Doobie Bowl Sunday

Can't claim much affection for either team.  Seattle seems more like the Cinderella squad this year, so will give it to them.  Either way, don't care who wins or loses, just hope it's a good football game. 

As to the politics, Bill O'Rilly has secured his almost-traditional pre-game Obama interview, of which he's been chest-thumping about for a week or more (along with tempering some of his normal rightward leaning views in the advent of meeting the prez).  Ho-hum.  It's hard to believe he'll ask anything truly controversial.

That said, he'll almost certainly ask tougher questions that any mainstream advocacy-journalist.  He asked 'the folks' to send him some suggestions because one will be used in the interview, so here are some hypothetical submissions..  

1.  Where were you on the night of the Benghazi attack?  Were you in regular contact with the Situation Room?   Did you issue any stand-down orders?   How and when did you realize the attack was over, and where were you at the time?   Why was the mention of "AQ" and "terrorist" removed from the original CIA talking points by unknown State and White House staff?  Did you approve this? 

2.   Have you seen the Seymour Hersh story and the report from a weapons inspector suggesting the Syrian rebels actually fired the chemical weapons that almost triggered a bombing raid on that country?  If you are not familiar with these stories/reports, why not?

3.  Sticking with Syria, Bashar Assad is not delivering the chemicals to the port in a timely fashion, as promised by the agreement.  If he continues to stall what is the remedy?  Is the bombing threat being made through back channels or directly to the Assad government?   Is Russia involved and helping?

4.  Similar question on Iran, what happens if we find them cheating before or after the 6 month preliminary disarmament negotiations?  Will new red lines be issued or does that pretty much mean bomb, bomb, bomb?

5.  If Karzai doesn't sign the BSA before leaving office will we definitely be pulling out all troops from Afghanistan?  By the way, when you say we are 'ending the war', will the enemy consider it a victory if everyone leaves and there's no BSA?  What happens if they allow AQ trainees back into the country or another attack is launched from commanders operating there?

6.  Have you changed your mind on presidential executive powers since your comments in 2008?  If so, do you owe the previous president an apology?

7.  Is Anas al-Liby, who was rendered from Libya last year, being interrogated anymore?  He seems to have lawyered up, with a report saying the Libyan government is paying his attorney fees.  Did we get anything useful out of him on possible pending attacks before he was read rights?   

8.  On the IRS targeting story, you expressed outrage upon learning of the event in the news but later called it a "phony scandal".  How did your half-brother Malik get 501 c4 status so quickly for his Barack H Obama foundation--even having it made retroactive?   Do you not see that as a form of favoritism?  Is the impression left that the IRS was used as a political attack dog something that concerns you?

9.  On a similar theme, why was your uncle Omar and aunt Zentuini allowed to remain in the country after both being ordered deported?  Were you aware of either case in advance?  Do you agree with the outcomes, and if so, do you believe there should essentially be open borders in the United States to the point of getting here means staying, and eventually citizenship?  Does it concern you that people following the legal pathway to citizenship are left looking like chumps when those ordered deported are given asylum or in the event of a general amnesty passed by Congress?      

10.   Which corporations do you think need their 'asses kicked' these days?  Looking back, do you consider that rhetoric as helpful or do you regret using it?

11.  How in the world does a website cost over a half-billion dollars?  Did you know the costs were running that high before rollout?  How did the website pass Initial Operating Capability tests?  Who signed off on these tests, assuming they occurred?   Are the contractors being paid more to fix something they should have delivered on October 1 or is it included in their agreements with the government?

12.  What do you think of the TSA whistleblower whose story is out this week, saying that TSA agents were indeed laughing and abusing the naked scanners at airports?   Surely stories like that in combination with the NSA snooping leaves many people guessing about their own government. How do you combat the negative impression left by such programs?  Should someone apologize?  

13.  You recently pointed out that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have been falling for the last 8 years, which would include the Bush administration.  Actually, the level of carbon increase was fairly stable during the two Bush presidencies, suggesting the decline may not be due to new EPA rulemaking alone.  Do you think this leveling off/decline of US emissions is related to the observed flat trend in global temperatures since 1998?  Do you think it's useful for people like the former Vice President to be running around spouting falsehoods about climate?   Doesn't that undermine efforts to persuade the people?     

