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AN_INCONTINENT_TRUTH


                                             October 4, 2006

This weekend I realized that
a friend of mine took the
"9/11 Truth Movement" guys        (You know the Truthies, right?
somewhat seriously...             They're into ideas like:
                                  planted-explosives must have
                                  taken out the World Trade
                                  Center, a few plane crashes
I was a little suprised by        alone *couldn't* have done it).
that, because I'd heard the
"Loose Change" guys debated by
the "Popular Mechanics"
people, and while the Pop            (On "Democracy Now!".)
Mechanics guys did not come
off as very scintillating, the
"Loose Change" folks seemed
like classic nutjobs...

These are the guys who like to
coldly repeat Facts like "jet
fuel doesn't burn hot enough
to melt steel".

You don't have to look into
this much to turn up the
counter-arguments to that one:

   (1) it doesn't have to *melt*
       it, just weaken it

   (2) there *are* reasons that
       they require thermal                (And the quality of the
       insulation on steel supports.       thermal insulation used
                                           on the WTC is an open
But anyway, since I met someone            question, I would say...)
who seemed to think that there
was something significant about
the Building 7 collapse I spent
a good chunk of the time the
other day reading up on the            Not such an easy task, really.
Truthies and digging around for        Every published criticism of
rebuttals                              the "Movement" produces a
                                       firestorm of indignant wining
   What I found:                       from the entire crew, and they
                                       are absolute *masters* of the
   Building 7 went down                "google bomb": their own
   after having debri rained           rebuttals always get top billing.
   down on it and burning
   for many hours...
   Why does this seem so
   weird?

   Even if you argue it should've
   been able to take it, why
   postulate thermite charges when      Much is made of the remark
   you can easily explain it by,        "I guess we'll have to pull
   for example, sub-standard            it", which is supposed to
   thermal insulation on a corrupt      be demolition expert lingo...
   government construction job?
                                           This would seem more
                                           significant if anyone
                                           speaking were demolition
                                           experts.

                                              And it's hard to get
                                              the scenario to make
                                              sense as any sort of
                                              conspiracy...  why
                                              was it necessary to
   I note that there are some                 order it "pulled" if
   schisms in "The Truth                      that was the nefarious
   Movement", in particular                   scheme all along?
   there are complaints about                 Why would you talk about
   so many of the critics                     it in public?
   focusing on the "not hot
   enough to melt" factoid.                      SKEPTIC_MOLE

   It is evidently not fair to
   regard this particular
   argument as representative            It's not clear to me what
   of The Movement...                    is supposed to be a
                                         representative argument.

And at least one                            There was some short-selling
fellow insists                              of airline stock before hand,
that the "Loose                             but the counter-claim is that
Change" guys are                            this is traceable back to a
part of a                                   single investment newsletter.
conspiracy to      I couldn't
make the "Truth    make one up                            (June 21, 2007)
Movement" look     better than              More recently, I've come
bad.               that.                    across the argument that
                                            there were these war games
                                            scheduled for that day that
                                            tangled things up enough
                                            to prevent interception of
                                            the hijacked planes.

                                                Even if this is all
                                                correct, it's difficult
                                                to see why you would
                                                assume it was planned
    But any way, here's                         that way...
    another item for the
    "grimly amusing" file:                      I've heard the factoid
                                                hyped that there wasn't
    This entire debate takes                    just *one*, but *many*
    place on the grounds of                     war games scheduled at
    technical plausibility.                     the same time... but so?

    Only very rarely does
    someone argue "It is                        Even if that's a weird
    absurd to think that our                    state of affairs --
    fine, upstanding leaders                    and I have no idea if
    would be willing to kill                    it is, or even if the
    innocent civilians for                      claim is accurate --
    political reasons".                         "providing cover for
                                                the bad guys" would
                                                only be *one* possible
                                                explanation.

                                                     You want another?
                                                     Maybe the various
                                                     warnings of possible
                                                     terrorist attack were
                                                     starting to filter into
                                                     the institutional brain
                                                     of the military, so
                                                     they were stepping up
                                                     their readiness
                                                     exercises and thereby
                                                     shot themselves in the
                                                     foot.

                                                         (Far-fetched, eh?)


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