Topic: WE'RE STUFFED!!!

[Nichi]

And more daily results from my investigation.

Planes - what planes?

DW: Hello Gerard, thank you for agreeing to an email interview.

I know that many people, including myself, have read much information and disinformation about the aircraft/no-aircraft used on 11th September 2001, and it is quite confusing.

You appear to have a clear-cut picture, and are prepared to debate your opinion, so it is very kind of you to provide answers to some simple questions.

Q1. — Is it true that the official account of events on 11th September 2001 claims that four planes crashed, one into the North Tower of the World Trade Centre, one into the South Tower, one into the Pentagon, and one into a field in Pennsylvania?

Yes.


North Tower
Q2. — What was the flight number of the plane which reportedly hit the North Tower?

American Airlines Flight 11 from Logan to LA.

Q3. — What did you discover about flight AA11 regarding which aeroplane was used, and what happened to it? Please give references to your source material.

According to official flight logs, no such flight existed on Sept 11, 2001.
 
The Bureau of Transportation logs every domestic flight ever scheduled from a US airport, conducted by a carrier accounting for more than 1% of domestic air traffic. All scheduled flights, whether actually completed or not must by law be reported to this database, unless the flight is cancelled more than 7 days prior to the departure date.

No such flight appears in the records.

Therefore there are three possibilities.

1. No such flight was ever scheduled
2. Such a flight was scheduled but was cancelled more than 7 days prior to the departure date.
3. If such a flight was scheduled and not cancelled more than 7 days prior, then the database has been illegally manipulated or tampered with in some way, which of course raises new questions.

In summary, the situation is that *according to official records* no such flight ever took place.

It should be noted that after this information was discovered and published as an article, the BT almost immediately shut down its data base, and when it put it back up it had moved it to a different URL without leaving a forwarding address at the old URL (the one which was given in the published article), strongly indicating consciousness of guilt. Ten months later they doctored the database to try to include the flights, although the doctored data, while now claiming that the flight was scheduled, still has it as never departing.
Thus all the evidence points to options 1 or 2, although option 3 is still a theoretical possibility.

Q4. — Has any aircraft wreckage, or black box been found at the purported crash site?

Nothing which can be identified as from an aircraft.

Q5. — Are there any official records of passengers boarding the flight?

If so, they have never been released. However, many media outlets did publish lists which purported to be official lists, but which were proven on close examination to be fabrications.

So while one can never 100% rule out the theoretical possibility that the flight existed and the theoretical possibility that somewhere there are official passenger lists, the fact that the media published fake lists and passed them off as official, leads any reasonable person to the conclusion that no such official lists exist.

Q6. — Are any recorded passengers known to be missing, or have had death certificates issued?

To my knowledge there is no official documentation, but it's certainly possible that such documentation exists. Through local enquiries I have confirmed from personal contacts that at least one person listed by the media as being on that flight is definitely missing and that his family believes that he was on the flight.

While I have seen little to prove the missing/dead status of those allegedly on the flight, I have also seen nothing to disprove it. There is a hole in that area of my knowledge of the subject.

Q7. — Is there any video or other evidence that a commercial passenger airliner hit the north tower?

No. the video shows clearly that the object was not a large passenger jet, nor a conventional plane of any type.

Exactly what it is, is difficult to tell but it appears to be some kind of highly advanced secret technology.

South Tower
Q8. — What was the flight number of the plane allegedly involved here?

United Airlines 175 from Logan to LA.

Q9. — What was the tail number of the plane allocated to that flight?

N612UA. The BTS flight logs record the tail number.

Q10. — What is the status of that registered plane today?

Valid, according to the FAA aircraft registry. Search the registry at http://162.58.35.241/acdatabase/acmain.htm.

Q11. — So your research indicates that aeroplane N612UA, which was allocated to flight UA175, which is purported to have hit the South Tower is, according to official FAA records, a valid registration today?

Yes.

Q12. — Is there any aircraft wreckage or video or other evidence that a commercial passenger aircraft hit the south tower?

No wreckage.


What is not said here, but what I got in my book from Gerard Holmgren is that the destruction dates from two of the planes involved in the 9/11 attacks are dated in January 2002. Not in sept 2001 which it should be in regular air plane crashes. Why this delay in time for destruction? Etc etc the more I put my eyes on the event back then the more questions arise.

