"The road from 9/11: Shanksville, Pa.: The serenity we lost" - StarTribune

(Snippet.  Emphasis mine.  Commentary below.)


The road from 9/11: Shanksville, Pa.: The serenity we lost

Article by: CURT BROWN , Star Tribune | Updated: August 31, 2011 - 10:56 PM

A twist of fate ends the serenity in rolling Pennsylvania hills.







Val McClatchey, a real estate agent who lives about 1.6 miles from the Shanksville crash site, held a photo she took from her front porch 10 years ago.


STOYSTOWN, PA. -- "Right here is where she went over," says Maluchnick, 55, a retired cop in Stoystown, population 385. "It was going so fast, all I caught was the tail. It was flying way too low and I told Ralph: If he doesn't elevate and get his nose up. ... Then we heard the boom and seen the smoke about three seconds later."

~

'End of serenity'

McClatchey is president of the Keystone Camaro Club, so she usually has her Hewlett-Packard 315 point-and-shoot camera handy for car shows. It was sitting on her coffee table at 10:05 a.m. that morning 10 years ago, as she watched the "Today Show" at her house on Indian Lake, a filled-in strip mine.

"Then I heard a surge of an engine and, man, was it loud," she says.

The explosion a couple miles west nearly knocked her off the couch. She instinctively stepped out on the porch and took one shot of a massive plume of gray smoke filling the sky next to her neighbor's red barn. Then she dropped the camera and the battery fell out.

Her photo instantly popped up in newspapers, websites and magazines around the world. She hired a lawyer to copyright her image, which she titled "End of Serenity."

"Another blink of an eye and it would have hit the Shanksville school and all those kids would be gone," she says. "After a while, it gets overwhelming just to think about it."

Ten years later, as grandchildren play in the driveway and an American flag flutters on her porch, McClatchey says she's had enough. She's trying to sell her acre on Indian Lake after 25 years. It's not going well. With the economy sputtering, McClatchey says the market "stinks."

Her famous photo, which sells for $20 at a nearby general store, "has been a blessing and a cure," she says.

Conspiracy theorists hound her on the Internet and even come to her door, claiming she faked the shot. She's burned through five lawyers, trying to protect her copyright. The FBI confiscated her camera immediately and she had to leap through all kinds of hoops to get it back. She keeps the memory card in a safe deposit box.

http://www.startribune.com/local/128842558.html


This article confirms that Val's digital camera was an HP 315 that we had identified back in Oct '06.  We also showed that this camera has four AA batteries, not one battery which this article and the Post-Gazette article before it implies it did when describing how Val supposedly dropped her camera after the single shot and the "battery" dislodged. Notice the article also says she usually had this camera handy for her car shows, which seems to suggest this camera wasn't that new, though it could mean she just had her new month-old camera handy for upcoming car shows.  


Note that the article says she burned through "five lawyers" trying to protect her copyright.  Sounds expensive for someone who was supposedly donating all the proceeds from her photo to charity.  It's also the first time we've heard that Val supposedly had trouble getting her confiscated camera's memory card back from the FBI.
Source URL: https://0832zy.blogspot.com/2011/08/
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ARABIAN SUMMER OR NATO'S FALL?

ARABIAN SUMMER OR NATO'S FALL?

Editor's note: NATO's intervention in Libya has caused me profound concern on multiple levels, since it entails attacking a sovereign nation that has not attacked us and demonizing a leader who, so far as I can tell, has done well by his people. I recommend this blog, by Christof Lehmann, a psychologist from Denmark, and another by Michel Chossudovsky, the editor of Global Research, who also discusses the role of the Western media as "an instrument of war", where NATO's crimes are obfuscated, "killing the truth" is an integral part of the military agenda, reality is turned upside down and the lie becomes the truth--which, alas, becomes more and more difficult to discern. And now, without any doubt, we have another war, this time thanks to Barack Obama.



Christof Lehmann

The sudden onset of what the corporate media and NATO want to brand as “The Arab Spring” has turned into a bloody Arab Summer, rapidly approaching Fall and global conflict. What is the reality behind the massive psychological and kinetic warfare operation that is turning the Middle East upside down? Approaching fall, even mainstream corporate media begin to report what reliable sources have reported since the onset of the Arab Spring. NATO special forces have been on the ground in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, even before the uprisings began and gained momentum. Reports from our source in Damascus confirm that NATO Special Forces are also on the ground in Turkey and Syria, preparing for yet another invasion of a sovereign country.

