[quote=“MiG”]I’m not sure it’s a straw man, but what exactly is inaccurate in the PM article?
I mean, even Fox news is right once in a while 
[/quote]
I wasn’t referring to the PM article. I was referring to the articles trying to infer that the PM article is invalid because of nepotism.
Also, I made a mistake: this was an ad hominem attack, not straw man.
For a really great resource on this kind of thing, check out Carl Sagan’s baloney detection kit.
Reminds me of a saying I once heard: even a broken clock is right twice a day!
Yet another reminder to beware the ad hominem attack. Just because someone’s wrong about some things doesn’t mean they’re wrong about everything!
Well, I said that this was persuasive. Not that I believed everything from the video.
However, even if the idea of such a conspiracy is far-fetched, one cannot avoid finding the link between the facts presented here to be strange when shown in this manner. That is the main skill of the director in this case.
As for my own observations:
-I still haven’t seen convincing evidence of that plane that hit the pentagon. If the hole in the wall was made by the landing gear, where is the rest of the plane?
-Did they really find a wallet in all that debris? Fire was so intense it weaken the tower until collapse but it couldn’t burn paper?
-What about the testimonies of explosions and second planes? Did he make that up?
I agree that it is similar to creationism vs darwinism in the way that it is argued. But I don’t know how the people who don’t believe Bush can argue otherwise since the official story isn’t clear.
I quickly read the PM article and I think that what is wrong with it is that we don’t know if the expert cited are really independent. Are we supposed to trust them more than the documentary author because they appear in PM? I don’t know what the answer is here.
But I do know that the US government has, in the past, lied to its people and probably has the means to scare people into silence ( you’re with us or against us). Now if this is an ad hominem then so be it.
[quote=“BigThumb”]-I still haven’t seen convincing evidence of that plane that hit the pentagon. If the hole in the wall was made by the landing gear, where is the rest of the plane?
[/quote]
You can find answers, reasonable, scientific, logical answers to all your questions. Seriously, try googling.
For example:
snopes2.com/rumors/pentagon.htm
Lays to rest the Pentagon tinfoil hat pretty easily.
Yes, wallets, papers, parts of the plane (with unbroken windows!), computers, limbs, everything. What do you expect? A big pile of goo? Ever see a building that has been burned to the ground? Ever walk through debris? Lots of recognizable stuff, including wallets.
The paper wasn’t in the fire, obviously. That’s the easiest, most logical answer, isn’t it? You remember watching debris falling from the building, right? All that debris wasn’t in the fire. Why is that so far-fetched? I think it’s pretty logical.
Take a look at this:
http://research.amnh.org/~tyson/images/WTC/WTCT+4.jpg
See all that stuff flying down? None of that was burned.
The really far-fetched idea would be that a fire would turn everything into unrecognizable goop. Is that what you suggest happens in a building fire?
Well, I’ll bet I can dig up testimonies of people who talked to Jesus yesterday, or that swear that they were probed by aliens. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. So there were second planes? Or were there bombs? Often the “testimonies” contradict each other.
[quote]
I agree that it is similar to creationism vs darwinism in the way that it is argued. But I don’t know how the people who don’t believe Bush can argue otherwise since the official story isn’t clear.[/quote]
I don’t believe Bush either. But I don’t believe Bush blew up the towers.
No, but you seem to accept some random “witness” that says there were bombs and extra planes? Why not hold them to the same standard?
But instead of attacking their independence, attack their ideas. What exactly is inaccurate in the PM article?
No, because we can poke holes in the Conspiracy Theories. What holes have you poked in the PM article?
I agree this government consistently lied (and continues to do so). But that doesn’t make the Conspiracy Theories right by default.
Remember, this government wanted to pin 9/11 on Iraq on Day 1 (and on Day 2 and Day 3). It was only reluctantly that they accepted the Al-Qaeda connection.
Again, what is inaccurate in the PM article?
What really gets me is how Bush can take all the political capital that 9/11 brought him, and piss it all away on Iraq.