If this were true, then I imagine the passenger deaths from that flight would have to have been faked as well. This isn't anything I've looked into, but I seem to recall at the time there were small bios released on the passengers. If all of that was fictitious, it seems like that would be a relatively easy thing to prove, for someone with the right energy for it.

[Nichi]

Jahn, what struck me as odd at the time was this:
The skies were flight-free for several days following 9/11, and yet, the US is supposed to have flown out of the country Mrs. Bin Laden and her family during that time, or sanctioned her exit, making a special allowance for the flight. If they had a belief in him being the leader of this event, it seems highly likely they would have somehow hung onto her. Instead, the feeling conveyed was that they protected her.

Likewise, if he was the leader of the event, why would he have acted when she was in the country? Doesn't seem prudent.

But who knows, perhaps all of this is myth.

[Michael]

Writing a book? Now that is a substantial approach. I assume you will have studied and covered the arguments from this famous article now a book:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/3491861.html

[Nichi]

Writing a book? Now that is a substantial approach. I assume you will have studied and covered the arguments from this famous article now a book:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/3491861.html

I read McCain's forward. Lots of patriotism in that piece.

[TIOTIT]

New geologic evidence of past periods of oscillating, abrupt warming, and cooling
10 11 2009

Guest post by Dr. Don J. Easterbrook, Emeritus Professor at Western Washington University

Two hundred years ago, Charles Lyell coined the phrase “The present is the key to the past.” In today’s highly contentious issues of global climate change, we might well add “The past is the key to the future, i.e., to forecast future geologic events, we must understand past climate changes.  This paper documents past global climate changes in the geologic and historic past.

Recent laser imaging of the Earth’s surface provides new evidence for abrupt, fluctuating, warm and cool climatic episodes that could not have been caused by changes in atmospheric CO2.  In a paper presented at the national meeting of the Geological Society of America in Portland, OR, Professor Don J. Easterbrook, Professor of Geology at Western Washington University, presented new data from airborne laser imagery showing well-defined, previously unknown, multiple moraines deposited by glaciers 11,700 to 10,250 years ago.

At least 9 significant, abrupt periods of warming that resulted in retreat of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet are documented by moraines from successive glacial retreats in the Fraser Lowland of NW Washington l(Fig. 1).  In addition, smaller multiple glacier recessions are found within the more prominent episodes of glacier retreat.  As indicated by the amount of glacier recession between each of the successive moraines, the warming events were of greater magnitude than those observed in recent centuries.

oscillating_climate1

Figure 1.  Successive terminal moraines from short–term glacier recessions caused by climatic warming between 11,700 and 10,250 years ago.

Isotope data from Greenland ice cores and show a consistent pattern of fluctuating warm and cool periods over the past 500 years (Fig. 2).  The average period of warming/cooling oscillations over the past 500 years is 27 years, remarkably similar to the period of alternation between warm and cool Pacific Decadal Oscillation.

oscillating_climate2

Figure 2.  Paleotemperatures derived from oxygen isotope measurements of the GISP2 Greenland ice core.  Red peaks are times of warming and blue are times of cooling.  The average time period for each climatic oscillation is 27 years.

During the past century, two episodes of global warming and two of global cooling have occurred (Fig. 3), all of which can be tied to glacial oscillations, oceanic temperature changes, atmospheric temperature changes, and solar variation.

oscillating_climate3

Figure 3.  Coincidence of Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), global temperature, and glacier fluctuations in the North Cascades.  Glaciers advanced during the 1880–1915 cool period when the PDO was cool, then when the PDO switched to its warm mode, global temperatures warmed, and glaciers retreated from ~1915–1945.  The PDO changed from warm to cool ~1945–1977, global temperatures cooled and glaciers advanced once again.  In 1977, the PDO switched from cool to warm mode, global temperatures warmed, and glaciers retreated.  In 1999, the PDO changed back to its cool mode and global cooling began.

What we can learn from this geologic climate changes is that the past is indeed the key to the future.  In 1999, the year after the warmest year of recent times, I projected the climate pattern from the past century and past 500 years into the future and predicted that we would be due for 25–30 years of global cooling beginning about 2000.  The PDO changed from its warm to cool mode in 1999 and since then we have had global cooling, quite moderate to flat (interrupted by two warm El Ninos) and intensifying since 2007.

oscillating_climate4

Figure 4.  Projection of climate changes of the last century and past 500 years into the future.  The black curve is temperature variation from 1900 to 2009; the red line is the IPCC projected warming from the IPCC website in 2000; the blue curves are several possible projections of climate change to 2040+ based on past global cooling periods (1945-1977; 1880 to 1915; and 1790 to 1820).  The lack of sun spots during the past solar cycle has surpassed all records since the Dalton Minimum and some solar physicists have suggested we may be headed for a Dalton or Maunder type mimimum with severe cooling.