Turkey's Erdogan government has made a 180 degree turn, and is now training Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda fighters for combat in Syria, while its military is preparing air and ground campaigns under NATO Command. NATO backed terror units and death squads are on a wild rampage in Syria. The first victim of war is the truth, yet the truth has absolute primacy in attempting to achieve peace and justice. NATO is preparing the invasion of Syria and campaigns against Iran. The point where NATO´s aggressions will elicit serious political, economic, and eventually military responses from Iran, Russia and China is about to be reached. The world is heading towards global war, while corporate media in NATO countries sale the confused public narratives of Arab Summers and Singing Tomorrows.

Muammar Gadaffi


Reliable sources have reported about strong CIA and MI6 activities related to the so called Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt, where neither the Tunisian nor the Egyptian change could have been brought about by disgruntled, disenfranchised youth, intellectuals and workers alone, without the presence of massive pressure from within the USA and EU. The uprisings are best analyzed by their results. With regard to Tunisia, the product is a new government that is an even more reliable proxy for US and EU interests. With regards to Egypt it is a military government, sharia law, and the dismantling of women's rights. This is hardly the singing tomorrows of democracy loving idealists.

Reliable, independent sources have reported about the presence of NATO Special Operations Units as well as mercenaries with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qa´eda since the onset of the Libyan conflict. Latest since the Libyan pendant to “Black Hawk Down”, it was obvious for the observer who didn´t get his news from NATO PR-machines like Al Jazeera, CNN, and National Radio / TV in the “Free West”. Reports from independent journalists on the ground, like historian Dr. Webster Griffin Tarpley, Thierry Meyssan, and well-connected journalists, such as the life-long peace activist, journalist, and former CIA asset, Susan Lindauer, offer proof beyond reasonable doubt that the armed gangs that were sold as "democracy hungry" youth were in fact NATO-lead Al Qa´eda and Muslim Brotherhood Mercenaries.

This truth was vividly omitted by the free western press, which has sold the narrative of singing tomorrows, and neglected to report how peaceful citizens, who protested for democracy and freedom, were mercilessly butchered by “Gadaffi Forces”, so that a UN Resolution for the implementation of a “No Fly Zone” could be passed and implemented by “NATO” forces. Reliable sources within the US Army at Ft. Bragg and Pope Air Base in North Carolina have reported that preparations for Libya and Syria had been on the way months--long before the onset of the so called Arab Summer. So what is the truth about the situation in Libya and what exactly is being prepared with respect to Syria?

The Military Situation in Libya. NATO Psy Ops, Hollywood in Qatar, NATO War Crimes, and Changes in Strategy. Western Corporate Media reported that the “rebels” had approached and then conquered Tripoli, fighting down the resistance of Loyalist Troops, where viewers and readers are meant to believe that the "Transitional National Counsel" has taken control over Tripoli and most of the country. TV images show celebrating masses on Tripoli's Green Square, now re-branded as "Martryrs Square".



Green Square, now "Martyrs Square"

Reports that Islam al Ghadaffi had been captured have been propagated in the media together with equally false reports that the garrisons in Tripoli had surrendered or its troops fled. What happened in the real world, however, has been an entirely different story all along.

The night prior to the invasion of Tripoli, NATO air forces carpet bombed military installations, TV and radio Stations, and a considerable amount of other infrastructure. Then NATO-lead mercenary forces disembarked from NATO War Ships, making an amphibian assault on Tripoli, while Apache Helicopters were straeffing civilians to open a way into the old city and central Tripoli. British fighter bombers assisted with Brimstone Rockets. Sleeper cells within Tripoli used the loudspeakers on minarets to give a signal for the death squads, which had infiltrated Tripoli, to conduct massacres on hundreds of key figures as well as random victims.

Hospitals in Tripoli reported 1,800 death and over 5,000 severely wounded. Most of them were civilians. What according to Al Jazeera has seemed to be a disintegration of government forces was a carefully planned change in strategy. Given NATO's overwhelming air superiority, it would have been suicidal for government forces to stay in their barracks or to engage in open front-line combat. This change in strategy, which was a necessary adaption to asymmetric warfare, does not mean that an end to the conflict is anywhere near in time. On the contrary, this move guaranties that so-called "rebel" and probably also NATO forces will be engaged in a protracted conflict that could last years, where it is by no means certain that the military outcome will be what would be desired by NATO generals.

