrenthold? Is Fahrenthold that important? Was everything in place, and Wikileaks were just waiting for a Trump crisis to emerge before they released cover? And Trump produces gaffes all day and every day, and the Democrat-leaning media were pretty hot on publicising them. Maybe if we try picking random times in the surrounding week or so, every one of them will be fairly near a Trump gaffe.

          • Clark

            And thanks, but I’ll decline on the pod-cast dump. Done is done, and we’re unlikely to find out for sure. Trump doesn’t seem to have helped Assange.

            The Tweets’ time-stamps show 1:03pm and 1:32pm. The Politifact article refers to 4pm. I suppose it’s a time-zone offset.

    • Clark

      Excellent collapsing can video, and the two that YouTube scheduled after it. All demonstrate how important geometry is to the strength of a structure. The can holds against external air pressure for more than 22 second as the internal pressure drops. At 1:15 the can dents inward slightly, near the bottom. It creaks a bit more, then at 1:21 suddenly BANG! it implodes faster than the camera can record!

      This is a mini example of structural failure. “Lose the geometry, lose the building”.

  • mog

    Possibly of interest to people here is Tom Secker’s article about David Anderson’s recent review of MI5’s role in the Abedi case:

    https://medium.com/@tomsecker/could-the-manchester-bombing-have-been-prevented-ac4171415ef2

    Anderson’s report provides few answers on what MI5 were actually doing in relation to Abedi, what they knew and when. But MI5 are sure they couldn’t have stopped the Manchester bombing. The question of whether they should have opened an investigation into Abedi in early 2017 was dismissed by the security service

    As ever, it is interesting to note what is not said in such reports.

  • John Goss

    I have only just discovered this lecture, part two of three, by nuclear physicist, Heinz Pommer, speaking in Zurich, Switzerland. It is comforting to have a physicist explaining something in laymen’s terms. Very easy to understand, very difficult to refute. He explains why radiation

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt2QszBb5Vw

    Pommer started off trying to disprove a nuclear event. He will not let himself be drawn into the argument of the whether there were planes because the event which brought down the towers was much more important, the nuclear event.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAXmie-plnA

      • Clark

        Well I’ve wasted over 35 minutes of my life watching part 1; there’s very little of interest except the USGS dust survey and the mention of Susan Lindauer’s personal testimony. It is a waste of my time as I already have Pommer’s 911_Analysis_en.pdf, which sets out his “theory” far more completely, and it is untenable.

        “…very difficult to refute,”

        For a start, he postulates the “evaporization” or sublimation of the steel of the core, but of course the collapses of the cores were seen to be the last part of the collapses, and so could not have been the cause of the collapses. Also, a few people survived the collapses by being in the stairwells, which were in the cores – so no immense neutron flux could have occurred.

        I’ll look into the dust sample analysis, but so far Pommer’s is one of the nuttiest “theories” I’ve encountered about anything.

          • Clark

            Well I know enough to say that a neutron flux that could vaporise the steel columns would also have vaporised people, but the people survived. And I don’t need nuclear physics to see that the Twin Towers weren’t brought down by the destruction of the cores, because the much of each cores was seen to be still standing after the perimeter and floor assemblies had all fallen.

          • John Goss

            You are still spouting the same old unsubstantiated nonsense Clark. Anybody who has watched videos of the ‘spire’ can plainly see that a small section outside of the elevator shafts and central core remained standing for a short while before it fell into the chasm, apparently disintegrating as it fell.

            As to the bodies not disintegrating precious few were ever found of those in the central core of the building only those thrown clear like Bob McIlvaine, those who jumped, those in the basement not in direct line with the central core, and those who ran. As to the “Miracle Survivors” in Stairwell B it really shows Killickian physics in its true light because the 16 who did survive represents about 0.53% of the death toll. There is an iconic photograph of a young girl who survived Hiroshima. People can survive nuclear events especially outside a certain radius.

            http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/sept11/2003/n_9189/

            It is interesting to observe in the article above Pasquale Buzzelli talks of himself as suddenly being in “freefall” although the article itself says “The building was pancaking down from the top. . .” Buzzelli sustained a broken foot so nothing fell on him. Something was removed from below him and everyone else the only way that building like one of the towers could have come down. Here is a comment from below the article which makes sense.

            “”Thirteen people would eventually climb out. (Harris would be lifted.) More than 100 floors had fallen on top of them…”
            More that 100 floors should have fallen on top of them, indeed, but when they look up after the dust clears, they see blue sky. Where were to 105 missing floors of steel and concrete-substitute? They were not twisted or mangled or compressed. They were not there. Where were the building contents – desks, filing cabinets, computers, porcelain items? (None were recovered from either tower.) Answer: They had turned to dust and billowed out all over lower Manhattan.”

            You call Heinz Pommer’s theory one of the nuttiest you’ve encountered. Clark you need to take a good close look at what you write on here and ask if it is anywhere close to the easy to understand lecture of Heinz Pommer before his peers. Finally, it really upsets me to read supercilious and condescending comments trying to belittle Paul Barbara. This is totally out of order.

            “Paul, I’ve told you this before, and please don’t be offended, but I know you don’t have the intellectual tools to make assessments of this sort.”

            If you don’t like what Paul writes, or the way he argues, you do not have to respond to his comments.

          • Clark

            John, Paul is not a doctor nor any sort of medical professional, researcher or student. He is as completely wrong to be influencing people about vaccinating their children as my mother was to brainwash me that if I ever accepted a blood transfusion, I would be killed by God at Armageddon. He would be just as wrong as a man offering to teach people to fly helicopters but who had never flown any sort of aircraft himself. Some things are just plain wrong, and we ALL have a duty to call them out. It’s not a matter of whether I like it or not. If someone was advising people that it’s fine to eat reheated chicken that was cooked three days earlier and that warning is just a conspiracy to sell more chicken, they’d be wrong, and someone should say so.

            Paul has explicitly rejected critical thinking. I asked him if he would learn some and he dismissed it out of hand. He has therefore explicitly rejected the intellectual tools necessary to give any sort of advice about medical risks, because health and illness are inherently complicated and there are multiple risks to be weighed in either accepting or rejecting any treatment or prevention.

            And I consider you reckless for encouraging him.

          • Clark

            And the core remnant did not “turn to dust”. Better quality videos reveal what really happened. Watch how a slightly later part of the collapse pushes the base of the spire to the right, causing a vertical fall:

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wozwfj2WM0

            If you watch carefully, you can see the same motion from the opposite side in the following; the bottom of the visible section is displaced to the left, causing the spire to lean to the right before collapsing:

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K33s99I2dcU

    • Nikko

      John. thanks for posting the Heinz Pommer presentatins. Most interesting and quite a compelling explanation for the ejection of the massively powerful pyroclastic clouds coinciding with the onset of collapse. I was never much taken with the alternative explanation that the towers contained plaster board.

      In the first video at 17.50, there is a good shot of the central columns remaining standing for a few seconds after the tower collapsed; then disappearing downwards as if into a hole. Not sure whether a nuclear explosion can account for that but I can’t think of anything else that might.