Abstract of paper presented to Geological Society of America, Oct. 19, 2009

THE ROLE OF THE OCEANS AND THE SUN IN LATE PLEISTOCENE AND HISTORIC GLACIAL AND CLIMATIC FLUCTUATIONS

EASTERBROOK, Don J., Dept. of Geology, Western Washington Univ, Bellingham, WA 98225, don.easterbrook [ -at -] wwu.edu

Lidar imagery of the southern part of the Fraser Lowland in WA reveals previously unknown, multiple, latest Pleistocene (Sumas Stade) end moraines overlying Everson glaciomarine drift (gmd). Multiple marine shorelines extend from about 540’ to about 100’above present sea level and are truncated by two of the oldest Sumas end moraines. These moraines are younger than the underlying Everson gmd, which is well dated at 11,700 14C yrs. B.P., and older than 11,400 14C yrs. B.P. basal bog dates behind the moraines. Recession of the ice from the outermost moraines was followed by building of at least nine end moraines, some of which clearly represent glacial readvances. Basal bog dates from a kettle in outwash from the youngest Sumas moraine has been dated at 10,250 14C yrs. B.P.

Isotope data from Greenland ice cores and historic atmospheric and oceanic temperature records show a consistent pattern of fluctuating 25-30–year warm and cool periods over the past 500 years. During the past century, five of these climate fluctuations can be tied to glacial oscillations, oceanic temperature changes, atmospheric temperature changes, and solar variation.

The question is—what drives these oscillations? The older fluctuations can be linked to changes in 14C and 10Be isotope production rates in the upper atmosphere, suggesting variation in cosmogenic radiation. Historic climatic and oceanic temperature fluctuations are associated with solar variations. The excellent correlation of glacial, climatic, oceanic, and solar variation strongly suggests cause and effect relationships. Past patterns of these variations allow projection into the future.

[TIOTIT]

What agood idea!!!

http://eclipptv.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=8305

[Michael]

The revolution within Islam.

One of the problem with Islam is that debate and counter-opinion are actively discouraged. Compare with Buddhism where debate is one of the foundational premises.

This is possibly cultural, but considering the wide coverage of Islam across the globe and the persistence of an obvious lack of internal debate on religious interpretations and principles, it appears the feature is endemic to Islam itself.

I asked Julie's past supervisor at a seminar he was giving, what about the movement for change from within Islam? I asked this because I knew of a famous gathering of international Islamic notaries somewhere in the Eremites region, where they denounced the philosophical basis of violent extremist Islamic groups.

This was on top of the recent recant from one of the foundational thinkers of violent jihad, who had been in goal in Egypt ever since the attack on Parliament there many years ago. He had completely revised his opinion on violence in Islam, and put out some statement to that extent, which was supposed to have cut significant authority from under Al Qaeda.

His response to me was that the political leaders of all Islamic nations had showed complete abnegation in taking up their responsibility of denouncing this Islamist movement. He felt that no impulse for change was ever going to come from Islamic countries.

Well, I have to agree about politicians. Even in the midst of Pakistan's war against the Taliban, even in the midst of continued popular radio, TV and demonstrations' accusations that 'no Muslim would ever do such things to another Muslim' and thus the perpetrators of these daily suicide killings is the axis of evil: India-Israel-US - still no political leader has stood up and called a spade a spade. That the perpetrators are the Taliban... it remains implied.

Some columnists are calling Pakistan the State of Denial. Some can see painfully clearly, yet one gets the feeling their voices are thin.

Two things have recently happened to change this.

At a major Muslim gathering with India, the head-honchos of Islam in India spoke out in no uncertain terms that this violent extremism is anti-Islam, against the teachings and the religion. (Mind you, if you have read the Koran, these claims are a bit of a long bow for some of us, but gratefully acknowledged nonetheless.)

Now the same has happened in Pakistan:

RAIWIND: Inayatullah Khan sits on a dusty rug and prepares to pray at Pakistan's biggest religious gathering of 400,000 Muslims, cursing the Taliban for their ‘unholy crusade’ against humanity.