The true looser of the conflict is the Libyan population. The only front where NATO can declare a victory is in the field of Psychological Warfare, but this front and victory is also being deconstructed. A closer look at the celebrating masses in the renamed "Martryrs Square" shows that these videos were shot in Doha, Qatar, and not in Tripoli. It was a staged celebration in the best Hollywood style. During the initial chock of the aerial and amphibious assault, such images could pass and have had their desired effect on the population of Tripoli. The outrage over being conned by NATO Psychological Operations Teams, however, will probably backfire with regards to pacifying the citizens of Tripoli.

The NATO/Al Qa´eda Commander of Tripoli is no other than Abdel Hakim Belhadj, also known as Abdel Hakim al-Hasidi, former PoW of the USA.



Abdel Hakim al-Hasidi

Regardless how many aliases he uses, this man is known for being a personal friend of Osama Bin Laden. Abdel Hakim Belhadj has made himself a name for murdering US and NATO Soldiers in Afghanistan, a fact which he reportedly brags about. Knowing history and that Al Qa´eda is in reality a creature of US Intelligence, al-Hasidi is an ideal ally. Very much living up to his reputation, we are receiving reports about wide-spread massacres of civilians in Tripoli, summary executions of all black people who are unlucky enough not to hide from the "freedom fighters", widespread abuse of women who don´t cover their heads, and other assaults and crimes against humanity, which provide ample evidence suggesting that Libya, until recently a modern nation, is about to regress back into its former state--during the dark ages before the revolution led by Ghadaffi and ousting of the Libyan Monarchy and King Idris.

How much these rag-tag mercenaries would be worth in combat with loyalist troops without having massive NATO air support remains to be seen. What is certain is that a Tripoli under the yoke of known terrorists, mass murderers, and Islamic extremists is anything but the singing tomorrows of pluralistic, democracy and freedom loving youths. Tripoli and Libya will regress into bloody, protracted conflict that could last many years. It is this protracted conflict that probably will be used as the context for establishing a permanent US/NATO military bases in Libya within the framework of the U.S. African Command. A protracted conflict will also increase scarcity on the global energy market and thereby promote the interests of "Big Oil".

Libya and the International Terror Threat. These developments in Libya and in the wider Middle East, open cooperation between known terrorist organizations and NATO, with the global financial crisis, increase the likelihood that disenfranchised European and American populations will respond with violence: when you have nothing left to loose, you loose your self-control. It will be tempting for rogue, deep-state elements to plan and perform new false flag terror attacks. U.S. American and European populations, therefore, should be on the outlook for police or military exercises, "anti-terror drills", and similar activities that usually precede false flag operations. Any attacks may well be blamed on Gadaffi, Syria, Iran, or any of the organizations that are supported by them. The scripting in the corporate western media, including the discussion of chemical weapons in Libya, indicates that this is a threat that must be taken serious.

Syria, Turkey, NATO and the E.U. While NATO Special Operations Forces already were training and arming Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qa´eda mercenaries in Syria as well as on Turkish territory, the Erdogan government was until recently strongly opposed to open war with Syria. Meanwhile, however, there have been meetings between Turkey, Germany and France, and the official stance of Turkey has changed, now agreeing with an open war with Syria. Like the Greek economy few months ago, the economy of Turkey is not invulnerable either. This sudden change in politics suggests that Turkey´s decades-long ambitions to join the European Union may have been utilized for high-jacking the population of Turkey as pawns in a new imperial project that could have disastrous national, and potentially global, consequences.




Our US Army source within Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, confirms that preparations for an invasion of Syria and for air raids against Hezbollah in Lebanon as well as attacks on Iran have been in preparation for months. Taking the Mediterranean climate into account, any ground attack on Syria would have to begin and probably be concluded--or at least stabilized--no later than October. This implies that the Libyan campaign must be stabilized by October, too. Our source in Damascus is reporting honest attempts of the Syrian government to bring about reforms. In fact, it has proposed reforms that are far more far reaching than the original demands of the “honest” Syrian protesters, whose own political process has been high-jacked by imperial forces and mercenaries, where we will bring a special report from Syria soon.

According to our own analysis and that of other independent analysts, an imperial NATO adventure that involves Syria will have enormous ramifications. Russia has her only navy base with direct access to the Mediterranean situated in Syria. Iran can not stand idly by while its main Arab ally is attacked by NATO is almost certainly preparing itself militarily. This preparation will most likely involve Hezbollah. Besides making military preparations, Iran is also preparing itself economically by privatizing at least seven of its eleven oil refineries. This will lead to massive Russian and Chinese investments in Iran and thus to greater interest in protecting Iran economically and, if necessary, indirectly or directly by means of military interventions.

