Guess who's agreed to debate me?

[Gravy]

So, Gravy's debate will go liek this?

Fetzer: WTC 7 was pulled.
Gravy: It collapsed due to massive structural damage and uncontrolled fires.
Fetzer: Liar!
Gravy: There are firemen who...
Fetzer: Liar liar!

Welcome to Ground Zero on Saturdays...

 

[Bell]

Welcome to Ground Zero on Saturdays...

If / when my father and I are going back to NY, I'll visit you at GZ, but I won't buy you a beer. Heck, I'll buy you a bar!

btw Gravy, if you don't mind me asking, why are you so involved with debunking the deniers? Is it because their BS is disrespectful to the victims and their lies are outrageous, or do you have personaly experienced 9/11? Maybe you were nearby? Or lost loved ones?

I understand if you can't / don't want to answer the question.

Take care!
- Bell

 

[Gravy]

Gravy, I doubt that I'll make it there from Ali-Bama (but never say never, maybe 'Zilla could use someone to share the driving from the DC area) but if you need any help in other matters (renting a van, printing, equipment, et. al.) let me know and we'll see what I can do.

Just a caution; make sure they don't brand you as "A representative of the JREF", because that could cause some ramifications that would make Mr. Randi grumpy--but I figure you know that already, you're pretty good on things like that.

And make sure the Rules for the debate are THE Rules and that everybody agrees to them. Try to have a "Strong" moderator, someone who is respected by the College/General Community, who is not going to be run roughshod by the Truthers' conducting a "shout and argue" Hannity/Colmes/et. al. debate. Get them in a controlled situation and with rules and see how they fare. If anything causes this debate not to happen, it will be the Truthers not liking the rules.

And to the rest of Team Ninja; I think Gravy needs not only our good wishes, but help in research and presentation and maybe even on the stage there--I mean, if there are 5-6 "9-11 Truthers" on one side and Gravy on the other, well, he still wins but the chances of them trying to shout him down increase. Gravy, direct us and ask us to help with the prep and data, and if you need some others up there with you (can you imagine a team of Gravy, MarkyX, Brainster, and that teenage kid with the dynamite site blowing alway all the blowhard 'truth scientists.."), well, we can start a fund for getting you the help we need.

This may all come to naught; the chances they would agree to the rules of a real debate and not an shouting/interrupting/brawling interview type like they do on TV is not very high IMHO; but we shall see, we shall see.

Interesting times....

Thanks, Hutch. The idea is to have two competing debate teams, and I'm sure that will happen. Frank Greening had signed on for the South Carolina debate, so I hope he'll stay on board. AFAIK, Fetzer is the only shouter amongst the people they've listed as Team Lieberty, so I don't expect that it would turn into a battle royale.

 

[Kent1]

Thanks, Hutch. The idea is to have two competing debate teams, and I'm sure that will happen. Frank Greening had signed on for the South Carolina debate, so I hope he'll stay on board. AFAIK, Fetzer is the only shouter amongst the people they've listed as Team Lieberty, so I don't expect that it would turn into a battle royale.

If you need any assistance let me know. I'd be glad to help.

 

[Brainster]

Excellent!

I'm trying to get this moved up, but I suspect the 9/11 truth stuff will be going strong in March. Fouler than Turds will have their new movie out and the protesters will be crawling out from their winter hibernation. In April I predicted that much of this stuff would have petered out by 9/11/06. I was wrong: it grew and grew.

It has declined substantially compared to the week of 9/11, but we're still getting 2000+ visitors a day, which is more than we were doing during August (our August average was about 2,000, but that's skewed by a couple big days).

 

[G-K-4]

I would like to suggest that once it's determined who will appear on our behalf (other than Gravy of course), that the CT be broken up into segments and debaters assigned to those segments. That is, have a Pentagon expert, a WTC demolition expert, a hijackers expert, etc. This will divide the task into manageable areas.

And I would also suggest a "deep politics" expert and maybe a procedures expert. The former should be able to find the flaws in the conspiracists' arguments about Bin Laden in the 1980's, Al Qaeda, Pakistan and the CIA, PNAC and the Neo-cons, etcetera. The latter should know all about pre-9/11 procedures regarding civilian airline hijackings, FAA notification of hijackings, military response times, NORAD exercises, etcetera.

These things are bound to come up if the "scholars" can't get you on the physical details of the attack incidents themselves.

 

[Gravy]

And I would also suggest a "deep politics" expert and maybe a procedures expert. The former should be able to find the flaws in the conspiracists' arguments about Bin Laden in the 1980's, Al Qaeda, Pakistan and the CIA, PNAC and the Neo-cons, etcetera. The latter should know all about pre-9/11 procedures regarding civilian airline hijackings, FAA notification of hijackings, military response times, NORAD exercises, etcetera.

These things are bound to come up if the "scholars" can't get you on the physical details of the attack incidents themselves.