Khan travelled all the way from the tribal region of South Waziristan to take part in the four-day event, one of the world's largest Islamic meetings, in Raiwind on the outskirts of Pakistan's cultural capital Lahore.

A resident of Kanigurram, a former Taliban hub that the military says it has captured during its ongoing five-week offensive in the northwest, Khan, 50, accused the Taliban of straying from the path of God and butchering Muslims.

‘They call those who refuse to follow their brand of Islam infidels, not knowing they are inviting the wrath of Allah the almighty by killing Muslims, which I call an unholy crusade,’ Khan said.

‘The Taliban are enemies of Islam and humanity and advance only an American and Indian agenda -- to destabilise Pakistan,’ said Farhan Hamad Khan, who had come from Dera Ismail Khan, where many other refugees are also living.

Who knows, perhaps the change is finally so obviously overdue that some brave souls have risked their lives to speak - I expect they will soon lose those lives for that however. The Taliban take close notice of any dissent.

It should always be remembered that Islam has never been a cohesive unit. Aside from Shia and Sunni, there have been endless splits and schisms, factions and disagreements. Even the Black Stone of Mecca itself was once stolen by a rival group, who actually had a very mystical side to them.

So will we see a change in Islam? I expect there will be - it's human nature, and the way of the weird for fashions to pass. But debate within Islam ... hmmm...

[Michael]

Julie has called me to task on this - apparently Islam does in fact have a very healthy tradition of debate and questioning. That apparently is not in dispute. The current situation is seen differently.

There are issues around authority and leadership, to say nothing of Wahhabism.

I will need to put this to some experts I come across in my daily travels.

[Jahn]

Writing a book? Now that is a substantial approach. I assume you will have studied and covered the arguments from this famous article now a book:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/3491861.html

Writing a book is great fun, this is instead of wasting my time on computer games. I am a self appointed detective,

Now there is a huge mass of info out there and I happens to have a vein to find the (in my eyes) most relevant parts in this case.

NOW, one thing that shoot beside the target is that WHEN one start to question the official report SOMEONE want you to present what really happened.

THIS is as if you were accused to have been murdered Bill Jones (I have borrowed this idea from David Griffin). OK so you and your lawyer try to convince the jury (the public) that you did not do it. Perhaps you had a perfect alibi - As: I could not have been doing it because I was drinking tea with my aunt. And your aunt confirms this and other witnesses tells that they saw you entering or leaving the place of your aunt when Bill Jones were murdered.

Ok, very well says the judge, but then WHO killed Bill Jones? If you not can tell us that we cannot set you free. That is what it is all about. I can easily prove that most of what is said happened 9/11 2001 in the US, did not happened the way mainstream media has said it happened. But noone can tell WHAT happened.

No airplanes, no hijackers, no cell phone calls from hijacked planes as first reported, No active NORAD , a lot of demolitions of buildings, a lot of changed stories, a fast removal of debris, and hundreds of more details that even make a foreigner to see this as the poorest cover up operation in the US intelligence history.

Please note that in Sweden people do know very very little about the 9/11 Truth movement. 

[Angela]

1940 ... ya know ... it's no wonder why there are so many health problems. These "industries" have been committing a slow and methodical mass murder for 70 years. I can't believe that All chemicals used in All products aren't tested yearly. This is unconscionable!

And they're worried about a little THC ... give me a break! 


"The chemical was first marketed in the 1940s as a plastic component and by the 1960s was used in almost all can linings to extend shelf life. Now it is one of the highest-volume chemicals in the world; at least 7 billion pounds are produced annually for use in countless products, including dental sealants, PVC water pipes, medical equipment, consumer electronics, and even cash-register receipts."

Concern Over Canned Foods

"A congressional subcommittee determined in 2009 that the agency relied too heavily on studies sponsored by the American Plastics Council. BPA, a building block of plastics, is a component of epoxy resin used in cans and packaging. "The FDA's reliance on industry studies in determining BPA's safety must be re-evaluated in light of clear signs industry is willing to mislead the American people on this public-health issue," said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee. Bills are pending in Congress that would ban the use of BPA in all food and beverage containers."

Money, money, money .... money ...

[Michael]

Julie has met a man she really likes at the uni - he's an academic in Pakistan-India relations. She wants me to meet him, as she feels he is such a gentle and intelligent man.