      • Clark

        The Twin Towers’ cores were very strong in compression, but never designed to stand on their own; ever wondered why the Eiffel Tower is the shape it is? The Twin Towers’ cores’ lateral stability was provided by it being tied to the perimeter by the many floor assemblies. When the Twin Towers were constructed, the core only ever stood a few storeys higher than the perimeter and the connecting floor trusses. Professor Clifton:

        “So there was a core in the center and a very stiff and strong box around the outside, and then the floors spanned between the core and the perimeter frame. The core was gravity only, so it was designed to take half of the vertical load of the floors and to provide support for all the services. The perimeter frame was a network of very close steel columns and deep beams to carry the lateral loading and so was extremely stiff and strong IN-PLANE. Both the perimeter frame and the core are supported off each other at intervals up the height of the building by the floors; when you have vertical elements carrying the weight of a building you have to provide lateral support to these at regular intervals to stop them from buckling. Typically this support comes from the floors which are rigid elements that tie the building together, at each floor level”. [My emphasis]

        After being stripped of its lateral support and severely stressed, the core collapsed into a heap about its footprint, because once undercut at its base by the immense crush of concrete, there was far too much torque for it to remain rigid. The torque was greatest nearest the contact point with the ground, effectively folding the core remnant into sections.

        • Clark

          And the Twin Towers were known to contain extensive plasterboard – it is called “sheetrock” in the US. Some people got trapped in a lift which failed between floors. They got the lift carriage open but thought they were defeated when it revealed the wall of the lift shaft. However, it proved to be made only of palsterboard, and they escaped and survived by cutting through it with an improvised metal implement.

          • Nikko

            Sounds like a strongly built building!

            That is what I was thinking. And may be they never vacuumed the place.

          • Clark

            Dave, read it more carefully. The various major subsystems of the Twin Towers (core, four perimeter walls, 110 floor systems, hat truss) were interdependent:

            The core supplied half of the vertical support, the internal service ways (lift shafts etc.), and provided a central “spine”, but it was too slender to provide sideways rigidity.

            North-south sideways loads (eg. wind loading) were resisted by the east-west perimeter walls (just as east-west sideways loads were resisted by the north-south walls), but to do this the loads had to be transmitted from the north and south walls, through the floor assemblies to the core, and then from the core via the floor assemblies to the east and west walls.

            This clever arrangement minimised construction materials by making best use of the geometric strength of each component, but it made each component dependent on all the others. The floor systems and the hat truss tied it all together, and when complete it was strong. But the collapse of the top section took out the hat truss, and started the internal collapse which took out the remaining floor assemblies. Without the floor assemblies, the other major subsystems had very little sideways strength.

            You get a similar effect with a set of assemble-it-yourself flat-pack shelves. You assemble the base, the sides, and the shelves, but the unit has hardly any sideways rigidity until you slide the thin hardboard back panel into the grooves that run down the back of the side panels. That piece of hardboard is the thinnest, weakest, most flexible piece of material in the kit, but until it’s fitted the whole unit has very little strength.

            That’s modern stuff for you. The Empire State was built before these modern optimisation techniques; compare a 1930s bookshelf with its modern flat-pack equivalent.

          • Clark

            It did fall apart. Look at the debris photos; there are many like this:

            https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/3/3b/20050601212353!September_17_2001.jpg

            https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:September_17_2001.jpg

            The second link has a further links to a selection of other photos. Zoom in, because the scale is quite large. You can see all sorts of steel parts; quite clearly, the perimeter broke into pieces. However, the floor assemblies were mostly concrete, and that was mostly rubblised during the internal collapse, and then crushed and pulverised as the internal collapse hit bottom, producing the enormous dust clouds.

          • Clark

            What’s the matter? Can’t you see the big pieces of steel and big perimeter sections? Try this one; if you zoom in on the top right corner, there are some vehicles for scale:

            https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/3/3b/20050601212330%21September_17_2001.jpg

            Or compare the pieces of building against the people in the middle at the bottom of this one:

            https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/3/3b/20050601212321%21September_17_2001.jpg

        • Nikko

          The explanation at 00.21 how the central column disappeared vertically downwards is pure nonsense.

          After being stripped of lateral support the column would not be stressed at all except perhaps for bending stress at the base due to not being perfectly straight. Were the deflection from vertical to increase, the bending stress would also increase and the column may have toppled in an arc sideways.
          But it did not topple sideways but went vertically down. For that to happen it would have had to been supported laterally which it was not. And besides, in vertical position the core was strong enough to not only support its whole original height but also a part of the building.
          And for the core column to “fold” as you describe would require three times the force of a simple topple so absolutely impossible.

          I am not wasting more time on your nonsense.

    • Clark

      Quote from the article you linked:

      “Well, for anyone who cared to think about matters of this world, nothing is given”

      Yet when I didn’t take one of YOUR links as given, you said to me, “How very amusing and richly ironic that your first impulse is to fall into “Conspiracy Theory” mode ! You have spent years preaching & railing against people automatically voicing CT opinions on the 911 Thread !”

      It seems that you advocate that some things be taken as given, but not others, and I regard such an approach as lacking intellectual honesty.

  • Clark

    John Goss and Nikko, a technical description of the Twin Tower collapses by Charles Clifton, associate professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, who published an independent study on the collapses of the Twin Towers. Note this is Charles Clifton, not Thornton, whom I know you have discounted:

    https://undicisettembre.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/why-world-trade-center-collapsed.html

    “There are some cellphone recordings of people who subsequently died, they were trapped at the top of the North Tower, who said that at the moment of the impact the center of the building sank slightly and made getting into the lifts and the stairs impossible immediately”

    Also linked from that page are interviews with Rahimullah Yusufzai, Mark Rossini, Patrick Smith, Brent Blanchard, Danilo Coppe, James Seffrin, Charles Clifton and Asif Usmani.

    • John Goss

      Clark, you would be much better discussing what is wrong with Heinz Pommer’s nuclear weapon theory, which holds water, rather than George Charles Clifton’s nonsense. He does not understand Newton. He’s even had the hyperlink to his article taken out of the interview. He wrote the paper in December 2001. Nobody seems to have seen it since.

      http://www1.ae911truth.org/en/faqs/879-debunking-the-911-truth-debunkers-the-saga-continues.html

      Furthermore he is dishonest in saying that there is no active 9/11 Truth Group just because he did not go to Richard Gage’s lecture. I’m very busy. These blog articles waste my time.

      http://nz911truth.org/about/

      • Clark

        “He does not understand Newton”

        OF COURSE he understands Newton’s laws! He’s a professor of civil engineering, and you don’t get that job without O Level physics!

        Look, you keep saying people don’t understand Newton’s laws. STATE the Newtonian relationship which proves your assertion. In other words, put up or shut up.

        • John Goss

          As to “put up or shut up” I am sick of putting up.

          For the last time.

          If some force is exerted on a body the body couunters with an equal and opposite force on the body that exerted the initial force.

          It’s Newton by the way, and you and associate professor Clifton do not seem to understand how this works in practice.

          P.S. Thank you for responding in considerable detail to my email. I very much appreciate it.

          • Clark

            Sorry, please explain how it happens in practice.