14.  Why won't you approve the Keystone Pipeline project?   Does it trouble you that the shale oil is being moved in unit oil trains that might not be safer and definitely produce more greenhouse gases than transport through a pipeline?  Doesn't Keystone fit well with your "all of the above" energy strategy laid out during the State of the Union?  

15.   Is there a war on women, and if so, who are the combatants?  Is Sarah Palin a target or a combatant?  Is it acceptable for Democrats to use a term like 'war' when discussing their political opponents when Palin was blamed for encouraging the Gabby Giffords shooting based on her use of 'target'?

16.   Pete Carroll is being called a "9/11 Truther" by some due to a reported incident where a retired US Army general visited his clubhouse and he reportedly asked if Bush blew the towers.  Whether that's true or not, as president you would have access to all the secrets of the government, right?   It's tempting to ask you to once and for all confirm such things here, but it's understandable if you can't.  It would also be nice to clear up the UFO conspiracies and maybe the TWA 800 crash, which some former investigators recently asked your NTSB to take another look at.

However there is something you can answer.  Allegedly Coach Carroll asked the general about the 9/11 attack during a discussion about Iraq. You are famously on record as calling the Iraq war 'dumb', so here's the question-- what would you have done about Saddam if he were still around when you took office in 2008?   Would you have continued the sanctions and no-fly zones indefinitely?  Or do you think Middle-East peace would be possible with his regime still in power, as in, do you think he could have been brought to the table to honestly broker a peace treaty amongst Iran, Syria, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Russia?       

Thank you sir.             

AFTERMATH  2/2/14

Hate to say "I told you so" (so here it comes) but the team with better defense usually wins the big games.  In Seattle's case they were the number one defense to boot.  Also, they were severely misunderestimated, which is often a formula for victory.  Russell Wilson wasn't the team, the team was the team.   

As to BO vs BO, or O'Reilly vs O'bama, score one for the first prevaricator.  He turned every question around as a slam on Fox News, as if nobody in the country cares about the scandals he's already proclaimed as 'phony'.  Even BO couldn't effectively cut off BHO's filibustering, allowing him to run down the clock and limit any dents in the presidential armor.  Of course BO had to worry about his career and Fox's future access so he couldn't go for the jugular so to speak, but he could have pressed the president as to what he means by holding people accountable when nobody has even been demoted or placed into less-demanding jobs.  The other questions largely backfired on BO because he can't challenge the person who was there on scene and who holds all the power.  So as predicted, yawn.

Finally, this was tweeted out from HQ prior to the game....

A few initial questions come to mind.  One, why is the president looking up?  Is he trying to throw it to some guy in the stands?   Two, where is NATO field?    

The Path Back to 9/11

The ten year anniversary of 9/11 is fast approaching and the media is moving into second gear on the reflection stories. More will come, some likely somber and tasteful, others more raw and disturbing. There's also a good chance some will be designed to reassign old blame to score political points, something worth watching carefully.

Or how about assigning entirely new blame? This Daily Beast article goes there with a sensational sub-headline involving former counterterrorism czar (and Bush blamer) Richard Clarke:

In a new documentary, former national-security aide Richard Clarke suggests the CIA tried to recruit 9/11 hijackers—then covered it up. Philip Shenon on George Tenet’s denial.

Say what? The CIA knew about all the 9/11 hijackers and didn't tell the FBI or Richard Clarke? Not quite. The third paragraph explains:

In the interview for the documentary, Clarke offers an incendiary theory that, if true, would rewrite the history of the 9/11 attacks, suggesting that the CIA intentionally withheld information from the White House and FBI in 2000 and 2001 that two Saudi-born terrorists were on U.S. soil—terrorists who went on to become suicide hijackers on 9/11.

Emphasis added to clarify that it's really a new twist on an old story about the two west coast hijackers. Both had been surveilled going in and out of the 2000 terrorist summit meeting in Kuala Lumpur before flying into LAX. Tenet responded:

In a written response prepared last week in advance of the broadcast, Tenet says that Clarke, who famously went public in 2004 to blow the whistle on the Bush White House over intelligence failures before 9/11, has “suddenly invented baseless allegations which are belied by the record and unworthy of serious consideration.”