I'm no expert, and I'm all for the division of labor, but as it stands now I can wipe the floor with the CTs on any of these subjects. I don't say that to blow my own horn, but to point out how inept the CTs are. This stuff is not difficult. There's just a lot of it.

 

[Gravy]

If / when my father and I are going back to NY, I'll visit you at GZ, but I won't buy you a beer. Heck, I'll buy you a bar!

btw Gravy, if you don't mind me asking, why are you so involved with debunking the deniers? Is it because their BS is disrespectful to the victims and their lies are outrageous, or do you have personaly experienced 9/11? Maybe you were nearby? Or lost loved ones?

I understand if you can't / don't want to answer the question.

Take care!
- Bell

Bell, I wasn't in New York on 9/11, and I didn't lose anyone close to me. I was very isolated from the events of 9/11 (I never even saw video or TV coverage of the attacks until December, 2001), and some of this may be an attempt to get "in touch," in a small way, with what others went through. But I'm mostly motivated by anger, and by the opportunity to do something about the historical revisionism that has appeared and metastasized before our eyes.

Chipmunk got it right in his post above, that the immediate causes of me getting involved were 1) being banned from the LC forum in 4 or 5 days for "just asking questions," and 2) seeing a LC forum moderator mock the plight of victim Edna Cintron.

realitybites started the thread "Why we fight" where I go into more detail, and if you really want specifics, I ramble on about this stuff in an open letter to the LC guys, which starts on page 6 of Loose Change Creators Speak.

 

[IronSnot]

Fetzer was on Fox briefly yesterday.

What about back up flights for hijack if it looked like one of the planes was going to be late leaving? Say if that plane was over 5 hours late departing on it's 3rd last flight which didn't leave until 7pm or thereabouts the previous night and this was a five hour flight. So basically on the 10th September evening, you'd have to be assuming your flight on this plane was going to be very late leaving the next morning.

Now would you have a backup flight for hijack if these were the circumstances?

Just asking.

 

[IronSnot]

The hijackers did have back up plans just in case something like this happenned didn't they?

Of course I'm not saying it did happen, just imagining the scenario at the moment, and wondering what you bright chaps think.

 

[defaultdotxbe]

Fetzer was on Fox briefly yesterday.

What about back up flights for hijack if it looked like one of the planes was going to be late leaving? Say if that plane was over 5 hours late departing on it's 3rd last flight which didn't leave until 7pm or thereabouts the previous night and this was a five hour flight. So basically on the 10th September evening, you'd have to be assuming your flight on this plane was going to be very late leaving the next morning.

Now would you have a backup flight for hijack if these were the circumstances?

Just asking.

im not sure what your asking here, are you wondering why the hijackers didnt have redundant reservations? two reasons come to mind immediately:

1: redundancy was already present in the fact that they were hijacking 4 flights

2: they were all first class passengers, airlines will bend over backwards and then some for first clas ticketholders, if their flight was severely delayed they would be put onto another flight, or the airline might even buy them a ticket on another airline to get them out on time

 

[David Wong]

Chipmunk got it right in his post above, that the immediate causes of me getting involved were 1) being banned from the LC forum in 4 or 5 days for "just asking questions," and 2) seeing a LC forum moderator mock the plight of victim Edna Cintron.

Also, everybody here should know that the primary need for good philosophy is to combat bad philosophy.

I can't speak for Gravy but I myself don't just see a few, isolated tin-foil hats in their lonely basements doing this. No, what I see is a disease, the primary symptom being loud, knee-jerk rejection of opposing viewpoints for absolutely no reason other than the fact that they're coming from the opposing "team." Even if 9/11 conspiracies die a quick death, this battle against petty, reactionary ignorance is the great battle of our time.

Yes, the CT'ers provide the most laughable and dramatic example but you see this way of thinking freaking everywhere. It drives politics now. You hear people defending their favorite brand of car or video game this way. It's ruining religion, that divisive dogma of the fundamentalist that says, "you must accept these facts to be true, or you are the enemy."

Not, "you should live by this philosophy," or even, "we interpret the world in this way." No, it's "you must choose to believe these facts are true or else you are the enemy." Civilization cannot survive with the populace doing that, clinging for dear life to bad information because it bonds them with a tribe and distances them from another.

Might as well fight it here, now. I can't think of a more noble cause.

 

[IronSnot]

No I'm assuming a few things;

1. The hijackers were well organised.
2. Consequently they would have been keeping an eye on possible delays on the aircraft they were booked on.

So let's assume that one of the planes they planned to hijack was very late leaving on it's scheduled flight over to California the night before (let's say over 5 hours just for arguments sake). This plane due in at 8pm EST was now not going to land in California until about 1am EST. And then it had to get back to the East Coast for their flight the next day.

You'd have to assume the flight you were booked on first thing in the morning was going to be late leaving wouldn't you? (very late)

And you're planning concurrent hijackings.

Consequently wouldn't you make the decision before you went to sleep the night before (and when your plane was 5 hours late making it's second last stop) to hijack another flight?