            If I attempt to stand a one tonne bus engine on my coffee table, will the coffee table supply an equal and opposite reaction to the engine’s weight? Does that mean we can make a car jack out of a few lolly sticks?

          • John Goss

            Clark I don’t think you can understand how Newton works in practice even if I repost the Jonathan H. Cole experiments again. We just have to accept that you don’t understand.

          • Clark

            No John, I understand Newton’s third law; it is simply insulting to claim that I don’t; it is equivalent to me accusing you of not understanding plain English.

            Since it is you promoting Cole’s experiments, it is YOU that should take his models, and scale them such that the storey interval is the same as that of the Twin Towers so that the structures may be fairly compared. This you REFUSE to do.

          • John Goss

            Clark, you might be able to state what Newton’s Third is but you do not understand how it works “in practice”. I do not know but you might like to see a lot of formulae before your eyes. You present us with lots of articles sometimes with equations well beyond my comprehension. However as far as I have seen you have never demonstrated your own understanding on these papers and whenever challenged have left the building, so to speak.

            You cannot refute the beer-can analogy, the crane and crate analogies, the actual demolitions of structural steel buildings, which if they are going to fall, are going to topple. Although it would be good to have you supporting logic anything concerning the demolition of high-rise buildings and skyscrapers you clearly cannot get your head round. No more from me. I am sick of tryong to help your disbelief.

          • Clark

            No John, I do understand Newton’s third in practice.

            You insist upon this disagreement so frequently that I’m going to raise it as a subject in its own right.

          • Clark

            And I refute mere analogy with mere analogy. Our 00 gauge model trains did not break themselves apart like the real things do when we ran them off the rails. Generally, no serious damage was done when we crashed our models; we just picked them up and put them back on the track, whereas real derailments necessitate weeks of repair.

          • John Goss

            It is bad timing for you to want to play toy trains when the rest of us want to get to the bottom of 9/11.

            http://theduran.com/first-ride-amtrak-train-travelling-80-mph-30-mph-zone/

            The last time you wanted to talk trains was to do with scaling. I ignored it. Toy trains come off the tracks because:

            a) they are being driven too fast
            b) they are not built to scale
            c) they are too heavy for the tracks they run on
            d) the corners of the joined tracks are too sharp
            e) there is no differential between the inner and outer wheels
            f) any combination of the above

            I suspect in your case it was because you did not slow down to take the bends. 🙂 Sorry Clark too busy for this diversionary shit. Show me a practical model of the collapse of the WTC towers. Then we can talk.
            c)

        • John Goss

          Notice also that in the real train crash the trains and carriages do not appear that badly damaged. But the is no superman to lift them up and put them back on the tracks, people are involved, yes it takes weeks but there is a good reason for it.

      • Clark

        “He’s even had the hyperlink to his article taken out of the interview”

        No, the link is there, but the publishers, Caddigest, seem to have moved the page, which happens a lot; I’m forever providing archive.org links to correct “link rot” on Wikipedia. The page was there until at least February 2012 because it’s still on the Wayback machine; you might have checked before assuming malice:

        https://web.archive.org/web/20120201224152/http://www.caddigest.com/subjects/wtc/select/clifton/p1.htm

        • John Goss

          Articles authored and co-authored by Associate Professor Clifton do not include the one you found as far as I can see.

          https://www.researchgate.net/profile/George_Clifton

          Caddigest article is a very good find. It shows Clifton had made a very detailed assessment of what happened on 9/11 a week to 10 days after the event. NISTcould have saved money and just published that as it is also supportive of the official viewpoint. However if you read the article you will see that he praises the design of the buildings and their strength and questions himself on how the collapse coukd have happened. It was a theory, written hurriedly, which I am sure in the light of reason was unsupportable so I am surprised he gave that interview to a blogger whose every other word seems to be conspiracy theorist.

          • Clark

            “NISTcould have saved money and just published that…”

            You have obviously never read NIST NCSTAR1. NIST, to their credit, were more concerned about the people than the final collapses. They investigated fire protection materials, sprinkler systems, the emergency smoke venting system, the emergency public announcement system, and ways out of the building including stairways, lifts and exit doors. They compared the times that steel components could withstand fire against the total time necessary to evacuate the buildings.

            John, you seem to have forgotten that engineering is for people. The collapse of a building is merely a major nuisance, so long as everyone gets out in time.

      • Clark

        “These blog articles waste my time”

        Even when they’re interviews with top professors in engineering. OK, try the following, because it has links to FOUR ACADEMIC ARTICLES, each by more then one author:

        Why the World Trade Center collapsed: an interview with Asif Usmani, professor of Structural Engineering at the University of Edinburgh

        https://undicisettembre.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/why-world-trade-center-collapsed.html

        “We think it is a very interesting interview: not only it clearly explains the collapse and why it cannot have been caused by a controlled demolition of any kind, but at the same time it shows that while there is no doubt among specialists as to the general nature of the collapse, there is still a lively debate about its exact details (e.g., what was the exact role of the structural damage caused by the planes, and which structural elements of WTC7 were the first to fail), proving that there is no such thing as an “official version” passively accepted by the scientific community”

        • Nikko

          I looked at the Asif Usmani interview – if that is what he said then he should be sacked. One example:

          Undicisettembre: What do you think about conspiracy theories that claim that the collapse of WTC7 was too fast to be caused by fire and damages from the previous collapses?

          Asif Usmani: Again this contradicts basic physics. Whether the collapse is caused by controlled demolition or because of fire there will be little difference in the time it takes as gravity rules once the collapse starts and as mentioned earlier buildings are not designed to resist inertial forces exerted by moving masses.

          An O’level student, nevermind a professor of structural engineering, should know that a freely moving object at free fall can exert precisely zero force.

          • Clark

            But none of the buildings on 9/11 were freely falling. In the case of WTC7, we know that internal structure had already begun falling by the disappearance of the east penthouse through the roof. This strongly suggests that the internal core and floor assemblies were hanging off the inside of the perimeter, pulling downwards on the perimeter, before the perimeter collapsed. Therefore, despite incessant Truther bleating, “free fall” never occurred. That the acceleration of the outer perimeter approximated g was basically a coincidence.

            Here is the collapse of WTC7 side-by-side with three known controlled demolitions:

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7Rm6ZFROmc

            Does this show that all these buildings descended at g, the rate of free-fall?

        • John Goss

          I have to agree with Professor Asmani on one point.

          “Undicisettembre: Do you think that, apart from what a layperson would consider technical details, we have a wide consensus within the scientific community about the causes of the collapses?

          Asif Usmani: As mentioned earlier there is no consensus in the scientific community, being humans even the scientific community has its biases.”

          The rest is unsubstantiated waffle you could have written yourself.

          • Clark

            Shameless selective quotation, in classic conspiracy theorists’ style, John! Here’s the full quote, including the crucial parts you left out:

            “Undicisettembre: Do you think that, apart from what a layperson would consider technical details, we have a wide consensus within the scientific community about the causes of the collapses?

