Elonka wrote:

} It's not just
] a trivial occurrence that is being taken advantage of because
] we happen to have an emotional photo -- 9/11 was the greatest
] challenge that our country faced during the course of Bush's
] presidency. How he dealt with that challenge *is* crucially
] important.

One thing that concerns me is that most people believe the attack on Afghanistan was a reaction to the 9/11 attacks. It was actually well underway with respect to planning and logistics. Pakistan had been told earlier that summer that we were coming in.

The attack on the Taliban was not vengeance for 9/11, it was business as usual. I think that's how most people think Bush "dealt" with the challenge, by avenging America against the purported culprits.

] If people are going to blame Bush for everything that goes
] wrong, then I believe that they should also give him credit
] for some of the things that go *right*. And say what you
] will, we haven't had another 9/11 while on his watch.

You could phrase that another way: We had the 9/11 attack under his watch. We witnessed our standard operating procedures for intercepting errant aircraft fail that day. 67 airplanes had been intercepted that year under standard operating procedures. Why not on 9/11?

Something else interesting:

ABC journalist John Cochran was traveling with the President. He reported on ABC TV on Tuesday morning:

"Peter, as you know, the president's down in Florida talking about education. He got out of his hotel suite this morning, was about to leave, reporters saw the White House chief of staff, Andy Card, whisper into his ear. The reporter said to the president, 'Do you know what's going on in New York?' He said he did, and he said he will have something about it later. His first event is about half an hour at an elementary school in Sarasota, Florida."
--'ABC News' Special Report 'Planes crash into World Trade Center' (8:53 AM ET) Tuesday 11 September 2001

So he knew about it before he went into the school. More evidence that he knew, Cheney on 9/16 meet the press:

"VICE PRES. CHENEY: ...As best we can tell, they [American Flight 77] came initially at the White House and...

"MR. RUSSERT: The plane actually circled the White House?

"VICE PRES. CHENEY: Didn't circle it, but was headed on a track into it. The Secret Service has an arrangement with the F.A.A. They had open lines after the World Trade Center was... "

He stopped talking where the elipses were. It's pretty clear he meant "HIT" though. So the Secret Service (with the President that day) had open lines of communication with the FAA at the time the WTC was being attacked.

So the Secret Service at that point knew what the FAA knew. The FAA "suspected" that flight 11 had been hijacked at 8:20. (Newsday 23 September 2001, 'Air Attack on Pentagon Indicates Weaknesses') And acc... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

RE: Furor over Bush's 9/11 ad

Both ads reinforce the Ground Zero imagery with frontal shots of two firefighters. Unlike the paid actors and actresses in most of the footage, they are not ringers, but their red headgear gives them away as non-New Yorkers. The Bush campaign declined to reveal where the burly smoke-eaters actually work.

...

I remember a while back this was the stated mission from Bush's handlers, to exploit 9/11 for political advantage. And so it begins.

Furor over Bush's 9/11 ad

Is this story true? Its central assumptions have never been seriously tested. There are numerous red flags in the official story, which requires a long series of highly improbable coincidences. Questioning that story is an act of responsible citizenship.

...

The WTC collapses looked suspect to me from day one. This site is a great referrence with movies and pictures to go with the analysis. Lots of eye witness accounts as well.

My thoughts: There's a photo of people walking up to the entry hole in the North Tower and looking out:

http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/photos/wtc1hole1.html

This makes me wonder how hot the temperatures were pre-collapse. Was the temperature hot enough to melt steel? And why didn't the 1975 fire, set on the 11th floor, which spread to 6 other floors and burned for 3 hours, cause a collapse?

Also of note is the antenna. It was 352 feet long, weighing 353 tons. If you notice watching the collapse video here:

http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/videos/docs/n_tower_1st24.mpg

The antenna begins it's collapse before any other part of the building. This indicates the core failed above the impact floor first (the antenna's weight was primarily supported by the core.) A few moments later the collaps starts to manifest in the top floors, then the impact floor.