Indirect conflict could manifest in the opening of a Hezbollah front and others incursions. Direct conflict would result in open global war, which is the final goal of "Zbig" Brzezniski and his school of politics, which is currently dominating thinking at the White House. On a wider perspective, it must be noticed that Iran has strategic and economic alliances with Pakistan, China and Russia. Pakistan has now asked the entire staff employed at the US Embassy to leave the country and, in the case of open NATO aggression against Syria or Iran, a Pakistani government would experience extreme internal pressure to respond in hostile ways against the USA.

Is NATO about to commit the classic mistake of “Empire Overreach”? If so, history provides us with countless examples that the collapse of an empire invariably produces widespread conflicts. The Arab Summer could develop into NATO´s Fall.


Christof Lehmann, a Danish psychologist and political advisor to the nation's leaders, posted the original version of this blog at nsnbc.Source URL: https://0832zy.blogspot.com/2011/08/
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Nanothermite: If It Doesn't Fit, You Must Acquit!

Nanothermite: If It Doesn’t Fit, You Must Acquit!

T. Mark Hightower (with Jim Fetzer)



Those who remember the 1995 O.J. Simpson trial will recall the gloves that turned out to be "too small" for O.J.’s hands when the long-awaited day of trying them on in the courtroom finally arrived. The blood-soaked gloves (one found at the crime scene and the other outside O.J.’s house in Brentwood the morning after his former wife was murdered) were gloated over as “hard evidence” by the prosecution and the media, very comparable to how the discovery of unignited nanothermite chips in the WTC dust is considered to be "hard evidence" of the explosive demolition of the Twin Towers on September 11th, 2001.

Although some have expressed skepticism about what is often called the “smoking gun” of 9/11, the great majority of 9/11 Truthers have accepted – and many have celebrated – this discovery, confident that it will lead to “a new, independent investigation” of the event and bring the perpetrators to justice. But precisely how did the resulting "nanothermite theory" of destruction of the Twin Towers come about – and how well does it stand up to critical scrutiny?

Why Nanothermite?

Observations by first responders of apparent molten metal – thought to be molten iron – could be explained by thermite reactions, which, in turn, could possibly explain the severing of steel columns through a process of melting. However, the explosive effects observed in the destruction call for some further explanation. Nanothermite has been identified as a candidate, being faster-reacting and alleged to be "an explosive form" of thermite.



In a paper titled “Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Completely Collapse?” (2006), physicist Dr. Steven E. Jones cited thermite to explain the molten metal and first started raising the possibility that nanothermite could explain the additional explosive effects observed. Then four dust samples collected in the aftermath of the towers’ collapse by different individuals were sent to Dr. Jones, and upon testing, they were found to contain unreacted red chips of a nanothermitic material.

Those results were reported in a later paper titled “Active Thermitic Material Discovered in the Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe” by Niels Harrit, et al. (April, 2009), and because of this many assumed that nanothermite had been definitively identified as the prime candidate destructive agent. The paper, said to have been peer-reviewed, came out in the Open Chemical Physics Journal (Bentham Science Publishers), causing 9/11 Truthers to run with the news that explosive nanothermite blew up the Twin Towers, proclaiming what soon became a form of gospel in the 9/11 community. The Gospel of Nanothermite has given the incendiary properties of thermite a set of new miraculous powers: in its nano-state it becomes “Super Thermite” – a high-explosive that pulverized hundreds of thousands of tons of building materials in no more than 10 seconds.

A Literature Search

A scientific person, or one who prefers to use logic, might wonder about such claims and proceed by examining the scientific literature on nanothermite as well as the principle of how explosives achieve destructive force through generating shock waves that produce fragmentation. This might be a good time to note that the Rock Creek Free Press made a very important point in its May 2009 article on nanothermite: “To be a high explosive, the reaction speed must exceed the speed of sound in the material, which is unlikely in the case of thermitic materials, but nano-thermitic material may act as a low explosive in a manner similar to gunpowder.”




Few who have carefully watched video footage of the Twin Towers coming down could fail to notice what might appropriately be called “explosive effects” in the nature of the destruction. The question then would be: Were conventional explosives or some other kind of destructive energy source employed? If nanothermite is indeed a high explosive, then was it also necessary to use conventional explosives to achieve the demolition of the towers? The more sophisticated believer might agree that conventional explosives also could have been employed, but for the scientifically less sophisticated 9/11 Truther, the "Thermite/Nanothermite Gospel" says it all – and has been "conclusively proven" by the nine authors of the 2009 published and peer-reviewed paper.