            – Asif Usmani:As mentioned earlier there is no consensus in the scientific community, being humans even the scientific community has its biases. The best one can say is that most people believe that fires caused the collapse. Some people think that the damage caused by the aircraft in combination with the fire caused the collapse. I am inclined towards the view that if there was no fire there would have not been a collapse; and the corollary to that is, had there been no aircraft impact and the WTC1 or WTC2 structures was subjected to a large accidental fire, they could have collapsed. This is the really scary part as it begs the question, how many other such buildings may be out there”

            Really John, this is how the name “9/11 Lies Movement” was earned; you selected a quote to give virtually the opposite impression to what was really being said. That sort of thing was how Craig got landed in court! Shame on you, descending to that level.

          • John Goss

            It was not selective quotation. It was the only part of the whole lot I agreed with. The rest as I said was unsubstantiated waffle including the bit you added.

          • Clark

            To highlight the central point made by this professor of structural engineering:

            – Undicisettembre: “Do you think that […] we have a wide consensus within the scientific community about the causes of the collapses?”

            – Asif Usmani: “…most people believe that fires caused the collapse. Some people think that the damage caused by the aircraft in combination with the fire caused the collapse”

          • Clark

            “It was not selective quotation. It was the only part of the whole lot I agreed with

            No, that’s what selective quotation means; quoting only the part you agree with.

          • Clark

            I read – I do that myself. Whether I understand or not is an interaction.

            You might be interested to understand why the “Truth” movement gets called the “9/11 Lies” movement. You can take my comment as useful information, or you can fight.

  • SA

    Macky
    December 15, 2017 at 21:46

    I am not trying to put down the Arabs, just completely frustrated. Many Arab countries where much more socially and politically advanced in the 50s and 60s than they are now. The Arab world has combined the largest deposits of oil and gas in the world, they contain countries that were the cradle of civilisation with some of the oldest human settlements and very ancient civilisation, and the origin of the three Abrahamic religions, there were vast agricultural resources in countries like the Sudan, but the whole has become so fragmented and many parts went back rather than forward. This can compare with Russia in resources and population. No doubt some of this, maybe the largest part has been the deliberate fragmentation of the Arab world after the fall of the Ottoman empire which continues but encouragement of Islamists has also been one of the methods used by the British empire in Syria, and by encouraging the Wahabis in Saudi Arabia and continues to this day by the arming of AQ and IS and other Islamists. Nevertheless the Arabs have also not taken advantage of these resources and have been slow to get into the information dissemination to thier advantage, amongst other things.
    IAs to religion I think this is up to individuals. International law and laws dependant on equality for all cannot rely on religion and this is what I was saying. After all there are many beliefs and many gods and who is to say which one is right?

      • SA

        Of course the effects are linked to the causes. But if we always blame only the causes (as in roots), the battle for currently lost causes (as in principles) would seize and we would all give up. Effectively fighting the cause of failure is the key to success but just blaming conspiracies is just a weak argument and a counsel for apathy.

          • SA

            Macky
            You can’t be serious can you? If you are then you obviously got the wrong end of the stick.

          • Macky

            ” If you are then you obviously got the wrong end of the stick.!

            Glad for the confirmation; just that your anti-religious sentiments, and perhaps the inadvertent impressions given by how you express your points, made me unsure.

          • SA

            Macky
            You really are extremely patronising. You also draw up the wrong conclusions from almost everything I say. Secularism is not the same as expressing anti religious sentiments. Do you mean that what happened in the west after the Reformation was anti religious?

            You also seem to confuse that religion itself is not the same as misuse of religion by many people who wish to exert control. It is just that being a system of belief without evidence it is very liable to produce a paternalism and obedience to clerics in the name of a god. I really do not mind anyone worshipping in any religion and it is up to them. I do mind when a group of people try to use religious arguments to prove that they are on the right side, and to coerce or kill other people in the name of this belief. This occurred extensively in Europe before the reformation.
            What happened in Syria should be an eye opener. The endless pursuit of Conspiracy theories divert from the real issues and divide people who should be united. It becomes the focus of all efforts. The Syrians could have spent thier time bemoaning the fact that everyone was conspiring against them but they acted rather than carrying on pointing the injustice of the world.
            Proving conspiracies becomes the end in itself. 16 years on we are none the wiser and still debating this. When we know for sure that Blair and Bush lied and the result was mass murder, when we know for sure that the ‘moderate rebels’ in Syria are really a piece of fiction, and when we know that Russia Gate is so much hot air, and we know all these things for sure, but the end result is the same, there are no consequences to the ruling elite, and the masses still vote for them.

          • Clark

            “The endless pursuit of Conspiracy theories divert from the real issues and divide people who should be united”

            Macky has been so consistent in encouraging those who believe so-called conspiracy theories, and so hostile to anyone and any effort to correct such fallacies, that it appears to be a deliberately divisive strategy.

          • Macky

            No idea as usual why my polite reply to SA has disappeared ! So take 2;

            @SA, Sorry that you feel that I’m “extremely patronising”, as it’s unintentional.

            “You also draw up the wrong conclusions from almost everything I say.”

            With due respect, it was yourself that initially drew attention to the problem of your “ poor writing “; the inferences that I drew/draw from what you write are my honest impressions.

            Nothing to add about what you’ve just written about religion, all straight-forward stuff, even if you self-addressed a few wrong inferences from what I’ve written, showing that wrong impression are a common two-way street in internet debates !

            Have no idea why you keep going on about conspiracy theories as a diversion from Syria on a 911 Thread ! Syria is a current tragedy that should be always be brought-up on the current threads of all political blogs; if you’ve been keeping a watch on the current threads on this blog, you’ll find that I’m one of the posters who frequently posts about Syria; it’s not an either/or dichotomy, people can post on a 911 Thread without having bizarre accusation s thrown at them about “diverting” about Syria !!

      • SA

        I also meant to say that on a positive note, I think the events in Syria may prove to be a pivotal turning point especially if Syria slowly turns into a true democracy, which I feel is a real possibility. The Islamists have been convincingly defeated and thier supporters from outside exposed. I hope that that means that they understand that they have no support within the wider Syrian society. We would then be able to see that Muslims of all sects and Christians and other minorities can live together in harmony with religious freedoms in a secular state.

        Interestingly there is still a strong belief in various circles (including a Wikipedia article on the Shi’a Sunni schism) that this is a sectarian war. It is nothing of the sort. The article continues to repeat that the Alawites who constitute 10-15 % are dominating the army and the country and that Iran has thus sprung to thier aid. The facts are much more complicated, the predominant population in Syria and equally well represented in the army, are Sunni and there is (or was) also a sizable christian minority and others such as Assyrians, and Armenians also christians. The west seems to think (aided by KSA) that Syria will become part of a Shi’a arc together with Lebanon, Iraq and Iran. However the alliance is called ‘The Axis of resistance’ and the much more common unifying feature of this alliance is to stand up to Israel. It would be very surprising if Lebanon and Syria are considered to be part of a Shi’a alliance in my view. The recent debacle orchestrated by KSA regarding the resignation of Saad Al Hariri exposed such a flimsy pseudo scenario.

        • Clark

          “I think the events in Syria may prove to be a pivotal turning point especially if Syria slowly turns into a true democracy, which I feel is a real possibility. The Islamists have been convincingly defeated and thier supporters from outside exposed. I hope that that means that they understand that they have no support within the wider Syrian society. We would then be able to see that Muslims of all sects and Christians and other minorities can live together in harmony with religious freedoms in a secular state”

          Yes! Hear, hear!