I mean, Le Monde summed it all up. On September 12, 2001, “We are all Americans.”
worldpress.org/1101we_are_all_americans.htm
Here was an opportunity to do the right thing, with the entire world united, for once.
How do we get from “We are all Americans” to:
http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/uc/20051115/stt051115.gif
Answer: Bush.
He could have united the planet in a peaceful, solid entity to create a utopian future like in Star Trek.
Hah! Just watched this:
discoverychannel.ca/on_tv/how_sh … tner_home/
It was funny. I didn’t ask the TiVo to record it either, it figured I’d like it all on its own.
Heh, I caught a tiny bit of that as well.
You be quiet and go play floor hockey. 
[quote=“MiG”]
The paper wasn’t in the fire, obviously. That’s the easiest, most logical answer, isn’t it? You remember watching debris falling from the building, right? All that debris wasn’t in the fire. Why is that so far-fetched? I think it’s pretty logical.
…
Again, what is inaccurate in the PM article?[/quote]
About the paper, wouldn’t the hijacker be in the cockpit with his papers? Isn’t this the first part of the plane to smash into the building? Isn’t the explosion happening near the point of impact? Wouldn’t all this burn? Just some questions I was pondering.
About the PM article, I found this link which criticizes its facts:
http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/pm/
Again, I am not saying that Bush blew the towers either. Heck I doubt the guy can tie his own shoelaces. I am saying that the video was persuasive in the way it was made and that the connections between all the facts presented was well done. Some facts may have been wrong but all of them???
Skeptics of the official story are all painted with the same brush as “conspiracy theorists” when some of them might only want some clarifications to the blurry areas of the story. With the way this Bush government has worked in the past, it is not surprising that some inquisitive people question the official version. They were not wrong when they questionned the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Why should they be wrong for all their claims?
[quote=“BigThumb”]Again, I am not saying that Bush blew the towers either. Heck I doubt the guy can tie his own shoelaces. I am saying that the video was persuasive in the way it was made and that the connections between all the facts presented was well done. Some facts may have been wrong but all of them???
Skeptics of the official story are all painted with the same brush as “conspiracy theorists” when some of them might only want some clarifications to the blurry areas of the story. With the way this Bush government has worked in the past, it is not surprising that some inquisitive people question the official version. They were not wrong when they questionned the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Why should they be wrong for all their claims?[/quote]
The problem with a lot of these documentaries and articles is that they have so many logical and rhetorical errors in them that you can’t take them seriously.
One video I saw called “In plane sight” showed the narrator saying something to the effect of “if someone posits a theory, it’s no longer a theory, because it could be true, therefore you have to accept the possibility that it might be true.” This is screaming out for Carl Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit, particularly the part that says “if there is a chain of argument every link of the chain must work.” A lot of these chains of arguments consist of “evidence” that is shaky at best.
For example, the In Plane Sight documentary saying that the bulge on the belly of the plane that crashed into one of the WTC towers MUST have been a bomb. The problem is, he violated another of Mr. Sagan’s rules, which states "wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the facts ". He offered no such confirmation whatsoever. What’s more, he doesn’t offer any other possible explanations either, which violates the other rule that says “Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view,” and “spin more than one hypothesis - don’t simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy.” If he were really good at his job, he would have presented the alternatives and then tried to discredit them. He didn’t.
The bottom line here is that 9-11 was a horrible event that shook Western civilization to the core. When these things happen, we find it hard to believe that societies as advanced and well-protected as ours could possibly be attacked this way. But it can.
As for President Bush using this as an excuse to invade Iraq, I won’t dispute that. Nor do I dispute that his attempt to link Iraq to Al Qaeda is just as shaky as the links in these documentaries. After all, why would a religious fundamentalist like bin Laden who wants to ban things like chess and music want to have anything to do with a secularist like Saddam who drinks wine and has mistresses?
Saying “OMG they found a passport that wasn’t burned!” doesn’t prove a conspiracy, it just proves the speaker doesn’t know anything about fires, or didn’t actually see any photos of the crap falling out of the buildings.