 

[defaultdotxbe]

No I'm assuming a few things;

1. The hijackers were well organised.
2. Consequently they would have been keeping an eye on possible delays on the aircraft they were booked on.

So let's assume that one of the planes they planned to hijack was very late leaving on it's scheduled flight over to California the night before (let's say over 5 hours just for arguments sake). This plane due in at 8pm EST was now not going to land in California until about 1am EST. And then it had to get back to the East Coast for their flight the next day.

You'd have to assume the flight you were booked on first thing in the morning was going to be late leaving wouldn't you? (very late)

And you're planning concurrent hijackings.

Consequently wouldn't you make the decision before you went to sleep the night before (and when your plane was 5 hours late making it's second last stop) to hijack another flight?

well, as i stated, the plan doesnt necessarily require all 4 hijackings to succeed, im sure one plane crashing into the WTC and nothign else would have been great as far as the terrorists are concerned

secondly, i doubt an airline would allow a flight to be 5 hours late, they would probably put in another plane to keep subsequent scheduled flights running (apathoid can confirm or deny this)

and as i stated before, the airline would put them onto another flight leaving at the same time, even if it meant sending them on another airline

 

[LashL]

No I'm assuming a few things;

1. The hijackers were well organised.
2. Consequently they would have been keeping an eye on possible delays on the aircraft they were booked on.

So let's assume that one of the planes they planned to hijack was very late leaving on it's scheduled flight over to California the night before (let's say over 5 hours just for arguments sake). This plane due in at 8pm EST was now not going to land in California until about 1am EST. And then it had to get back to the East Coast for their flight the next day.

You'd have to assume the flight you were booked on first thing in the morning was going to be late leaving wouldn't you? (very late)

And you're planning concurrent hijackings.

Consequently wouldn't you make the decision before you went to sleep the night before (and when your plane was 5 hours late making it's second last stop) to hijack another flight?

For what it's worth, early morning flights are statistically the least likely to be delayed.

In any event, would it matter to the hijackers if one of the four flights was delayed? One of them was, actually, delayed and it does not appear to have changed their plans any but it did cause the delayed flight to end up crashing in Shanksville instead of hitting its intended target.

 

[IronSnot]

well, as i stated, the plan doesnt necessarily require all 4 hijackings to succeed, im sure one plane crashing into the WTC and nothign else would have been great as far as the terrorists are concerned

But we're talking before not after. If the plane was delayed before the hijackings wouldn't they go to Plan B, which surely would be another flight.

secondly, i doubt an airline would allow a flight to be 5 hours late, they would probably put in another plane to keep subsequent scheduled flights running

Regardless, from the hijackers point of view the night before, they would have to assume the plane they were booked on was going to be late leaving. Consequently their hijacking would not be at the same time as the others. So once again Plan B, which surely was another flight, not delayed, leaving around 8am in the morning.

and as i stated before, the airline would put them onto another flight leaving at the same time, even if it meant sending them on another airline

They'd put them onto another flight going to the same destination, but there's no way it would be scheduled to leave at the same time.

Once again - surely they had a back up plan, just in case one of their planes for the flights they had booked, was delayed.

Do you agree?

 

[hellaeon]

...Fouler than Turds...

Man thats just so damn funny.
I cant stop giggling like an imbecile.

 

[hellaeon]

...Do you agree?

Please goto another thread for this and get to your point.

 

[defaultdotxbe]

But we're talking before not after. If the plane was delayed before the hijackings wouldn't they go to Plan B, which surely would be another flight.

if you comprehended my argument youd see that plan B woudl consist of shrugging and saying "well at least the other 3 flights will go as planned"

Regardless, from the hijackers point of view the night before, they would have to assume the plane they were booked on was going to be late leaving.

are you saying they would know the night before the actual plane they are supposed to be on will be late? you really think they spent their last night watching flight times?

Consequently their hijacking would not be at the same time as the others.

this was obviously not a problem as far as they were concerned, otherwise flight 93 would have defaulted to "plan B"

So once again Plan B, which surely was another flight, not delayed, leaving around 8am in the morning.

why is this "surely" plan B?

They'd put them onto another flight going to the same destination, but there's no way it would be scheduled to leave at the same time.

why is there no way it would be leaving at the same time? and again, why is this necessarily a problem?

Once again - surely they had a back up plan, just in case one of their planes for the flights they had booked, was delayed.

theres that "surely" word again...

Do you agree?

no, i dont agree

they planned 4 hijackings, not 1, the redundancy of the plan served as its own backup plan

 

[Pardalis]

Actually, even though I get the feeling Ironsnot wants this to lead to a US conspiracy, I think it's an interesting question. I wonder what the highjackers would have done if one of their flights had been cancelled or delayed. Did they account for such a thing to happen and what was their back up plan?

Since all airspace was shut down after the confirmation of the highjackings, if one of the highjacker teams was left on the ground, what would they have done? Suicide, probably. Or maybe they were in communication and if one of the teams couldn't board a plane, they might have tried to communicate it to the other teams and have cancelled the whole plan.