But what does other peer-reviewed scientific literature actually have to say about nanothermite? “Nanoscale Aluminum-Metal Oxide (Thermite) Reactions for Application in Energetic Materials,” Central European Journal of Energetic Materials (2010), authored by Davin G. Piercey and Thomas M. Klapötke,




identifies the fastest known combustion velocity for a mixture of metal oxide and aluminum: 2,400 meters per second (m/s), in a type of nanothermite made of copper oxide and aluminum. Remember that what Steven Jones found in the dust was iron-oxide/aluminum nanothermite. The authors of this paper make it clear that copper-oxide/aluminum nanothermite is significantly more reactive than the iron-oxide version, and cite a combustion velocity of 895 m/s for an iron-oxide/aluminum nanothermite aerogel. So 895 m/s is the highest velocity yet to be found for an iron-oxide/aluminum nanothermite in the scientific literature, where this velocity is far too low to have played a significant role in the destruction of the Twin Towers by means of its shock waves.

Not Powerful Enough

Let’s examine the reason for that important last statement. The “destructive fragmentation effect” of an explosive is its detonation velocity, or the speed of the shock wave through the substance it is traveling in. To significantly fragment a substance, the detonation velocity of the explosive must equal or exceed the sonic velocity (the speed of sound) in the material. For example, the speed of sound in concrete is 3,200 m/s. In steel, the speed of sound is 6,100 m/s. Conventional high explosives such as TNT and RDX have detonation velocities of 6,900 and 8,750 m/s respectively, and are therefore capable of fragmenting concrete and steel, because both 6,900 and 8,750 exceed the sonic velocities of 3,200 m/s required to shatter concrete and 6,100 m/s required to shatter steel. As Dwain Deets has diagrammed, at only 895 m/s, iron-oxide/aluminum nanothermite does not come close to TNT and RDX.




However, prominent 9/11 researchers have

nonetheless termed nanothermite to be a powerful explosive. The very highly respected David Ray Griffin, Ph.D. calls nanothermite a "high explosive" in his July 6, 2010 article entitled “Left-Leaning Despisers of the 9/11 Truth Movement: Do You Really Believe in Miracles?”, which was published in the online journal, Global Research. “High explosives, such as RDX or nanothermite,” wrote Griffin, “could explain these horizontal ejections.”

Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, the most revered of 9/11 research groups, published a piece called “Exotic High Tech Explosives Positively Identified in World Trade Center Dust” on April 5, 2009. In this they stated, “Ordinary thermite burns quickly and can melt through steel, but it is not explosive. Nanothermite, however, can be formulated as a high explosive.”

A "Secret" Technology?

While searching the open scientific literature on nanothermite and establishing the low detonation velocity of its iron-oxide/aluminum variety, chemical engineer T. Mark Hightower has been in contact and shared his findings with Dr. Steven Jones and the authors of the highly regarded April 2009 nanothermite paper, as well as with several other well-known 9/11 Truth leaders. The most recent responses to his challenges fall into two general categories. One response is that the combustion velocity of 895 m/s is enough to explain the Twin Towers' destruction. The other is the rather persistent claim that nanothermite can indeed be a high explosive, where this formulation is a military secret that is not discussed in the open literature.

Alright. It is true that military explosives' research employs nanotechnology and that applications involving nanothermite are a subset of this research. (The military even connects nanotechnology with mini-nukes, stating that a mini-nuke device the size of a suitcase could destroy an entire building.) But to suggest that the American military has a "secret recipe" that converts iron-oxide/aluminum nanothermite into a high explosive when this claim is contradicted by the open literature doesn’t make any sense.

Easily found in the open literature is that copper-oxide/aluminum nanothermite can have a combustion velocity of 2,400 m/s, compared to 895 m/s for an iron-oxide/aluminum nanothermite. If the 2,400 m/s number is not a military secret, why would a velocity greater than 895 m/s (for the iron-oxide variety of nanothermite) have to be kept secret? It is far more likely that the highest reported value of 895 m/s is due to physical property limitations of iron-oxide/aluminum nanothermite rather than a need to keep higher values secret.

"Combined" with Explosives?

Additionally – just to be safe, perhaps – 9/11 nanothermite advocates also maintain the fall-back position that, even if nanothermite by itself is not a high explosive, when combined with an organic substance (also asserted to not be itself a high explosive), a high-explosive is created. To that T. Mark Hightower responds: “There is only one sure way to make nanothermite a high explosive. If you combine enough high explosives with nanothermite, you can get a mixture that is a high explosive. But the same can be said for my breakfast cereal.”