Saying “OMG the pentagon was barely damaged, where did the plane go?” doesn’t prove a conspiracy, it just proves the speaker doesn’t want to look at photos of the damage, rather just wants to look at the photo of the landing gear.
Now string a bunch of these “OMGs!” together, and what do you have? A string of facts that can easily be explained. Even if they couldn’t, what would they prove? Whatever the “theory” that these “prove” can easily be disproven.
Not if you consider that the fire was started by the fuel in the fuel tanks. Which are in the wings. Everything in the cockpit gets thrown around. Watch the impact videos, you’ll see debris coming down immediately. Or perhaps his papers were on his carry-on baggage (first class section, which didn’t burn immediately either).
Now ask yourself why you keep insisting that there is some convulated path of logic that will explain that a passport that survived will prove something, when the most obvious logical answer is “the passport wasn’t in the fire.” That’s how the creationists think when you’re arguing evolution with them.
[quote=“MiG”]
Now ask yourself why you keep insisting that there is some convulated path of logic that will explain that a passport that survived will prove something, when the most obvious logical answer is “the passport wasn’t in the fire.” That’s how the creationists think when you’re arguing evolution with them.[/quote]
I don’t insist on a particular path. I just ponder some questions because I don’t think that " the passport not in the fire" answer is the most logical one. For example, evidence has been planted in other situations before and in my opinion, that is a possibility that is as logical ( and as simple) as the passport, which was near the point of impact, surviving what eventuallly destroyed steel and concrete.
Again, I am not saying that all the “conspiracy” is true, I am saying that the video was persuasive.
And you wanted me to show what is wrong with the PM article. Wasn’t the link provided good enough for you? Ask yourself why?
Finally, there should be a Godwin’s law about creationism
Ok, now we’re getting somewhere.
Let’s hear the “theory” that the passport not burning proves.
Does it prove that a particular person was on the plane? Or does it make us want to think that a particular person was on the plane?
Perhaps the video of that person boarding the plane, the video of that person buying the ticket, the testimony of the people who sold the ticket and boarded the person, perhaps all those aren’t strong enough to prove this person was on the plane, so somebody (Bush and company) plants a passport?
What about the evidence (from all the other sources, including Bin Laden himself) that states that this person was on the plane? There is so much evidence that this person was on the plane, that there is no need to fabricate it.
What did Bush and the conspiracy guys have to gain from planting the passport? If they’re going to “fake” a passenger, wouldn’t it make more sense to make him an Iraqi rather than a Saudi?
The evolution/creationist thing is a great analogy, because it’s the exact same argument over and over. Last time a creationist said to me “there’s no way evolution could produce an eye” it sounded a lot like “there’s no way a passport could have survived 9/11.”
Now you’re thinking that because people have planted evidence in the past, the fact that a normal event (papers surviving a fire / plane crash), must be an example of that. It’s a leap of logic, and a bad one. If they’re going to plant evidence, why such crappy evidence? Why not link it to Iraq?
As for the website refuting the PM article, it looks like the link that you posted doesn’t really have anything new, does it? Let’s hear some specifics. I’m sure you can go through it one by one and refute it yourself. It’s pretty weak. Their refuting of the “small white plane” and the “small pentagon hole” are great examples.
At the same time, after reading the Snopes article on the Pentagon crash, what is it you don’t “believe” about it? I think it pretty much disproves the “conspiracy theories” about the pentagon crash, including the ones used in your link.
And finally, if you don’t believe Bush was responsible for 9/11, then what explanation do you offer, what explanation do all these conspiracy theories offer?
Personally, I believe it was al-qaeda that was responsible for 9/11. I think the overwhelming evidence (including bin Laden’s own words) support this. Much to Bush’s dismay, Saddam didn’t destroy the towers.
Offer us an alternate explanation, and show how all this “evidence” supports it. That’s what’s missing, I guess. There’s isn’t a viable alternate theory, because the Al-Qaeda explanation is supported by all the evidence.