          As to the Wikipedia article, this sort of thing is the most difficult to correct. There is so much pro-establishment rubbish in the major corporate “news” media, which at Wikipedia are considered “reliable sources”. So you can’t remove assertions supported by those sources, because that is called “vandalism”.

          What you can do is edit in the reality as you see it, supported by other reliable sources. Scholarly books and articles, text books, the writings of respected commentators and historians – all of these can supply source material. Having done this, other editors should not remove your additions, because then that would be “vandalism”. Editors who can read and write other languages are particularly valuable, because they can reference material to non-English language sources. It doesn’t have to be an on-line source; printed books, and respected foreign newspapers are perfectly acceptable.

          There is a ranking of sources at Wikipedia, and secondary and tertiary scholarly sources are considered superior to journalism etc. So you can take a blunt but referenced statement like “at such a place, Shi’a are fighting Sunni”, and replace it with “although the New York Times claims that at such a place, Shi’a are fighting Sunni, according to such a book by scholar such and such…”. Finding ways to phrase such changes can be difficult and time consuming, but it is deeply satisfying because you present a more balanced description and show up the corporate media distortions at the same time.

          • Radar O’Reilly

            Replying viz. reliable MSM sources such as “Newsweek” (according to
            https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/newsweek/ , = slightly left-center bias
            reporting outlet , with usually HIGH levels of factual reporting)
            from NEWSWEEK last month we get this headline,

            U.S. GOVERNMENT PLANNED FALSE FLAG ATTACKS TO START WAR …

            “The [source] document was last reviewed by the CIA in February 1998, and a stamp shows it was declassified in March 2016”

            Newsweek even went as far as to explain to their cosseted readers just what a false-flag is: –

            “False flag attacks are covert operations that make it look like an attack was carried out by another group than the group that actually
            carried them out”

            I’ll leave you to worry what evidence of US presidents , dreaming of false-flags , means to theories in which someone has conspired to in the decades since • Love Me Do • was in the popular beat-combo chart rankings!

            on this particular Kennedy memo, Daily Star went further, seemingly suggesting that World War 3 is planned!, I do hope this can wait until after Xmas/hanukah

            https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/661993/CIA-Files-JFK-War-Cold-Russia-US-KGB-False-Flag-Nuclear-Proof-Declassified-Top-Secret-WW3

  • Paul Barbara

    ‘Cell Phone Radiation Risks: California Issues Groundbreaking Guidelines’:
    https://www.ecowatch.com/cell-phone-radiation-california-2517691536.html?utm_source=EcoWatch+List&utm_campaign=9186569dac-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN
    ‘State kept secret guidelines on safe cell phone use’:
    http://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Judge-may-order-release-of-state-health-report-on-10973430.php#photo-12443861
    Of course, some folk still won’t believe cell phones and WI-FI are dangerous.

    • Clark

      Always the taunt, Paul, because obviously, anyone applying unapproved scepticism is just a sheeple.

      I have been worried about, specifically, cellphones and wifi, and also unshielded computers etc., because the frequencies emitted are so high, and because such high frequencies are relatively new, so proper epidemiological data does not yet even exist. I kept the wifi on my router switched off for a long time, but switched it on when visitors requested it, but I got lazy about a year ago, and basically stopped caring anyway. And I remember some study on the development of rats, I think, but one study does not prove a matter.

      I do remember all the “RFI Warning” signs on the base stations years ago – for the technicians, whose exposure is much higher. But the signs must have been taken down, probably for PR reasons, because I don’t see them any more.

      I just logged into my router and tried to turn the wifi off, but the router apparently didn’t respond and its wifi light is still on. Maybe it’ll go off after the router is restarted. But I expect I’ll switch it back on again later because I might have a visitor who’ll want to use it.

      I suspect that these things are not very dangerous because there don’t seem to be any new epidemics associated with their use. But I suspect they’re not entirely harmless either. But just as “some folk still won’t believe cell phones and WI-FI are dangerous”, some folk will insist that they’re Illuminati death-rays, a key tool in the “depopulation programme”.

      Paul, nearly everything in life is a balance to which there is no ideal answer, and suspicion is a good example; too much and you end up like Howard Hughes. too little and your neighbours will rob you blind. It’s worth remembering that no one gets out alive in the end.

      • Paul Barbara

        @ Clark December 17, 2017 at 09:59

        The trouble with ‘balance’ in cases like this is that the microwave communications business is huge, and they do not want the truth out about the dangers. And they are able to buy politicians or agencies, or get ‘their’ people into high positions in these organisations, or get University teams to come up with the ‘right’ answers in return for juicy contracts, or get ‘presstitutes’ to print pro-mobile reports made up by company employees; there is the ‘revolving door’ between the companies and politicians, and they are even able to get city or State Legislations reversed (‘…In 2013, CTIA used the courts to block San Francisco from requiring retailers to tell customers that their cell phones could expose them to dangerous, possibly cancer-causing radiation. The city dropped its ordinance after a federal appeals court barred its enforcement….’) http://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Judge-may-order-release-of-state-health-report-on-10973430.php#photo-12443861
        Here are some links of Barrie Trower, who I’m virtually sure you will be impressed by:
        ‘Barrie Trower – Wi-Fi & Microwave Dangers’:
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZchahZaWM8Y
        19 minutes

        ’20/21 The Dangers of Microwave Technology – TETRA Airwave System / Tetra Radio’:
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUc2DG9Cl64
        17 minutes

        ‘Wi-Fi – A Thalidomide in the Making. Who Cares?’:
        http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/emerging/docs/emf_117.pdf

        There was an excellent interview with Barrie at home, but it’s ‘not available’, unfortunately.
        The ‘taunt’ is because you, and others, so readily rubbish stuff like vaccine dangers; of course there are pros and cons, but in my and many others’ estimation, the ‘cons’ are stronger than the ‘pros’:
        ‘ Pediatric Love Affair with Mercury Continues’:
        http://drsircus.com/heavy-metals/pediatric-love-affair-mercury-continues/

        ‘Flu shots scientifically proven to weaken immune response in subsequent years… researchers stunned’:
        https://www.naturalnews.com/2017-10-17-bombshell-flu-shots-scientifica lly-proven-to-weaken-immune-response-in-subsequent-years-researchers-s tunned.html

        ”ROTARY International argues that vaccine-derived polio, caused by polio vaccines, is somehow caused by NOT ENOUGH children being vaccinated’:
        https://www.naturalnews.com/2017-10-23-rotary-international-argues-that-vaccine-derived-polio-caused-by-polio-vaccines-is-somehow-caused-by-not-enough-children-being-vaccinated.html

        ‘Autism Causes: Mercury Poisoning from Vaccines and Environment – Dan Olmsted’: 
        http://forbiddenknowledgetv.net/autism-causes-mercury-poisoning/ 
        8 minute video 

        ‘Watch Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe Full Movie Online Free’: 
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_EKkDHb05s 
        2 hours video 

        Let’s try to keep the commenting on a calm, unoffensive level, which seems to be the case now.