Hightower has further calculated that if conventional explosives (such as TNT or RDX) acting alone were used to bring down the Twin Towers, the quantity necessary would have been hundreds of tons of explosives per tower. On July 27, 2011, Niels Harrit

(chief author of the 2009 nanothermite paper)presented a calculation for how much thermitic material would have been necessary to explain the presence of the many tiny iron-rich spheres in the dust (assuming that a thermite reaction was the source of the spheres).

He gave a range of numbers, based on lower and higher concentrations of the thermite formulation. His lowest figure amounted to 29,000 metric tons of thermitic explosive per tower – a value hundreds of times greater than the calculation for conventional explosives. His “conservative” estimate (based on 10% iron-oxide in the thermitic material) was 143,000 metric tons of thermitic material that would have been placed in each tower. But let’s be realistic: How could the perpetrators drag in and plant over 100,000 tons of explosive without being seen? Even 29,000 tons is hard to imagine and would have been rather difficult to put in place unnoticed.

The Missing Element

A side note from the many technical papers on nanothermite studied by Hightower: nanothermite produces a blinding flash of light when it goes off. If such immense quantities of nanothermite were used to blow up the Twin Towers, then why didn’t we see tremendous bursts of blinding light all over two those buildings as they were destroyed and largely converted into millions of cubic yards of very fine dust?





The Dangers of a False Theory

Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, which is led by Richard Gage, has been ceaselessly promoting the nanothermite discovery as the “smoking gun” of 9/11, and calling the substance a "high explosive". If there is ever a

proper investigation and a lawsuit is filed in a court of law on the “strength” of nanothermite as “hard evidence” of controlled demolition by explosives at the World Trade Center and it is revealed to the court by the opposing side that nanothermite is at best a very weak "explosive" and could not possibly have destroyed the Twin Towers in seconds, the entire case would almost certainly be dismissed and a legal precedent set against future efforts by others.

The danger of promoting a false theory or of overselling a weak hypothesis to millions of people is that it may someday be a convenient way to close the book on the entire issue. That 9/11 nanothermite advocates insist on their position in the face of significant refutations is disturbing. They are clearly unwilling to change their minds or even to discuss facts that expose weaknesses in their statements. What do these refusals really mean? Are some leaders deliberately pushing a flimsy theory with the intent that it will ultimately be shot down? Or is nanothermite a red herring or limited hangout to keep us from looking into what was really used?

The 9/11 Truth community can be confident in its refutations of the official account of 9/11 without having to present a "bullet-proof" alternate theory. It may well be that thermite/thermate/nanothermite was used in its familiar role as an incendiary (or "cutter charge") in destroying the Twin Towers. But that is very different than to claim that it is a "high explosive" that could have destroyed those buildings. The 9/11 Truth movement must not commit itself to a feeble alternative, especially when an honest assessment of the empirical data for that theory does not support its applicability and actually refutes it.




T. Mark Hightower is a chemical engineer with more than two decades of experience in the industry, who currently works for NASA. His views are an exercise of his freedom of speech and in no way represent the positions of his employer.Source URL: https://0832zy.blogspot.com/2011/08/
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Banksy NY

Source URL: https://0832zy.blogspot.com/2011/08/
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Emma Watson's troll face



If you don't know what trollface is, you are probably better off.



General Web Content: Trollface



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Trollface-gyűjtés - LOGOUT.hu Személyes bejegyzés



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Source URL: https://0832zy.blogspot.com/2011/08/
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Confessions of a 9/11 Truth Activist

CONFESSIONS OF A 9/11 TRUTH ACTIVIST

Steve Fahrney, an activist from 9/11 Truth San Diego, who had worked with Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth (A&E) for about a year, contacted me because of his awareness of my research with T. Mark Hightower on the properties of nanothermite, "Is '9/11 Truth' based upon a false theory?" He had a number of issues that he wanted to discuss related to A&E, including that he had discovered during his work with it that research on conventional explosives at the World Trade Center had never been conducted and that communications within the organization did not allow discussion of what happened at the Pentagon or of alternative explanations about how the Twin Towers had been destroyed. I invited him to be my featured guest on “The Real Deal” on Monday, 15 August 2011, an interview that will be archived at http://radiofetzer.blogspot.com, and invited him to author the following blog.