For these buildings to completely collapse in 10 to 15 seconds means everything fell virtually unimpeded, only encountering air resistance. Seismic records more or less match up with observed free fall times. Also, the symmetry of the debris cloud as the building collapsed and the symmetric distribution of debris on the ground (as indicated in the FEMA report) are hallmarks of controlled demolition.

A progressive, floor by floor collapse would not have been as clean as these falls were. Here's an enlightening passage from the Albequerque Journal:

"Televised images of the attacks on the World Trade Center suggest that explosives devices caused the collapse of both towers, a New Mexico Tech explosion expert said Tuesday. The collapse of the buildings appears "too methodical" to be a chance resul... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

9-11 Research

Wanted to meme this for myself. Drudge's news flashes tend to go down the memory hole.

---

9/11 Commission to meet privately with Condoleezza Rice on Saturday
Feb 03 2004 21:07:32 ET

In tomorrow's NEW YORK OBSERVER, author Gail Sheehy talks with former Nebraska Senator and 9/11 Commission president Bob Kerrey, sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT.

Sen. Kerrey tells Ms. Sheehy that the commission is scheduled to meet privately with Condoleezza Rice on Saturday, Feb. 7. Her testimony will not be sworn or made public; but the commission has not yet decided whether to use its subpoena power to compel public, sworn testimony from either Dr. Rice or the President. Kerrey declares himself in favor of requesting sworn, public testimony from Dr. Rice.

MORE

Sen. Kerrey calls the President's new commission to investigate Iraq intelligence failures a political maneuver; the 9/11 commission already has the Iraq investigation in its purview.

MORE

Kerrey tells Sheehy that Senate Republicans, in light of the increasingly high profile of the 9/11 commission, are no longer insisting the commission complete its work by its original May deadline. With the heat increasing, the administration realizes that the commission must not be allowed to release its report before the election. Suddenly the May deadline, originally meant to curtail the scope of their investigation, isn't looking so beneficial to them.

They want to give the commission six months--just enough time to get them past this year's presidential election. Families support the measure as the only hope the commission has of doing a thorough investigation.

Developing...

9/11 Commission to meet privately with Condoleezza Rice on Saturday

Elonka wrote:

] Bush too... World War II? Bush's fault.

Not saying George W. Bush is responsible for WWII (you know, the whole not being born yet kind of rules that out) but his grandpa Prescott sure helped Nazi Germany out back in the day. Just semantics though :)

RE: The George W. Bush Conspiracy Generator

inignoct wrote:
] ] Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who urged the United
] ] Nations to endorse a preemptive war to strip Iraq of its
] ] weapons of mass destruction, conceded yesterday that
] ] Saddam Hussein's government may have no longer had such
] ] munitions.
]
] [ well, how about that. ] -k

David Kay just resigned his post in Iraq, stating the same thing, that Iraq has no WMDs.

People who cling to the notion that we will eventually find the weapsons need to wake up. The US government lied to invade Iraq. Pretty simple.

RE: Powell Voices Doubts About Iraqi Weapons (washingtonpost.com)

w1ld wrote:

] ] The terrorist threat will not expire on that
] ] schedule, he told lawmakers. Our law
] ] enforcement needs this vital legislation to protect our
] ] citizens. You need to renew the Patriot Act."
]
] Fuck you Ashcroft. We are not interested in more Patriot Act.
] We do not live in the middle east. We live in America. We
] have rights and civil liberties built by our forefathers. You
] strip those from us and leave us with only what our
] forefathers would be rolling in their grave to learn about.
] You are not making me safer from terrorism by reading my bank
] account statemets without court concent but by dropping bombs
] on tents where terrorist reside. Also, you are not providing
] due process to those terrorist that reside in the United
] States. You only lock them up and throw away the key. Why
] not show the world our court system and due process and what
] happens to people/groups that carry out evil deeds.
]
] Let the Patriot Act die is deserved death and bring on the
] guns and bombs where the real war of terrorism is fought.

