Ooo! Ooo! Can I Join, too?
The editor-in-chief of Popular Mechanics magazine, James Meigs, has a column in the New York Post today that simply debunks a few of the 9/11 conspiracies and shows what massive frauds these people really are. He stats the article like this:
ON Feb. 7, 2005, I became a member of the Bush/Halliburton/Zionist/CIA/New World Order/Illuminati conspiracy for world domination. That day, Popular Mechanics, the magazine I edit, hit newsstands with a story debunking 9/11 conspiracy theories. Within hours, the online community of 9/11 conspiracy buffs - which calls itself the "9/11 Truth Movement" - was aflame with wild fantasies about me, my staff and the article we had published. Conspiracy Web sites labeled Popular Mechanics a "CIA front organization" and compared us to Nazis and war criminals.
For a 104-year-old magazine about science, technology, home improvement and car maintenance, this was pretty extreme stuff. What had we done to provoke such outrage?
Research.
I think I must be part of the Bush/Halliburton/Zionist/CIA/New World Order/Illuminati conspiracy for world domination myself now, since I've been pretty harsh with the "truthers". Which is a massive misnomer, of course. It would be more accurate to use the correct term: "liars".
Here's one example: Meyssan and hundreds of Web sites cite an eyewitness who said the craft that hit the Pentagon looked "like a cruise missile with wings." Here's what that witness, a Washington, D.C., broadcaster named Mike Walter, actually told CNN: "I looked out my window and I saw this plane, this jet, an American Airlines jet, coming. And I thought, 'This doesn't add up. It's really low.' And I saw it. I mean, it was like a cruise missile with wings. It went right there and slammed right into the Pentagon."
We talked to Walter and, like so many of the experts and witnesses widely quoted by conspiracy theorists, he told us he is heartsick to see the way his words have been twisted: "I struggle with the fact that my comments will forever be taken out of context."
Here's another: An article in the American Free Press claims that a seismograph at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory picked up signals indicating that large bombs were detonated in the towers. The article quotes Columbia geologist Won-Young Kim and certainly looks authoritative. Yet the truth on this issue is not hard to find. A published Lamont-Doherty report on the seismic record of 9/11 says no such thing. Kim told Popular Mechanics that the publication's interpretation of his research was "categorically incorrect." Yet the claim is repeated verbatim on more than 50 Web sites as well as in the film "Loose Change."
Every 9/11 conspiracy theory we investigated was based on similarly shoddy evidence. Most of these falsehoods are easy to refute simply by checking the original source material or talking to experts in the relevant fields. And yet even the flimsiest claims are repeated constantly in conspiracy circles, passed from Web site to book to Web site in an endless daisy chain. And any witness, expert - or publication - that tries to set the record straight is immediately vilified as being part of the conspiracy.
The only thing is: Who knew the pay would be this lousy for being part of such a massive conspiracy? Anyway, here's my contribution to the debunking: The yield strength of structural steel is reduced by 80% at 600° C. No office building can withstand losing 80% of it's structural integrity. Here's a link to a handy-dandy point by point rebuttal of the whack-job's theories. And, as always:
Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change, Loose Change,
By Scott W. Somerville, Tuesday, 12 September , 2006 @ 11:56 am
Hey, don’t leave out ABC/Disney. Mickey Mouse is now part of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. Pass it on!
By DirtCrashr, Tuesday, 12 September , 2006 @ 12:51 pm
“Truthers” isn’t even good grammar, besides being more like “Retardeders.”