Not that he can always be trusted--remember in his book he spoke of seeing Bush neo-con Richard Perle in Washington on 9/11, who supposedly told him that they suspected Saddam Hussein in the attack. The only problem was Perle--he was out of the country and couldn't get back until after 9/11 due to the airline lockdown. Whoops.

But was it possible the CIA were trying to recruit the two to uncover a bigger plot? Sure. Is it possible they peddled CYA to prevent people from blaming them? It wouldn't be surprising. Does that forever change the history of 9/11? Not really. For such a change to occur Clarke would need to prove they deliberately knew of the attack specifics but kept them under wraps so they could keep watching them, something as yet proven by no one. We already knew there was a 'wall' between intel and law enforcement that discouraged information sharing between the stovepipes.

Yet Clarke seems to think he could have single-handedly prevented the attack had he only known about the presence of these two because he would have ordered them arrested immediately. Has he considered that Moussaoui was arrested before the attack? He knew something was up but kept his trap shut. Is Clarke really suggesting he would have waterboarded these guys, knowing they hadn't told him about a plot he didn't know was only a week away, or does he think UBL would have canceled rather than just reshuffled the crews? Neither were pilots.

But Clarke has a history of saying newsy things, such as his comment that Terry Nichols possibly got his bomb-making knowledge by visiting with Islamic terrorists while in the Philippines; that the glowing streak in the sky seen by hundreds of witnesses during the crash of TWA 800 twas actually the plane itself, which had blown itself up and was ascending 2500 feet without its nose section; and that bin Laden might "Boogie to Baghdad" if Clinton botched an assassination attempt on him in Afghanistan. Wait, those didn't really make much news. The media doesn't seem interesting in following up on those assertions for some reason.

Speaking of our new Vegan ex-president, what about his role in 9/11? The last time someone broached the subject he blew a gasket, evidently chilling the airwaves sufficiently such that nobody else has dared follow the path towards the entire story.

Meanwhile "Darth" Cheney's treatment remains quite predictable. He'll definitely be making news ahead of the coming anniversary, most of it bad, so evidently the plan was to get out ahead of the smear by releasing his own accounts via memoir. The press has trickled out tidbits, one suggesting he was imitating Alexander Haig right after 9/11 (I am in control) while another lists his undisclosed locations. More on this head-exploding stuff after reading the book.

Finally, George W. Bush will be making the rounds and speaking about his emotions and actions on that fateful day, including a NatGeo special this Sunday. Here's an MSNBC hostess discussing that show with its producer, focusing almost all her questions on the My Pet Goat meme. Ah yes, patriotic memories of 9/11, MSNBC style.

If We Can Just Get Past This..

First we have the 60 Minutes thing where imam Rauf calls the US an accessory to 9/11. Then later in Australia he says our killing of Iraqi children through UN sanctions helped fuel the bin Laden we helped to create.

He did so by referencing Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11.

Fast forward to today. Steven Emerson, the Paul Revere of warning about radical Islam in America, has an expose on the former partner of Rauf, a Sufi Mulsim named Faiz Khan. Who's also 9/11 truther:

In an essay on the Alliance's website, he argued that "the prime factor for the success of the criminal mission known as 9/11 did not come from the quarter known as 'militant Islam' although the phenomenon known as 'militant Islamic networks' may have played a partial role, or even a less than partial role - perhaps the role of patsy and scapegoat."

But, since guilt by association is not cool just consider this another question for Bill O'Reilly to ask when he does his Rauf interview. And he will of course--because Bill has the biggest cable reach in the business and therefore can help Mr. Rauf build a huge bridge all across America with exactly the kind of people he wants to reach.

Break Time

Taking a bit of a break this week so blogging will be light but wanted to mention the new show that premiered on AMC this past Sunday night. "Rubicon" follows another really good show called "Breaking Bad", which ended its season Sunday in a thriller (and has become must-see TV for me).

The Rubicon premiere was very good but I'm wondering where the show will go. It seems to be bordering on a Bilderberger/Trilateral Commission angle, which would be harmless (X Files was a conspiracy show but focusing on aliens was harmless as well) but with the main character's wife and child having been killed in the WTC on 9/11 they may go in a more twoofery direction.