        • Jon

          @ Paul Barbara

          You are right, Paul.

          The telecommunication business plays the same criminal game regarding non-ionizing radiation (cell phone radiation) that the medical business and the nuclear radiation industry has been engaging in for decades regard the risk of ionizing radiation: they ignore the real dangers and disseminate a false narrative among the public about the “scientifically” tested safety of their highly lucrative products and spread derogatory information about those people who tell the truth. Sadly, most of the public comes to believe the lies and distortions of the industry and its corrupt allies in government (eg, the U.S. FDA & FCC).

          At least since the 1960s, the Russians did some research into the effects of non-ionizing radiation (from microwave ovens), describing its destructive potential. Many of the effects of non-ionizing radiation, such as from cell phones, mirror those from ionizing radiation, including its carcinogenic action (discussed in the book “The Mammogram Myth” by Rolf Hefti — more at https://www.supplements-and-health.com/mammograms.html ).

          The evidence against non-ionizing radiation IS conclusive, just like on ionizing radiation such as from medical x-rays, but i is the powerful big corporate industries earning enormous profits from their use, and their allied mass media companions, who manage to dismiss and hide the real harms from both ionizing and non-ionizing radiation with constant propaganda.

          That cartel also pays online trolls to denounce anti-cell phone commentators and to spread the corporate cell phone hype (eg, there’s no real evidence showing it’s not safe; which really means “evidence” sanctioned by the criminal corporate officialdom). Common example of attempts to manipulate the public’s mind by this criminal cartel and their trolls is to call anything that’s not in alignment with the official narratives as “conspiracy theories” or “fake news.” These are all deceptive tricks of the trade by the corrupt establishment and that, fortunately, more and more people are becoming aware of.

          • Clark

            No, Paul is wrong, and so are you. You should not spread FUD. You should encourage people to enrol in a study of science. By that, I mean learning how to do science, not sampling random websites that look scientific and deciding which ones seem right.

            Learn what a controlled experiment is and how to do one; learn how to assess results, how to assess confounding variables, how to read a paper, how to do some basic statistics, and how to spot cherry-picking and other sorts of error. When you have the basic scientific tools you’ll be in a position to assess things for yourself, and if you get good enough you’ll get to publish and be cited by others. I know the system isn’t perfect, but it’s a damn sight better than millions of Internet users making it up for themselves.

            If you think I’m being too harsh, follow your intuition on something else you haven’t studied; for instance, try putting a different processor in a laptop and getting it to work, or try dismantling and reassembling a wind-up wrist watch. Try writing poetry in a language you know nothing of, by using Google translate.

        • Clark

          Paul, I’ve told you this before, and please don’t be offended, but I know you don’t have the intellectual tools to make assessments of this sort. I have followed so many of your links, and the majority of the time I find over-blown sensationalism. I’m sorry Paul, but life is too short, and there are too many websites out there crying wolf, and too many people who think in a particular way (and thus get called “conspiracy theorists”) that it is simply impractical to take them all seriously.

          You need to learn more before you can make convincing cases, but you have already rejected critical thinking.

          You should really refrain from criticising things you don’t understand, because ALL decisions have their dangers. Not having a mobile phone opens one to the danger of being unable to summon help when needed. You need to be able to assess relative risk.

          Even more so with vaccines, because there are very serious risks in not getting appropriate vaccinations. It is quite simply WRONG to circulate rumours about vaccines which you do not have the expertise to assess, because not getting vaccinated leads to unnecessary DEATHS. That’s right; YOUR rumours can KILL.

          Yes, I know there are powerful corporations and cover-ups. I know vaccines have dangers. I am not a fool. But there are also millions of people doing very good work; work which you do not have the skills to assess. If you really want to help, you should either enrol in a course of study, or refrain from pronouncing on things you don’t yet understand.

          • SA

            Clark
            This is an extremely important point and I urge Paul to read the following:

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_controversy

            The scare caused harm in terms of more children getting infections with some potentially serious complications, and this was utterly preventable.
            I am fully aware, first hand in some cases, of sharp practices in the world of pharma but some of these claims imply that trained doctors with high standards of ethics, who advocate the use of these vaccines, are part of the grand conspiracy, which is an absurd allegation.

            In many cases vaccines are not the big money spinners and it often takes initiatives from the WHO and governmental bodies to develop vaccines and subsidise thier production as happened with the Ebola outbreak, if I remember correctly.

            That is not to exonerate big pharma. I urge you to look at Ben Goldacre’s book documenting some of the sharp practices.
            .https://www.waterstones.com/book/bad-pharma/ben-goldacre/9780007498086

          • Clark

            SA, I am yet to read Bad Pharma, but I have a copy of Goldacre’s Bad Science, and it is one of the most empowering and interesting books I have ever read. Rather than telling the reader what to believe, it presents the tools necessary for critical assessment. The structural processes that create bias are explored, and the mainstream media is exposed as the greatest villain of the piece, time after time. Tony and Cherrie Blair get some long overdue criticism, too.

          • Clark

            There is a scandal of pushing medical over-provision, particularly in the USA.

            But by far the biggest scandal are the millions of preventable deaths in poorer countries; companies withholding even cheap drugs, vaccines and treatments, simply holding out for a higher price. Corporate greed.

          • Paul Barbara

            @ Clark December 18, 2017 at 01:26
            These are not my ideas, nor ‘rumours’. Most are videos, articles or books written by doctors, nurses and concerned people who have studied the issue; I believe them rather than the Big Pharma, government or MSM presstitutes.
            Doctors in the States get all sorts of ‘incentives’ to prescribe companies’ products, also the risk of losing their licenses and practices if they don’t comply with government edicts.
            Here is a good, clear-cut case:
            ‘CDC Knew Its Vaccine Program Was Exposing Children to Dangerous Mercury Levels Since 1999’:
            https://www.ecowatch.com/cdc-mercury-vaccines-kennedy-2199157054.html?fb_comment_id=1360657567339421_1360711084000736&page=1#f1b1b5c79cfc02c

            ‘Uncovered documents show that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) knew that infant vaccines were exposing American children to mercury far in excess of all federal safety guidelines since 1999. The documents, created by a FDA consulting toxicologist, show how federal regulators concealed the dangerous impacts and lied to the public…’

            ‘…FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) was responsible for adding up the cumulative exposure to mercury from infant vaccines, a simple calculation that, astonishingly, had never been performed by either the FDA or the CDC. When the agency finally performed that basic calculation, the regulators realized that a six month-old infant who received thimerosal-preserved vaccines following the recommended CDC vaccine schedule would have received a jaw dropping 187.5 micrograms of mercury.

            Instead of immediately ordering the removal of thimerosal, FDA officials circled the wagons treating the public health emergency as a public relations problem. Peter Patriarca, then director of the FDA Division of Viral Products, warned his fellow bureaucrats that hasty removal of thimerosal from vaccines would:

            ” … raise questions about FDA being ‘asleep at the switch’ for decades by allowing a potentially hazardous compound to remain in many childhood vaccines, and not forcing manufacturers to exclude it from new products. It will also raise questions about various advisory bodies regarding aggressive recommendations for use. We must keep in mind that the dose of ethylmercury was not generated by “rocket science.” Conversion of the percentage thimerosal to actual micrograms of mercury involves ninth grade algebra. What took the FDA so long to do the calculations? Why didn’t CDC and the advisory bodies do these calculations when they rapidly expanded the childhood immunization schedule?”