Anyway, he comes from Peshawar. He wants to go home at Christmas to visit his family. They have told him he must stay away, but he is going anyway.

PESHAWAR: Doctors and nurses battle round the clock to save lives in Pakistan’s war against the Taliban, threatened with death and struggling to treat horrific injuries at a colonial-era hospital.

‘We’re under severe psychological pressure. How long will we get bodies of men, women and children, severed limbs, severed heads?’ said Sajida Nasreen, catching her breath on duty at the main hospital in the northwest city of Peshawar.

‘A dead 11-year-old was brought in, drenched in blood but his shoes shining with polish. His father came, lifted the child onto his lap, kissed him and said: ‘I sent you to school, not to die’.

‘For the first time in my career, I wept bitterly,’ said the nurse, who at 53 thought she had seen everything until Al-Qaeda-linked attacks got worse and worse, killing 2,540 people in Pakistan over 29 months.

‘Those responsible should see the situation in the hospital to understand what these blasts do,’ she added.

Lady Reading Hospital, or LRH as it is known among the 2.5 million residents of Peshawar, was founded in 1924 when Lord Reading was viceroy of India and is now one of Pakistan’s largest teaching hospitals.

On a visit to the area, his wife fell off a horse and suffered an injury, only to find proper treatment was unavailable locally. In England, she collected donations from British philanthropists and set up a hospital that ultimately took her name.

But the romance of its beginnings has vanished under the carnage witnessed in Peshawar and the surrounding North West Frontier Province (NWFP) where Taliban bombings and military offensives have been concentrated.

‘We have dealt with 49 blasts... 2,200 injured and 576 bodies in bombings,’ Doctor Ataullah Arif, surgeon in charge of the emergency ward, told AFP.

Tactics are changing. Bombings of crowded markets are beginning to maximise civilian casualties. Attacks on the army, police and paramilitary to avenge the government’s alliance in the US-led ‘war on terror’ are becoming more brazen.

‘Victims are pouring in almost daily now. We start our day with prayers that may Allah spare us from tragedy,’ said Arif.

‘We have been working under severe stress over the past two months. I can’t explain the situation in words.

‘Very often there are bodies and blood, as rows of stretchers start flowing amid shouts and screams,’ he said.

The 1,543 beds are woefully inadequate and the hospital is struggling to overcome dire shortages to build a 500-bed emergency ward.

‘In an emergency, sometimes we put two wounded on one bed and people with lesser injuries are treated on the floor or in wheelchairs,’ said Arif.

There are fears that a suicide bomber could strike the hospital, a soft target.

There are eight gates into the 30-acre compound guarded by just seven policemen, Arif says.

‘Our staff are constantly in danger. They are under severe threat from militants.We have received calls from militants, warning the staff ‘you are treating those who are our target. We will not spare you.’’

LRH chief executive, Doctor Abdul Hameed Afridi, says shortage of space is so acute that the basement was converted into a mortuary last year.

‘We face great difficulty in coping with the situation. We badly need funds, equipment and trained staff. In such a big hospital, we have just one CT scan machine and no MRI facility,’ said Afridi.

‘We need life saving drugs. LRH bears the pressure not only from NWFP but from Afghanistan. When there is a big disaster in Afghanistan casualties are also sent to Peshawar,’ he said.

Aged 25, Bibi Zakia is one of LRH’s younger nurses but has grown old quickly in the face of horror.

‘It is a human crisis. It’s a huge burden. We have to treat not only the victims, but also take care of their relatives,’ she said.

‘We are tired but I’m proud to be a nurse and I think I’m better than millions of others because I’m serving humanity.’But even hardened nurses sometimes find it difficult to cope with the magnitude of the suffering.

One particular occasion was a car bomb on October 28 that killed 118 people in Peshawar’s Meena market, frequented by women and children, in the deadliest militant attack in Pakistan for two years.

‘I remember two charred bodies of children. They looked like roast chickens. It was horrible. I couldn’t control myself. Pain and anguish filled my body and I screamed and I shouted: what was their crime?’

[dawn.com]

[Michael]

Grim reaper's role in climate change denial
GEORGE MONBIOT
November 28, 2009

There is no point in denying it: we're losing. Climate change denial is spreading like a contagious disease. It exists in a sphere that cannot be reached by evidence or reasoned argument; any attempt to draw attention to scientific findings is greeted with furious invective. This sphere is expanding with astonishing speed.