Another troubling aspect--the show had several mainstream media papers sending a coded message message (about something) through their crossword puzzles, which starts a train of mysterious happenings. Whether these messages were sent by lower level employees in the papers or their owners is unclear at this point but the show ended with a group of older white guys celebrating someone's death in their upscale home, so we'll see.

To Those Who Desire Another Investigation...

Eight years have now passed since that terrible day. A little over eight and a half years passed between the first attack on the WTC in 1993 and 9/11. We don't give enough credit to the hard men and women of action who've protected our freedoms and ability to mindlessly watch sports and Dancing with the Stars without much worry about airplanes crashing into buildings or suicide bombers at malls. "Kudos" hardly seems enough.

The attacks affected everyone differently. Some got mad, others scared, others internalized the event and blamed presidents or America itself. Charlie Sheen is currently narrating a tape asking Obama to re-open the 9/11 investigation. While this might evoke Tower 7, thermate, and all sorts of other truther nonsense it also opens the door wide to investigating the "other side"--the history of what occurred before Bush 43 arrived in the White House.

The title of Sandra Harmon's new book "Mafia Son" doesn't give the impression it would interest those searching for the truth about 9/11. It's filled with all kinds of gory details about the evildoings of mobsters, specifically Columbo family member Greg Scarpa, Sr. and his son Greg, Jr. But aside from the stories and tall tales there's one indeed related to terrorism, a very interesting story told by Greg, Jr about his stay in the Manhattan lockup with 93 WTC bomber Ramzi Yousef during the mid 90s.

Before going further it's prudent to remember that most crooks are pathological liars; they lie during trial to stay out of jail and once in, they lie trying to get out. The story begins with Scarpa Jr's confinement in Manhattan, under indictment on RICO charges including 5 murders, who was angling for a reduction. Yousef was there too, charged with 6 murders (but they could have charged him with about 200,000 attempted murders) for trying to knock down the trade towers and a few airplanes. Scarpa was enlisted to snoop on the super-terrorist.

Harmon goes into detail starting in chapter 30 of her book. Scarpa, who had a cell between Yousef and Abdul Hakim Murad (the other bomber who was working on Bojinka), was involved in "kiting" coded messages between the two terrorists:

Before forwarding the messages, however, Gregory photographed the kites (which included recipes for making homemade bombs), using a miniature spy camera provided by the FBI.

Included in the presumed treasure trove were detailed information about Uncle KSM, bin Laden, previous plots, and plans to blow up a 747 using micro bombs. Indeed:

Yousef told Gregory that a terrorist attack on a plane during his Bojinka trial would surely prejudice the jurors against him, allowing Yousef to request a mistrial...

As Harmon tells it, rather unbelievably Scarpa convinced Yousef that the mob had a secret conduit to smuggle in a cell phone undetected by the jail, and he fell for it. Of course the FBI tapped the line and heard many calls to KSM about attacks and such, including this:

On March 5, 1996, Yousef told Gregory that Al-Qaeda had already positioned "four terrorists...here in the United States" who were awaiting orders from bin Laden to poison New York City's drinking water, attack government installations, or take down a plane.

But the smoking gun in this whole encounter was undoubtedly when Yousef told Scarpa that AQ would bring down New York with "flying massive bombs". Harmon says Patrick Fitzgerald, then the AUSA in the SDNY, laughed when told of this plot. You'll have to read her book for the rest, including messages about the downing of a 747 on Iraq Liberation Day, July 17.

Needless to say, the gist of her story is that the Clinton administration and the Freeh FBI took these threats far too lightly and perhaps even covered up attacks or threats in the years before 9/11. In large part this is 20/20 hindsight; assuming the information presented to be truthful it's hard to say whether things would have been different had they pursued stronger defensive measures or gone harder after bin Laden. It's also worth remembering that the GOP was hammering Clinton at the time and accusing him of 'wagging the dog', so it's doubtful our increasingly divided population would have put down the remotes and paid any more attention back then as they are nowadays, even after 9/11.