Some thoughts I had while reading this thread:
I don’t know what to believe about 9/11… but my gut feeling is that what happened didn’t happen the way we were told (official story = crap)
I was on my way to work in Calgary on the morning of 9/11, and once there my co-workers and I watched everything unfold on the projector in the board room. When the towers came down, one of co-workers who had worked in demolition turned to us and said “those towers were brought down in a controlled demo”.
Many statements were made on 9/11 by so-called “experts” that were later retracted or deleted. Some “experts” were on record backing up the controlled demolition angle, others were talking about the mystery plane that was grounded (Flight 93). It doesn’t help that the intellectual genius that is Prez Bush made comments like this;
[quote]"And I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower – the TV was obviously on, and I use to fly myself, and I said, “There’s one terrible pilot.” And I said, “It must have been a horrible accident.”
But I was whisked off there – I didn’t have much time to think about it, and I was sitting in the classroom, and Andy Card, my chief who was sitting over here walked in and said, “A second plane has hit the tower.”[/quote]
After the towers came down we all went home for the day, and I shoved a VHS tape into the VCR to record the following 6 hours. I have yet to waste 6 hours reviewing it. And of course, the #1 tool for reviewing everything that was televised - the Television Archive (you could view streams of a couple dozen channels from 9/11 onwards) is shut down.
Not only that, but being a former Air Force guy, I know how the Norad system, the ATCs and such all work. Technically, 9/11 shouldn’t have happened. It was a tremendous lapse on a historically vigilent system.
I just don’t think we’ve heard the truth yet.
I don’t know why people are having such a hard time believing Al Qaeda was responsible. Terrorists had a field day hijacking air craft in the sixties and seventies, and there have been confirmed cases where someone working for an airline helped plant the weapons. So I don’t see why it would be such a stretch for a group to arrange domestic hijackings with terrorists who had received flight training. The part about the hijackings I find most incredible is that some passengers on the one flight got up enought courage to fight the hijackers and bring the plane down before it entered a heavily populated area.
The arguement against the unburnt passport just seems ridiculous. By definition, an explosion is a rapidly expanding ball of gas. This expansion has got to go somewhere and it does, by pushing matter around it out of the way. When a firecracker blows up, not all of the paper wrapping is burnt. In fact a good portion of the wrapping is pushed away by the force of the gas expansion inside. The same holds true for any explosion, the demolition of the trade centres only agrees with that.
I still don’t think that the hijaking of the planes on 9, 11 were done by terrerist. It was too well organzed, and I can’t see how a single person on each plane could take that much control, let alone 2 planes. On top of that, how could they have known that crashing the planes exactly where they did, would bring down the building. The “Plane Crash” at the pentagon was a huge screwup for the secret service that planed this attach, since there was no plane that crashed into the building. The explosion happened from inside the building. Now how could a Mohamad Ala get into a high security military headquarters with enough explosives to knock down a concrete wall in the first place… Its not bloody likely. What I’m trying to say, is the whole 9, 11 thing was all just a hoax both to scare the american population, and to create a reason for war, so that Bush and his buddies could sit back and collect profit from the weapons companies that they own, to go after the oil fields to make even more money.
uh oh… what if the “secret sevice” is screening this. Well in case they are, nice knowing y’all.
The problem here is that, just because you don’t see how it could be doesn’t make it a lie. There are plenty of things out there that coud easily have been, but just because we don’t know or can’t see how it happened doesn’t mean it’s false.
Take your assertation that a single person on each plane couldn’t have pulled it off. Well, there were multiple terrorists on each plane. As for getting by security with their weapons, people have managed to do it even after the hightened security measures post 9-11. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
As for your claim that no plane crashed into the Pentagon, the Popular Mechanics article talks extensively about that. You can’t just ignore the evidence that you don’t like.
So he worked in demolitions. Was he an engineer? A demolitions expert? Or did he just work among the crew and has seen a lot of controlled demos and thinks that the WTC was the same? He could very well have been mistaken. Again, the Popular Mechanics article addresses this very topic, with plenty of evidence and explanation to back it up.