A survey last month by the Pew Research Centre suggests that the proportion of Americans who believe there is solid evidence that the world has been warming over the past few decades has fallen from 71 per cent to 57 per cent in just 18 months.

Another survey, conducted in January by Rasmussen Reports, suggests that, due to a sharp rise since 2006, US voters who believe global warming has natural causes (44 per cent) outnumber those who believe it is the result of human action (41 per cent).

A study by the website Desmogblog shows that the number of internet pages proposing that man-made global warming is a hoax or a lie more than doubled last year. The Science Museum in London's Prove it! exhibition asks online readers to endorse or reject a statement that they've seen the evidence and want governments to take action. By early this month, 1006 people had endorsed it and 6110 had rejected it.

On Amazon.co.uk, books championing climate change denial are ranked at 1, 2, 4, 5, 7 and 8 in the global warming category. Never mind that they've been torn to shreds by scientists and reviewers, they are beating the scientific books by miles. What is going on?

It certainly doesn't reflect the state of the science, which has hardened dramatically over the past two years. If you don't believe me, open any recent edition of Science or Nature or any peer-reviewed journal specialising in atmospheric or environmental science. Go on, try it.

The debate about global warming that is raging on the internet and in the right-wing press does not reflect any such debate in the scientific journals.

An American scientist I know suggests that these books and websites cater to a new literary market: people with room-temperature IQs. He didn't say whether he meant Fahrenheit or Centigrade. But this can't be the whole story. Plenty of intelligent people have also declared themselves sceptics.

One such is the critic Clive James. You could accuse him of purveying trite received wisdom, but not of being dumb. On BBC Radio 4 he delivered an essay about the importance of scepticism, during which he maintained that ''the number of scientists who voice scepticism [about climate change] has lately been increasing''.

He presented no evidence to support this statement and, as far as I can tell, none exists. But he used this contention to argue that ''either side might well be right, but I think that if you have a division on that scale, you can't call it a consensus. Nobody can meaningfully say that the science is in.''

Had he bothered to take a look at the quality of the evidence on either side of this media debate, and the nature of the opposing armies - climate scientists on one side, right-wing bloggers on the other - he, too, might have realised that the science is in. In, at any rate, to the extent that science can ever be, which is to say that the evidence for man-made global warming is as strong as the evidence for Darwinian evolution, or for the link between smoking and lung cancer.

I am constantly struck by the way in which people like James, who proclaim themselves sceptics, will believe any old claptrap that suits their views. Their position was perfectly summarised by a supporter of Ian Plimer - author of a marvellous concatenation of gibberish called Heaven and Earth - commenting on a recent article in the Spectator magazine: ''Whether Plimer is a charlatan or not, he speaks for many of us.''

These people aren't sceptics; they're suckers.

Such beliefs seem to be strongly influenced by age. The Pew report found that people over 65 are much more likely than the rest of the population to deny that there is solid evidence that the planet is warming, that it's caused by humans, or that it's a serious problem. This chimes with my own experience. Almost all my fiercest arguments over climate change, both in print and in person, have been with people in their 60s or 70s. Why might this be?

There are some obvious answers: they won't be around to see the results; they were brought up in a period of technological optimism; they feel entitled, having worked all their lives, to fly or cruise to wherever they wish. But there might also be a less intuitive reason, which shines a light into a fascinating corner of human psychology.

In 1973 the cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker proposed that the fear of death drives us to protect ourselves with ''vital lies'' or ''the armour of character''. We defend ourselves from the ultimate terror by engaging in immortality projects, which boost our self-esteem and grant us meaning that extends beyond death.

More than 300 studies conducted in 15 countries appear to confirm Becker's thesis. When people are confronted with images or words or questions that remind them of death they respond by shoring up their world view, rejecting people and ideas that threaten it, and increasing their striving for self-esteem.

One of the most arresting findings is that immortality projects can bring death closer. In seeking to defend the symbolic, heroic self that we create to suppress thoughts of death, we might expose the physical self to greater danger. For example, researchers at Bar-Ilan University in Israel found that people who reported that driving boosted their self-esteem drove faster and took greater risks after they had been exposed to reminders of death.