            The agency consulted with experts in the field of toxicology to better understand the potential impact of these exposure levels. One consultant was Barry Rumack, MD. Dr. Rumack, at the time, had a private consulting practice, Rumack Consulting, where he offered “toxicologic and pharmacologic evaluation of drugs, biological and potentially toxic or hazardous agents for government and industry.” After creating several scenarios based on infants’ ages and weights, Dr. Rumack modeled blood and body burden levels in 1999.

            The models predicted sharp peaks of mercury concentrations in both blood and tissue, in a stair-step sequence following each of the new thimerosal-containing vaccines given during the first six months of life. Based on these models, Rumack predicted exposure to thimerosal-containing vaccines was dosing American children with mercury levels far exceeding all three federal safety guidelines established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), FDA, and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). There was no point in time from birth to approximately 16-18 months of age that infants were below the EPA guidelines for allowable mercury exposure. In fact, according to the models, blood and body burden levels of mercury peaked at six months of age at a shockingly high level of 120ng/liter. To put this in perspective, the CDC classifies mercury poisoning as blood levels of mercury greater than 10 ng/L.’

            Says it all, really, doesn’t it? From not doing basic calculations, to allowing the continuance because it would make the CDC ‘look bad’ (and incidentally harm Big Pharma’s immense profits) if the information came out. And 120 ng/L when 10 ng/L is classified as mercury poisoning? Would you be happy to follow the government’s and doctor’s recommendations or even orders, and allow your children to be pumped full of these poisons?
            Remember, back in the day, doctors were used to advertise cigarettes.
            And this isn’t a ‘one off’ freak result – ALL US babies were covered by the government recommendations for number of inoculations.

          • Paul Barbara

            @ SA December 18, 2017 at 18:56
            That one case does not prove anything. Lots of other doctors, nurses, parents and concerned, knowledgeable people have continued to raise serious concerns about the MMR vaccine.
            The WHO is just as guilty of shady dealing as the other ‘Agencies’ like CDC, FDA and EPA (rememember ‘the air is safe to breathe’ after the 9/11 attack?). The FDA was up to it’s neck in the facilitating of planeloads of drugs into the US.
            Corruption is endemic in the US agencies, as it is in probably most countries in the world, as well as in International bodies: ‘Vatican: UNICEF and WHO are sterilizing girls through vaccines’:
            https://vaccinefactcheck.org/2015/03/20/vatican-unicef-and-who-are-sterilizing-girls-through-vaccines/

            Though I have no time for the Vatican, I know this story is true from reports years ago about it’s use in other countries by the WHO, or supported by them. The proof was found – HCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) was found in many of the samples – but no heads rolled:
            ‘…The Ministry of Health then refused to provide the Expert Committee with the vaccine vials it claimed to have sampled and tested. The Catholic Bishops did provide the expert committee with nine sample vials that had been used in the WHO-UNICEF campaign. Upon testing, the Expert Committee found that one third of the WHO-UNICEF vials did indeed contain HCG. Separately, 50 tetanus vials that weren’t involved in the WHO-UNICEF campaign were tested and found to be free of HCG.

            The church and the government are now in a stand-off. The Ministry of Health has pulled its experts from the Expert Committee and refuses to accept a final report on the controversy. The church, for its part, is warning parishioners to avoid the tetanus vaccine, requesting apologies for the victims from WHO and UNICEF for conduct both “unethical and immoral,” and insisting that “no further vaccination campaigns should be undertaken in this county without an all-inclusive sampling and testing exercise before, during and after the vaccination campaign.”

          • SA

            Paul
            I think mistakes do happen and are then exposed and rectified when knowledge increases. However in this mercury story, the devil is in the detail. The critical levels in the charts are those for methyl mercury whereas the compound in the vaccines was ethyl mercury. As this document from the CDC explains, ethyl mercury is much safer because it is quickly eliminated and therefore does not cause damage and the levels are not associated with an increased risk. However since 2001 no children’s vaccine contains mercury.
            https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/thimerosal/index.html
            I am not saying that mistakes and cover ups do not happen but quite often there is a risk balance in these matters and this has to be taken into account. Big Pharma has a vested interest in not harming people despite the profit motive because when discovered hazardous drugs lead to huge damage awards. The way big Pharma acts is through other sharp practice in order to make the profits but conspiracy to harm the population in collusion with the governments of the world is not one of them.

          • SA

            Paul
            As to the sterilising vaccine here are some official pronouncements:

            https://www.unicef.org/kenya/media_15665.html
            http://www.matercare.org/news-publications/official-statements/official-statement-re-tetanus-vaccination-programme/

            Again the devil is in the scientific detail. The original allegations were based on the testing of samples in medical laboratories in Kenya, the test being that to detect HCG which is a hormone associated with pregnancy and this test is the basis of pregnancy tests. However what the WHO says is that the test is only appropriate for human serum and not vaccines which have additives that interfere with the assays, and more specific and sensitive assays in specialist laboratories failed to show the presence of HCG. I would tend to believe the WHO rather than the Vatican on this one.

        • SA

          Paul
          None of your links are from authoritative medical or scientific sources. Many of them are poorly referenced and the references in some cases are scary stories from the press. Sorry can’t really invest time to critique all of these links but if you want to know the truth try to find real scientific evidence. Try sources such as the WHO and for scientific papers try PubMed
          https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed
          but of course some of these may be too technical.

          • Paul Barbara

            @ SA December 19, 2017 at 14:56
            ‘…I am not saying that mistakes and cover ups do not happen but quite often there is a risk balance in these matters and this has to be taken into account. Big Pharma has a vested interest in not harming people despite the profit motive because when discovered hazardous drugs lead to huge damage awards.
            The way big Pharma acts is through other sharp practice in order to make the profits but conspiracy to harm the population in collusion with the governments of the world is not one of them.’
            The cover-up by the CDC was to prevent the CDC ‘looking bad’ (and doubtless keep money poring into ‘Big Pharma’s’ coffers – some of which doubtless would have gone in ‘Bungs’).
            The case in the WHO was not a mistake at all; the plan was to put a material in tetanus vaccines that would involuntarily sterilise Third World women in a number of countries; big Pharma colluded with the WHO – does ‘involuntary sterilisation’ not equate to harming people?
            And, of course, ‘Big Pharma’, like ‘Big Agri’, have been granted blanket immunity if there products cause harm or damage. That is how corrupt the US is, just as they ‘play’ at attacking ‘ISIS’, but in reality bomb Syrian and Iraqi infrastructure and civilians, and in a number of cases Syrian or Iraqi troops or their allies.

          • Clark

            Paul, neither me nor anyone else has the time to follow to the roots every so-called conspiracy theory you can throw at us. What I’m asking you to do is raise your standards, apply scepticism equally, not just in the directions you feel like. Learn the techniques and tools of critical thinking, so as not to drown the vital information under a flood of false leads.

            You read a lot of books; would you consider prioritising Bad Science by Ben Goldacre?