But if they're gonna do another 9/11 investigation it seems imprudent not to take a little closer look at exactly what went on in that jail cell back in the mid 90s.


DOES THIS COUNT AS REMEMBRANCE? 9/12/09

Since 9/11 is officially a day of remembrance perhaps it should be extended back to other 9/11s before the 2001 version. September 11, 1990 was a fairly memorable day in world politics, since it was the day George W. Bush's father proclaimed to Congress that America and the civilized nations were on the verge of a "New World Order". Most older adults have no trouble remembering that but few know what day it occurred.

In the same speech Mr. Bush said the following:

Vital issues of principle are at stake. Saddam Hussein is literally trying to wipe a country off the face of the Earth. We do not exaggerate. Nor do we exaggerate when we say Saddam Hussein will fail. Vital economic interests are at risk as well. Iraq itself controls some 10 percent of the world's proven oil reserves. Iraq plus Kuwait controls twice that. An Iraq permitted to swallow Kuwait would have the economic and military power, as well as the arrogance, to intimidate and coerce its neighbors -- neighbors who control the lion's share of the world's remaining oil reserves. We cannot permit a resource so vital to be dominated by one so ruthless. And we won't.

He was forthright about the oil, wasn't he? There's more:

Our interest, our involvement in the Gulf is not transitory. It predated Saddam Hussein's aggression and will survive it. Long after all our troops come home -- and we all hope it's soon, very soon -- there will be a lasting role for the United States in assisting the nations of the Persian Gulf. Our role then: to deter future aggression. Our role is to help our friends in their own self-defense. And something else: to curb the proliferation of chemical, biological, ballistic missile and, above all, nuclear technologies.

Let me also make clear that the United States has no quarrel with the Iraqi people. Our quarrel is with Iraq's dictator and with his aggression. Iraq will not be permitted to annex Kuwait. That's not a threat, that's not a boast, that's just the way it's going to be.

When Yousef arrived in America in 1992 his phony passport had a date stamp-- September 11, 1990.

Appalling and shocking connections exposed

A new book is reporting that, gasp, the former executive director of the 9/11 Commission, Philip Zelikow, actually had some previous ties to Bush administration officials. Who knew? Well, uh, everyone .

Of course Bush tried to get a friendly on the staff. Was he supposed to just sit back while Clinton got Jamie Gorelick and Richard Ben Venista appointed to what everyone figured might be a finger-pointing food fight of epic proportions?

But no matter, it's clear that bashing Bush is the gift that keeps on giving for many in nutroot forest. All that's required is to mention Saddam, al Qaeda, Bush and Rove in the same paragraph and sales await, as evidenced by one of the book's "charges":

The book says that in early 2004, Zelikow allegedly sought to add to an initial staff report wording that linked al-Qaida to Iraq. The wording would have said the terrorist network repeatedly tried to communicate with the government of Saddam Hussein, a claim of cooperation the administration had cited to justify the war in Iraq.

Disregard all those documented meetings or the other terrorists Saddam coddled, he had no WMDs! And AQ was a rootless, stateless, non-state entity operating outside of all known states from super caves in the mountains. That we're still waiting for the Commission to speculate on where all their funding came from, or what role Ramzi Yousef played, is a mere side matter.

And let's not dwell on the fact a former Clinton official was caught sneaking out the side door of the National Archives with material relating to the investigation (the stuff he hadn't already scissored). Trivia. Bush lied.

But wait, it makes no difference our very same sticky fingered former cabinet member later welcomed one of the 9/11 Commissioners to his international consulting firm. Maybe that's why the former commish replied in a sort of "I'm OK, you're OK" fashion when asked for comment:

Former Rep. Lee Hamilton, the panel's Democratic vice chairman, praised Zelikow as a "person of integrity" who was up front in disclosing his background and White House contacts.

Or maybe he just remarked that way because this is much ado about nothing. I'm going with the latter.

MORE 2/4/08

Paul Craig Roberts, who's always introduced as a former Reagan official but has pretty much been a raving moonbat for quite some time now, thinks he's solved the mystery of the destroyed CIA tapes:

Was the video evidence withheld from the 9/11 Commission because the alleged participants in the plot did not confess, did not implicate al Qaeda, and did not implicate bin Laden?