A recent paper by the biologist Janis L. Dickinson, published in the journal Ecology and Society, proposes that constant news and discussion about global warming makes it difficult to repress thoughts of death, and that people might respond to the terrifying prospect of climate breakdown in ways that strengthen their character armour but diminish our chances of survival.

There is already experimental evidence that some people respond to reminders of death by increasing consumption. Dickinson proposes that growing evidence of climate change might boost this tendency, as well as raising antagonism towards scientists and environmentalists. Our message, after all, presents a lethal threat to the central immortality project of Western society: perpetual economic growth, supported by an ideology of entitlement and exceptionalism.

If Dickinson is correct, is it fanciful to suppose that those who are closer to the end of their lives might react more strongly against reminders of death? I haven't been able to find any experiments testing this proposition, but it is surely worth investigating. And could it be that the rapid growth of climate change denial over the past two years is actually a response to the hardening of scientific evidence? If so, how the hell do we confront it?

[Jahn]

Heh,
one of the most "prominent" professors regarding climate change in Sweden "that know how and that", he have recently bought a house approximately next 400 feet next to our house.

I have already attended a lecture that he has held and I found out that he perhaps has too much focus on temperatures and CO2 levels while I would lend more focus to extreme weather occurrences’.

Perhaps I bump in on our professor during a walk some day. 

[Jahn]

Jahn, what struck me as odd at the time was this:
The skies were flight-free for several days following 9/11, and yet, the US is supposed to have flown out of the country Mrs. Bin Laden and her family during that time, or sanctioned her exit, making a special allowance for the flight. If they had a belief in him being the leader of this event, it seems highly likely they would have somehow hung onto her. Instead, the feeling conveyed was that they protected her.

Likewise, if he was the leader of the event, why would he have acted when she was in the country? Doesn't seem prudent.

But who knows, perhaps all of this is myth.

If I hasn't said it before - Forget Bin Ladin and Al-Queda as responsible for the attacks.

[Michael]

Well you are still in a minority view there Jahn. And I haven't seen anything yet that has convinced me against the official version. I admit I haven't spent much time on it as it doesn't really interest me that much - I was far more fascinated by the historical symbolism.

So far every alternate view argument, text, video whatever has put me off with it's lack of substantial rigour, but more by the blatant emotionalism. Especially those videos we posted here some time ago - I couldn't bear to even watch them through, they were so obviously a slick snake-oil job, totally devoid of balance and counter argument.

Every item I have examined that has popped into my radar, I have found perfectly logical explanations for from the official majority view. The 'no-planes' theory I even found is so marginal that it is banned from most 9/11 conspiracy forums, with actual violent abuse from many of the conspiracists. I gather they feel the theory is so absurd that it devalues their entire movement - including that 9/11 truth movement you spoke of.

But this whole scene is riven by factions, as many groups have very different agendas. The victims families group are after specific answers they feel haven't been effectively addressed or totally ignored. Then there are followers of every imaginable variation, who often see each other as mad.

I do know from some academic Historians who have studied the 9/11 Commission Report, that they are extremely impressed with it. I haven't read it myself, but they tell me there is some amazing stuff in it that many people do not commonly know. It has some highly damming conclusions that the government has totally ignored.

The one overall opinion I have gained from my small amount of research, is that this event could do with a comprehensive and public commission, just like the recent one for Princes Diana, where every conspiracy accusation no matter how ludicrous or small is examined and assessed.

It does seem there are many inconclusive answers and many unanswered questions. I know that will never quell the conspiracy debate, because such a phenomenon has multiple causes, and 'official' assessment, no matter how thorough, will always be suspect in many people's minds.

The one issue which does still have even official in-conclusion is whether this was directed by Bin Laden himself. I see that the first tapes stated he had nothing to do with it, but then subsequent tapes gradually shifted to admission of being the initiator. The Muslim world still refuses to admit the authenticity of these tapes, but most western experts think they are genuine. Why one should believe one tape and not another is beyond me, as is why he should deny then admit his involvement.

I also can't believe those who see this as a CIA job - the level of deception would have to be on such a scale, that whistle-blowers would pour out of the cracks. Then there are those who think the Government 'let it happen'. It goes on and on.

Like with Princess Di, I really don't care that much. We know the anthrax was an inside job by some idiot scientist, as was the Samjhauta Express train bomb between India and Pakistan in 2007, so these things do happen.

The whole issue of 9/11 does seem to beg a new thorough public commission to address all these questions, but will it change anything?

For me, it's chasing shadows.