          • Clark

            And Paul, most of your stories seem to be US-centric. This isn’t the best perspective from which to investigate possible corruption of science, because there is far more commercial pressure in the US, so you’re likely to find rather more than you look for, but then your discoveries will lead you to being overly critical in contexts outside the US.

        • Paul Barbara

          @ SA December 17, 2017 at 15:27
          Barrie Trower is an expert on microwaves, and microwave warfare.
          Pity you don’t check those links out. But yes, of course you are right about people putting themselves (and others, particularly when using their mobiles while driving) at risk while their noses are glued to their mobiles.
          They are also infuriating to pedestrians who have collisions or ‘close encounters’ with them.

          • Clark

            SA, I advise caution with RationalWiki; I feel that they tend to be overly dismissive of anything non-mainstream.

            That said, if Trower really said that wifi uses “the same frequencies and powers as microwave stealth warfare weapons”, he’s probably right to some extent about the frequencies, but he’s very wrong about the power. Wifi is micropower; military microwave weapons are megapower.

            But I very much agree with this from your other recent comment:

            “I think mistakes do happen and are then exposed and rectified when knowledge increases”

          • Paul Barbara

            @ SA December 19, 2017 at 14:58
            Leave me out! You must be having a laugh, posting that ridiculous hit piece from ‘RationalWiki’.
            There is ZERO refutation of any of Barrie Trower’s written or spoken works, just a dumb-as-heck attack.
            Do you believe that article discredits Barrie Trower’s work?
            I suggest you read his articles and/or watch his video interviews.

          • Node

            … but he’s very wrong about the power. Wifi is micropower; military microwave weapons are megapower.

            Yes, but signal strength reduces according to the inverse square law. Military microwave is beamed from a distance while mobile phones are pressed against your brain or a pocket thickness from your gonads. A source 1cm away does the same damage as one a hundred million times stronger situated 100 metres away. Gulp!! This seems too much. Is my maths wrong?

          • SA

            Sorry you do have a point. I have listened to one of his interviews. Thew problem is that there are a lot of allegations and observations but no scientific methodology and published work to back it. Most of the scientific community seem to think through studies that there are no risks from non-ionising radiations. These include ultrasound and MRI used in medicine, and we should know by now if there was potential for damage.

          • Clark

            Node, your maths looks right but it’s a little more complicated than that. Microwaves can be focussed into a beam to prevent the inverse-square drop-off, and military techniques use this. But I think the military have found microwaves less effective than they would have liked anyway. In close proximity things aren’t as simple as first appears either.

            Personally, I don’t like mobile phones; just the sound quality gives me a headache, and I find that the audio delays make conversation very awkward for me, so I very rarely make a call from or to a mobile. But I find myself under enormous peer pressure to use them. I always tell people “please use my landline; if you need to use my mobile I’m probably busy”, but no one takes any notice and some accuse me of having a “phobia” about the matter.

          • Paul Barbara

            @ SA December 19, 2017 at 17:09
            The trouble with the ‘Official Studies’ is they are based upon heat produced, and this is always within the limits. But microwaves can cause cell damage without raising the heat (or at least not beyond the limits pronounced ‘safe’), which the Corporations and Regulatory authorities know full well. THAT is why the tests produce the required result.
            If you read his article ‘Wi-Fi: A Thalidomide in the Making. Who Cares?’ http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/emerging/docs/emf_117.pdf
            which I linked to earlier, you will see he knows his stuff; and there are over two pages of references.
            And he is right, which is why France removed Wi-Fi from nursery schools:
            ‘France: New National Law Bans WIFI In Nursery School!’:
            https://ehtrust.org/france-new-national-law-bans-wifi-nursery-school/

            ‘…Professor Annie Sasco, MD, DSc former Cancer Prevention Chief of the International Agency for Research on Cancer and a distinguished science adviser to Environmental Health Trust sends us her report about France’s new national law regulating electromagnetic field exposure.

            On January 29, 2015, the French National Assembly made history by passing a new national law to reduce exposures to wireless radiation electromagnetic fields.

            WiFi Banned in Nursery Schools: WIFI and Wireless devices will be banned in “the spaces dedicated to home, to rest and activities of children under 3 years”.
            WiFi Minimized in Schools: In schools for children up to 11 years, WIFI routers should be turned off when not in use for pedagogic purposes.
            Schools Will be Informed: The board of the school should be informed when new tech equipment is being installed in schools.
            Cell Tower Emission Compliance Will Be Verified: A decree will define the limits of emission of equipments for electronic communications or transmission to which the public is exposed. These values can be verified by accredited organisations and results will be made accessible to the public through a National Radiofrequency Agency.
            Citizens Will Have Access to Environmental/Cell Tower Radiation Measurements Near homes: Every resident may get access to the results of measurements for their living space. Conditions of information of the public as well as involvement of the local authorities are specified as are the steps to follow in case of disagreement.
            Cell Antennae Maps For the Country: A description and map of the places with atypical (higher than the limits) places will be conducted at regular intervals with follow up of the actions being taken to limit the exposure. A map of all antennas will be produced for each town
            Continued Evaluation of Health Effects: The National Radiofrequence Agency will be in charge of surveillance and vigilance, evaluating potential risks and setting up scientific research, including information on health effects.
            SAR Radiation Labeling Mandated: The SAR of cell phones must be clearly indicated on the package.
            Information on Reducing Exposures Mandatory: Information on ways to reduce exposure will be detailed in the contents of the cell phone package. .
            WIFI Hotspots will be Labeled: Places where WIFI is provided should be clearly marked with a pictogram.
            Advertisements Must Recommend Devices That Reduce Radiation Exposure to the Brain: Advertising for cell phones should clearly indicate the recommendation of hand free kits for protection of the head of the user and it will be included in the package. Advertising for cell phone not accompanied by such a kit is forbidden. Companies in violation will be fined 75,000 Euros.
            Children Must Be Provided Protections: At the request of the buyer, equipment reducing cell phone radiation exposures to the head for children less than 14 years should be provided.
            The Public Will Be Informed: Within a year, a policy of information on awareness and information on a responsible and reasonable use of cell phones and other apparatus emitting radiofrequencies will be set up.
            Electrohyper-sensitivity Report To Be Submitted: Within a year, a report on electrohyper sensitivity must be given to the Parliament.
            This new law represents a significant step forward. Further laws and decrees may reinforce the current law, in particular with a stronger protection in schools.

            Dr. Annie Sasco, served the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, France, for 22 years, including posts as Chief of Epidemiology for Cancer Prevention and Acting Chief of the Cancer Control Programme of the World Health Organization (WHO), She earned her MA,MS, and DSc from Harvard University and is currently Professor of Epidemiology University of Bordeaux.’

            France clearly cares more for the health of it’s citizens than we do.

            Just like the Russians banned microwave ovens (they were only allowed after ‘Perestroika’, a nice little earner for the West (and Japan, South Korea etc.) who could rapidly swamp the emerging market as they already had the ovens in full production, whereas Russian factories would have had to more or less start from scratch.
            Russia, even in Soviet times, cared more about their citizens health than the Western Corporatists, for whom money and power are King.

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