Hear hear!!!

RE: MSNBC - Bush makes case for second term

By definition, dollar reserves must be invested in US assets, creating a capital-accounts surplus for the US economy. Even after a year of sharp correction, US stock valuation is still at a 25-year high and trading at a 56 percent premium compared with emerging markets. The US capital-account surplus in turn finances the US trade deficit. Moreover, any asset, regardless of location, that is denominated in dollars is a US asset in essence. When oil is denominated in dollars through US state action and the dollar is a fiat currency, the US essentially owns the world's oil for free. And the more the US prints greenbacks, the higher the price of US assets will rise. Thus a strong-dollar policy gives the US a double win.

...

Good discussion of petro-dollars and the implications on global markets.

The Currency War

Boss wrote:

] The Bush Policy continues previous administrations policies.
] The Palistine Question is insane to begin with, and we can
] thank postwar England/German/Russia for much of the debacle.
] But don't forget the Arabs themselves, who for 50 years, have
] continued to foment hate, terror, and obstinance for a hot and
] dusty, and otherwise undredeeming land; who, before the
] Zionists and Jews started working the land in the late 1800's
] was still just a barren land without any growth potential.

Don't forget France as well and the former League of Nations/UN. I often wonder why so many people quip about the land being a barren land until the Zionists came in. The indigenous people lived off the land the way they could.

] BTW--the Palestinian land is nothing more than the unwanted
] Arab lands, and the Palestinians are a made up
] population--kept around for the Arab world's political use.
] Why doesn't Saudia Arabia use of its many millions to make the
] condition of the Palestinians better? Why don't the Arab
] nations surrounding Israel welcome into their lands the
] Palestinians?

It's disingenuous to say Palesinians are a made up population. Would you say the same for Syria and Iraq? Palestinians are an occupied population.

As for the other Arab nations welcoming Palestinians, they would cease to become Palestinians. The right of return for Palestinian refugees is not honored by Israel. And that's what this whole thing is about. A displaced population. The destruction of their culture. Just because they all speak Arabic doesn't mean they are all the same people and would just meld into another Arabic speaking country.

] Why should the US be responsible for a regions stupidity and
] ignorance?That's the United Nations job, and it has been a
] joke in the area from the beginning.

Last time I checked, the US was one of the original signatories on the original UN charter. It is also one of the permanent Security Council members. Is that a good enough reason?

The Israel/Palestine question is much deeper than all of the above. What we see today is the result of what happens when you don't have moderates making some of the calls. Between Arafat and Sharon, there can be no progress.

Bush sitting on the sidelines on this is really idiotic of him. Keep saying "Roadmap" Dubya, I'll keep watching your lips move.

RE: War of Ideas, Part 4

] norfzorf wrote:
] ] inignoct wrote:
] ] Perhaps this is a genre where this can work... interesting
] ] experiment if nothing else.
]
] www.schematic.net has more sophisticated fucked up sound
] (since aphex and autechre don't make good stuff for warp
] anymore) and they give away free 2 min. or so downloads to try
] it out.

Schematic's releases will hopefully be available in BleepMart. It will really be nice to eventually have all of WarpMart's back catalogue available. I know not every label on there will go for it, but Warp is already taking the big steps. I'm sure Rephlex isn't far behind. From there it will really catch on.

I bought HAB1&2 off Ebay a couple of years ago for a hefty sum. Now it's available for download. I always knew Warp had clue.

No more out of print recordings.

No more reason to waste time and materials on trans-Atlantic shipping.

No more energy expended making plastics.

"Immediate Consumer Satisfaction"

What more could you ask for?

To me, this is a big first. I will be spending a regular sum of money here, no doubt. All the other so-called music services should notice this. Anything with DRM, I'm not paying for it.

RE: BLEEP - Digital Downloads from Warp Records