To Test or Not To Test, the Pentagon and "Off Topic" Topics

Steve Fahrney

As much as I respect the work of Richard Gage, AIA, and Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, I decided to publicly address some of my concerns about some of the policies I experienced as a volunteer on the team for a year. Jim Fetzer was kind enough to provide me a public forum to get some of these alarming concerns off of my chest. Most of the Truth movement is aware that NIST shamefully admits to not having tested dust and debris for explosives, despite the overwhelming presence of “high order damage,” but what most 9/11 Truthers are largely unaware of is that WE, in the 9/11 Truth movement, have also failed to test for explosives.


Richard Gage and TV Anchor

I had always assumed that the tests had been done but had yielded no results, which I further assumed was the reason the painstaking nano-thermite research, testing, and publication were carried out. I did not find out until I had been on Richard Gage’s staff for nine months, via an e-mail thread, that we had never tested for explosives ourselves. I was alarmed by this revelation and quickly backed the notion of testing as soon as possible. I was even more surprised when a respected team member, Gregg Roberts, a technical writer who co-authored the nano-thermite paper, was arguing adamantly AGAINST testing for conventional explosives and det cord. He argued that we have limited resources, and we already have a "smoking gun" and saw no benefit of testing. He cautioned that since so much time had passed the residues might have broken down, where testing could yield a negative result even if they had been used. He further emphasized that “debunkers” would use a negative result to their advantage.



In regard to the resources, several members of the team had already stepped forth and pledged $200 per person, which would have covered several tests, meaning that A&E's organization funds would be unaffected. In addition to T. Mark Hightower’s startling revelation that thermite lacks the explosiveness to be considered as a sole "smoking gun", I had argued at the time that it would greatly benefit the 9/11 Truth movement to empower our outreach specialists with a more easily understood explanation involving conventional explosive, if the results were positive. As an outreach specialist myself for San Diegans for 9/11 Truth, I was using all of the tools at my disposal, including the nano-thermite paper.

Gregg responded to my e-mail, stating it was actually “perverse” to desire different evidence simply because I was having a hard time explaining the evidence I had. I corrected him stating that I could explain it to others, but that I did not feel qualified to do that. How much time might have been saved by the 9/11 Truth movement collectively, if we had simply tested for conventional explosives, gotten a positive result, and been able to state definitively that explosives had been found at the World Trade Center--without having to explain the intricate details of how thermatic material was allegedly engineered to explode?


Gregg Roberts (left) and Dwain Deets

From what I have learned about controlled demolition, I understand that the charges have to be synchronistically timed to go off within a fraction of a second of each other, where any miscalculation could cause the building to fall over instead of straight down. Given the non-explosive character of nanothermite, I find it rather difficult to believe that melting steel by means of an incendiary could achieve the same result. Additionally, I don’t see how an incendiary could shatter steel and pulverize concrete to produce those enormous pyroclastic clouds of dust that were so ubiquitous in New York on 9/11.

I additionally pointed out to the team that we were hypocritical to attack NIST for not conducting testing when we at A&E hadn’t either. But recently I have realized there is another hypocrisy. We ridicule NIST for advancing the unprecedented theory that fire had brought down these massive steel and concrete structures, even while we were advancing our own unprecedented theory that those buildings had instead been destroyed by a controlled demolition using nanothermite. Given Mark Hightower’s research and unrefuted "Nanothermite Challenge”, I find it rather far-fetched to suppose that nano-thermite could possibly have achieved the symmetrical destruction of the towers.



Gregg’s argument that we should not test due to the hypothetical concern of getting a negative result and that the "debunkers" would attack us, in my opinion, is both ethically irresponsible and scientifically irrelevant. Are we supposed to halt the scientific process and continue allow potentially crucial evidence to spoil due to an unsubstantiated irrational fear? And this brings me to my next concern about the society as a whole. Due to an internal divide on certain issues, A&E had deemed that any discussion of Dr. Judy Wood’s theories related to Directed Energy Weapons, lasers, masers, mini-nukes, or anything to do with the Pentagon was “off-topic” and could not be discussed as official business at A&E. I was puzzled to find out that there were people on the team who felt very strongly that Flight 77 had indeed hit the Pentagon, when my experience in the 9/11 Truth movement at large was that most truth advocates agree that the evidence was against it.

Gregg Roberts was one of the advocates of the "Official Conspiracy Theory" (OCT) regarding the Pentagon, as are Justin Keogh and David Chandler, which is one of the reasons that I labeled them as "infiltrators" in my resignation letter to the team when I left. In my interview with Jim Fetzer, I retracted those accusation toward any and all parties. I believe that name-calling and accusations are divisive, but I hope you can understand my skepticism. I challenged all of the members of A&E to go to their local 9/11 Truth groups, and see for themselves that (1) the Pentagon issue is not divisive, as some within A&E have claimed, and that (2) it is largely agreed that the available evidence strongly supports that Flight 77 did not crash there.