No. If the administration engineered 9/11 they'd really have no need to deal with any tapes whatsoever. Thinking they staged fake secret interrogations so they could later use them as a misdirection play by destroying tapes of said fake interrogations because they implicated the wrong players doesn't make sense from a truther standpoint. Or any other.

Mr. Roberts notion only makes sense if the answers given were shockers. In other words, the perpetrators confessed that yes, they did the deed, but that al Qaeda itself wasn't as rootless and stateless as the 9/11 Commission and others wanted everyone to believe.

9/11 conspiracy poll

Well, this is rather interesting:

Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the federal government had warnings about 9/11 but decided to ignore them, a national survey found.

The poll was run by Scripps-Howard with help from Ohio University. A similar poll conducted last year found 'only' 36 percent believing that government officials allowed the attacks or ignored warnings. Wonder where these polls were in the 90s asking whether the 1993 WTC attack or the Oklahoma City bombing were inside jobs?

Anyway, are 2/3rds of Americans really troofers or were the poll questions just worded funky? Hard to say, since we don't yet have the actual questions or the age distribution of the poll respondents. The Post described it thusly:

Sixty-two percent of those polled thought it was "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that federal officials turned a blind eye to specific warnings of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Emphasis added. If indeed the poll question said "specific warnings" then 2 out of every 3 people are in the least uninformed and at worst dumbasses. There were no specific warnings about the attack.

There was a heightened level of chatter through summer 2001 (something that anyone working around aviation can attest to) but nothing specific enough to allow for direct mitigation. This is largely a 20/20 hindsight thing--browse the NTSB accident database and you'll see story after story where crashes occurred despite adequate foresight. Human beings are prone to such things.

Hard to say whether people answered thinking 'ignored warnings' simply meant incompetence, not complicity, but the key here seems to be the large increase over last year, all things being equal. Here's my free WAG on what it might mean.

Ron Paul has wild support among younger voters, who recently raised an astounding amount of cash for him online. He's been doing a hamster dance around the edges of trutherville for several years now. The net itself is replete with sites containing not only theories, but claims of unambiguous truth about 9/11 being an inside job. We've also seen a handful of celebrities 'come out', like Rosie, who proclaimed her trutherism, complete with their web site addresses given on mainstream TV.

The Bush component is a no-brainer--during the past year we've seen several high profile administration buddies fleeing the White House amidst the Libby scandal coming home to roost. This only fuels the "Bush lied" meme, especially since the man himself will not do justice by publicly dispelling it (and isn't likely to anytime soon). Of course that's part of the conspiracy. Then again, if he came out and strongly denied everything it would also be part of the conspiracy.

In defense of conspiracy theorists we've all seen declassified documents emerge after countless decades only to that suggest that hey, the government indeed does cover up things at times. Many are also sure they've seen UFOs, and Ruby's assassination of Oswald was pretty convenient. I've explored the TWA 800 case here on many occasions. And consider that Americans were not told at the time that Samuel Byck's motive for his attempted hijacking of a Delta DC-9 from BWI airport in 1974 was to crash the plane into the White House and kill Nixon. In Woodward's first book, Bush was quoted as saying he would be honest with the public, but not "brutally" honest about the specific nature of certain threats.

But while it's one thing to believe the feds are covering stuff up for our own good it's quite another to have 62 percent actually believe the government is working against us. If that number is correct it doesn't bode well for the future of the country should we get attacked again (or shall we say, when).

More specifically, it can be said that America is suffering from her own success in counterterrorism these past six years. The lack of attacks since 9/11 has produced in some the notion it was only an isolated incident. Such fantasy plays directly into the hands of those who would blow us up. If the bad guys were to reasonably believe another attack wouldn't bring us together but rather continue to fracture us as a nation, with 60 percent immediately blaming our own government for any new attacks, well, to use a basketball term, it's a free throw.

Hannity and Flight 800

New York Newsday:

Yet 11 years after the center fuel tank of TWA Flight 800 caught fire, killing 230 people, the Federal Aviation Administration still does not require commercial jetliners to carry devices to make the fuel in their tanks inert, and Hurd is angry about it.

He has that right, his son died on the flight. As for those of us not directly affected this is perhaps more a curiosity.

Normally air disasters prompt a substantial knee-jerk, first from the NTSB then from the FAA, who ultimately may issue directives or advisories followed by fleet retrofitting, all designed to mitigate future recurrences. But not in this case. Indeed the NTSB's recommedations remain "open unacceptable".

In the litigation-crazy world of aviation one might think this 'oversight' represents gobs of low-hanging liability fruit. The answer might lie in statistics. See, up until flight 800 no other US commercial jet had ever disintegrated itself due to a fuel tank explosion while in-flight. The odds simply don't favor another recurrence, or if you prefer, the first occurrence.

There are conspiracies galore attempting to explain this rarity, perhaps more than any crash prior to 9/11. There have also been a few books and mainstream exposes over the years, most recently on the cable show "Seconds from Disaster". CNN also did a feature last year on the 10th anniversary, both pooh-poohing everything but the probable cause.

On Sunday night Sean Hannity featured the crash on his "Hannity's America" program. He devoted all of about six or seven minutes to the segment, which was not nearly enough to explain such an issue. For brevity's sake we'll try not to waste seven minutes of your time in proving the piece was a worthless piece of crap due to his avoidance of just about every compelling reason why some believe the crash was not a spontaneous fuel tank explosion. If you feel compelled to waste more time on the subject the links above are recommended, or simply click the tag here.

Actually, six or seven minutes would have been enough had he just focused on the most obvious oddity--the backdrop graphic used throughout the piece that said "CIA Animation" seen above. A clever (or brave) host might have simply asked why the CIA was involved in explaining a civil air crash and whether that's ever happened before. Precedent would suggest Langley has no statutory authority in civilian crashes nor would they in domestic terrorism cases. He could have asked George Tenet why he forgot to mention 800 in his lengthy book, or why the infamous "Wall" of separation between CIA and FBI was temporarily suspended.

"Why dwell on such things"? Fair question. We all prefer truth over truthiness and my knowledge of aviation is just enough to make me dangerous. There's also the guilty pleasure of watching the "9/11 truthers" foam at the mouth over melted Trade Center steel while expressing not one whit of interest in the first passenger jet to ever spontaneously explode then be explained away by the very organization they blame for our current blow back.

Alright, yes, there's obviously a political component since if the crash was actually a covered-up terrorist attack it would shine new energy efficient light on the road taken to arrive at our current predicament, a road paved with players who aspire to re-enter the palace gates.

But the old saying "be careful what you wish for" has some basis. As Mac Ranger once opined, there are certain events that can be classified loosely as "for the greater good" where the truth might actually do more damage than the cover-up. Such a precept might well explain what's going on here.

So, barring any unforeseen major blockbuster revelations about 800 (which are about as likely as a DoD press conference announcing the truth about space aliens) it's time to move along. Hopefully the victims' families can live with the explanations they've been given. And we can also hope that it doesn't happen again before the 'needed repairs' are completed. Ahem.

Truthers and Memphis

The Roniacs are having some fun with a Michelle Malkin column someone dug up from 2002 that seems to question the public explanations for 9/11.

Briefly, the comparison is not apt. Paul's comments were contemporary while Malkin's were pre 9/11 Commission. Besides, by not vocally refuting these Twoof folks Paul is leaving himself open to entertaining tales about Black Ops thermite teams and such, something not very president-like in my opinion.

But I'll let them fight it out. I'd rather explore her initial questions.

FLIGHT 93

We still don't know what happened regards the passenger who called 911 from the lavatory and told them he heard an explosion and saw smoke. This character was not included in "United 93" nor did he show up in "Flight 93", the made-for-TV version. If his accounting of events is correct it strongly suggests the plane was hit by a missile.

The NTSB has treated the CVR tapes with kid gloves, which by the way is not necessarily a bad thing since the tapes from 93 and the other planes probably include last second screams of Allahu Akbar or other incendiary remarks seconds before impact. Such a thing might be a tad disturbing to victims' families not to mention the propaganda effect on like-minded Muslims around the world, some perhaps here in the States.