Steve Fahrney, President of the San Diego City College 9/11 Truth Club,
created this for an event hosted by Aaron Brown of Toreros for Truth.

After leaving the organization, I discovered that the government not only treats the Pentagon as an "on-topic" issue, but even treats it as an architecture and engineering issue as well. In January of 2003, the Pentagon Building Performance Report was generated by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) due to the structural failure it suffered on 9/11. I asked Richard Gage why his organization had not critiqued that report, and he said that since its inception, AE911Truth has only focused on WTC-1, 2, and 7. He argued that it is best to promote your strongest most compelling evidence. I realized later, upon reflection, that he had not actually answered my question.

I support the strategy of promoting your best evidence, but we were not discussing strategy. We were discussing policy. Why does A&E have a policy that discourages new discoveries at the Pentagon? Why doesn’t A&E critique their peers who generated the Pentagon Building Performance Report about the structural failure at the Pentagon with the same scrutiny they focus on NIST’s explanation of the structural failures in the three largest buildings of the World Trade Center?

I would like to point out that the report appears on the website, fire.nist.gov. I do not know how much involvement NIST had in the generation of this report, but A&E, which has a “NIST pursuit team” and has collected funds for that cause, should, in my opinion, find out. Why does NIST get a “bye” on the Pentagon? I offered Jim and his listeners a speculative theory. If indeed we have infiltrators in our midst, by discouraging discoveries at the Pentagon and even promoting the OCT internally in the 9/11 Truth movement, military and government officials could be let off the hook, again.


Steve Fahrney with friend celebrating A&E reaching 1,000 signatures.
The accomplishment would later make the front page of the Campus News.

As Barbara Honneger and CIT have theorized, based on their independent examinations of the evidence, it appears that explosives inside the Pentagon are what caused the destruction. If this theory is correct, it means that there had to be an insider(s). A new investigation could conclude that, even if thermite/explosives were planted in the World Trade Center, the media could still spin it with al CIA-duh involvement -- but not at the Pentagon. You cannot simply sneak explosives into the Headquarters of our Department of Defense without intimate involvement internally.

I previously mentioned that Judy Wood's work is off-topic at A&E, as well as any exotic theories other than nano-thermite. AE911Truth has had many problems with petition signers and volunteers who support Dr. Wood. It is a disqualifier for new members of the team to join if they endorse her work. Anyone who supports "no-plane" theory, laser theory, directed energy theory, or any theory about mini-nukes is disqualified as well. As a Ph.D. and former professor of mechanical engineering, Judy Wood has not been afforded the same dignity and respect of her peers as her counterparts in the nano-thermite realm, particularly by co-authors of the thermite paper.


Created by Steve Fahrney of the San Diego City College 9/11 Truth Club to
raise awareness on campus. Note the nano-thermite chips in the display.

Gregg Roberts has told me that, in his opinion, Dr. Judy Wood is unscientific when it comes to 9/11. I personally have yet to delve into Dr. Wood’s research or into any of the inappropriately ostracized members of our movement; but, after I shared my story with San Diegans for 9/11 Truth, they began looking where A&E and 911blogger have told us not to. As our local NASA engineer, Dwain Deets explained at our last event, after making a presentation about some exotic theories, San Diegans for 9/11 Truth are committed to looking at all the evidence and all the theories, not just those that are approved by "certain groups". Independent of myself, the group decided to buy Judy Wood’s book, which compelled them to contact Dr. Wood, has now been invited to give a presentation at our community center.

I would like to make it clear that I still support A&E, but not its policy about “off-topic” subjects and theories. While I retract my accusations of infiltration, though I still find it highly suspicious that the same people who are advocating against testing for explosives are also against looking at the Pentagon, against discussing Dr. Judy Wood’s research, in favor of the OCT at the Pentagon, and in favor of nano-thermite as the sole culprit of destruction in the WTC. No subjects or theories about 9/11 should be "off topic". None is "too controversial" to deserve discussion. Science should not be subordinated to politics in the 9/11 movement, which should be dedicated to truth no matter what form it may take.

Steve Fahrney, an activist with San Diegan's for 9/11 Truth, worked as a volunteer for Richard Gage and Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth.
Source URL: https://0832zy.blogspot.com/2011/08/
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