Even if we shot it down most rational folk could perhaps see the wisdom of such an act in light of the events of the day. For all we know the passengers themselves might have figured that into their decision to storm the cockpit. Whatever the case, their heroism was undeniable by the fact it was partially captured on tape. Now, if both events took place together it was certainly a no-brainer to celebrate one over the other, especially as an example of the American fighting spirit with the challenges that lay ahead.

Compare that with the Truther nuts who've claimed that since the Shanksville hole was not big enough it proved the PLANE NEVER EXISTED or was flown hundreds of miles away and the passengers were taken off and killed, or spirited away to Area 52 or vaporized with secret plasma guns on orders from Alien High Command. Or whatever it is today.

FLIGHT 11

Why would it be surprising to find that one of the hijackers had a gun? It's logical for the government to leave this one hanging if true since trumpeting such a fact might leave the impression that AQ was staffing airline ground crew positions. It was going to be hard enough to get people back in the seats as it was. There's also that pesky liability issue. It's harder to sue the government than the airlines or private security companies.

KATHERINE SMITH

Turns out Memphis is a sort of "truth central". Katherine Smith was a hometown story. I've renewed tags at the same license bureau Ms. Smith worked. It's surprisingly hard to find any in-depth local stories about the event, which was ruled a murder. It was just one of a series of bizarre events that occurred around here within a year of the 9/11 attacks. Here's a refresher (among other things) if you care, including the most bizarre of them all--the strange "attack" on Memphis Medical Examiner O.C. Smith (no relation). He worked on many of these cases.

Here we are in 2007 and none of the perpetrators who attacked Ms. Smith, Dr. Don Wiley, or ME O.C. Smith have been apprehended. Just like the anthrax case. All have apparently been transferred to the frozen foods section. Maybe it's for good reason. After all, it's not like this is the first time the government has tried to keep a secret during wartime.

Tower 7 nonsense

Although only about 35 percent of Democrats believe 9/11 was an inside job most of those 35 percent have seemingly focused their energies on the collapse of Seven World Trade Center, AKA, Tower 7. Call it the last best hope of trutherism.

They've been successful in getting some national publicity via "The View" and recently broached the subject to a couple of relatively famous politicians (John Kerry and John Edwards) at town hall meetings. They also succeeded in getting the movie "Loose Change" shown on Virgin Atlantic Airways flights, at least for a day.

In case you don't subscribe to conspiracy monthly like I do the gist of the plot is that Tower 7 was "pulled" somehow, either by planting charges after the attack or pre-positioned charges placed before the attack. The WTC owner, Larry Silverstein, presumably took out a massive insurance policy a short time before the attack, implicating him in insurance fraud for ordering the damaged tower knocked down or perhaps being a part of the larger neoconspiracy.

Anyway, Rosie was back at it Monday. I've not blogged much on the 9/11 truther movement because to me it's far too vast to be plausible and all the proponents are highly politically motivated, which obviously clouds their judgment and conclusions. I've also got some knowledge of the aviation business and some of the players involved and know they are not part of any conspiracy.

Besides, I'd rather waste my blog time talking about conspiracies with red meat. I know that's what "they say" but the major difference is a willingness to admit error--my theories could be nothing more than a total crock. The 9/11 truthers are so invested in their outcome they can't begin to debunk themselves nor consider the possibility of being wrong, which is a sure sign of depravity, fraud, or depravity.

The point of all this scribbling was to provide this very good link (in case you haven't seen it) ahead of the View's proposed debate over Tower Seven (and John Edward's upcoming investigation). It contains excerpts from Firehouse Magazine, which I refuse to believe is a neocon shell with ties to Hitler or Zionists (whatever) like Popular Mechanics.

Armed with such information the debate shouldn't be close. Can't wait for the audience roar as Rosie goes down in flames at the hands of Elizabeth. Just imagine it--Rosie, head down, humiliated in front of a national TV audience by a fireman present at the scene, an engineer, and maybe a few airline employees. Maybe some View staffers will arrive with a rail and run her out on it.

Pure fantasy, yes. But I'll leave one serious question--how much of this Tower 7 business is designed to poke holes in Rudy knowing that's his strongest suit? It doesn't have to be right, just leave a seed of doubt.