At the Journal of 9/11 Studies, we've gotten somewhat behind in publishing papers. But to begin a new round of articles and letters, we've just published an interesting look at the financial implications of 9/11. This paper from Professor Olivia Jackson examines typical perspectives about the impact of the attacks on the US economy, and comes to what may be a surprising conclusion..

Here is an excerpt.

"In summary, this paper highlights the United States’ ability to continue to persevere in the wake of crisis. As highlighted, instead of weakening the economy, 9/11 played no significantly direct role in altering the direction in which the economy was headed, given that the United States was already enveloped in a recession before the attacks occurred. If anything, such a tragedy as 9/11 brought about more challenges for the country, consequently, resulting in a more heightened US awareness and increasing stamina to meet these challenges"

More at the following link.

The Impact of the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks on the US Economy
http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/2008/OliviaJackson911andUS-Economy.pdf

We have a new article today, from Professor Graeme MacQueen, entitled –

“Waiting for Seven: WTC 7 Collapse Warnings in the FDNY Oral Histories.”

http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/200701/MacQueenWaitingforSeven.pdf

Here are a few excerpts.

“In the debate over the collapse of World Trade Center 7, warnings of the building’s collapse have come to play an important role. In addition to the numerous collapse warnings mentioned in written documents, such as those I will be using in this article, we have seen a growing number of videotape fragments and interviews in which people appear to have been told in advance of Seven’s collapse. Many proponents of the controlled demolition hypothesis take these cases, both written and video, as evidence that the building’s collapse was brought about deliberately.”

“But those who think that Seven’s fall was natural rather than deliberate have not shied away from the collapse warnings. They have simply interpreted them in a different way. In essence, they have said that the warnings were rational and expected given the severe damage Seven had sustained.”

There appears to be a remarkable correlation between the floors upgraded for fireproofing in the WTC towers, in the years preceding 9/11/01, and the floors of impact, fire and failure. The fireproofing upgrades would have allowed for shutdown of the affected floors, and the exposure of the floor assemblies and the columns for a significant period of time. Exactly what work was done during that time?

In some sections of the NIST WTC report, the exact floors upgraded are listed. Other sections of the report suggest even more floors were upgraded, a total of 18 floors in WTC 1 and 13 floors in WTC 2, but the additional floors involved are not specified.[1]

We've published a new letter at the Journal of 9/11 Studies. This is an evaluation of the amount of jet fuel available to feed the fires in the WTC towers, with comparisons to more easily understood volumes.

The paper is entitled –

Non-animated Visualization Aids to Assist in Understanding the Demolitions of the World Trade Center Twin Towers

The author wishes to remain anonymous to the public.

Although it is understood that the jet fuel was consumed in only a few minutes, this letter puts the initial quantities involved in perspective.

Bill Douglas has been a great voice for 9/11 Truth since well before I spoke out publicly. He is author of "The Amateur Parent – A Book on Life, Death, War & Peace, and Everything Else in the Universe." Bill has been a guest columnist for the Kansas City Star, The Business Journal, and other media worldwide. His past essays include, "Exposing the 9/11 Conspiracy Wingnuts," "The Explosion of the 9-11 Truth Movement -- US Media's Dirty Little Secret," "Good Night, and Good Luck - WMD, NIST, Popular Mechanics, 9/11 and Media Crimes" and also "Why the Jewish Community Should Demand 9/11 Truth."

I'd like to see Bill Douglas invited onto the Bill Maher show myself, although Mr. Douglas has a few other suggestions below.

The Bill Maher Real Time Meltdown – Comments from a Long Time Bill Maher Fan

More great work from Physicist Gregory Jenkins has been published at the Journal of 9/11 Studies. Here, Dr. Jenkins continues his examination of claims made by proponents of the Directed Energy Weapons (DEW) explanation for destruction of the WTC buildings. This new, painstaking analysis includes the paper “Solving The Great Steel Caper: DEW-Demolition Contrary Evidence”, and a supplemental, related paper on “Miscellaneous Topics”.

http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/2007/Fe-DustStudies44.pdf

http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/2007/JenkinsFe-DustSupplemental.pdf

With these papers, we hope to emphasize the importance of legitimate scientific discussion (which the Journal welcomes), as opposed to inappropriate personal attacks (which we do not publish).

Moving forward, we are pleased to announce that PhD Chemist Frank Legge has agreed to join us at the Journal of 9/11 Studies as a third co-editor. Professor Jones and I both greatly admire Dr. Legge’s past contributions, and look forward to his insights and guidance in directing future work at the Journal.

While busy with an event on September 10th of this year, I heard about some goings-on that resulted in bad publicity for the 9/11 Truth movement. Of course it is no longer surprising to many of us, who have been involved in fighting for the truth for years, that there would be some kind of hullabaloo just before the anniversary. This year the uproar included something called the “Kennebunkport Warning”, and a problem with this document as pointed out by some of the alleged signatories.

This warning document itself did not present any newsworthy information as far as I can see, other than the idea that some leaders of the Peace movement may have signed it. In fact, if it weren’t for these few signatures from prominent leaders of the Peace movement the warning would have been unremarkable. The message is fairly standard fare within the 9/11 Truth crowd, and is what many of us would be expected to say.

We had a very successful event here in Bloomington, Indiana this week. The full theater audience of 600 stayed for over three hours without a break to hear outstanding presentations by Richard Gage and Steven Jones, and gave a standing ovation at the end. The event attracted three city council representatives, and our city council president gave the introduction. A number of architects, scientists and other professionals were in attendance.

Much thanks to the Bloomington 9/11 Working Group, whose sacrifice and heroic efforts made it all work.

Below are two articles, one from Bloomington Herald-Times, published just before the event, and the other from the Indiana Daily Student, published the day after.

Bloomington Herald-Times
Forum looks to account for what doesn’t add up about 9/11
Mike Leonard, 9/09/007

Eye-rolling. Weight-shifting. Body language ranging from anxiety to anger.

Last year at about this time, 9/11 Commission chairman Lee Hamilton was interviewed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. This interview is incredible, to say the least, and represents an outstanding example of the need for 9/11 truth.

http://www.cbc.ca/sunday/911hamilton.html

At the time, Hamilton was trying to sell his new book, “Without Precedent", in which he and co-chairman Thomas Kean described how frustrated they were with repeated misstatements by the Defense Department and the Federal Aviation Agency during the investigation, and how they considered an investigation into possible deception.

But the interview also showed how utterly clueless Hamilton actually was, and apparently still is today, about the most basic aspects of the events of 9/11.

When asked about the demolition hypothesis, Hamilton said – “The charge that dynamite, or whatever, brought down the World Trade Towers, we of course looked at very carefully - we find no evidence of that. We find all kinds of evidence that it was the airplanes that did it.”

Hamilton then clarified – “What caused the collapse of the buildings, to summarize it, was that the super-heated jet fuel melted the steel super-structure of these buildings and caused their collapse.”

For those who don’t know, only Osama bin Laden himself still promotes the “super-heated jet fuel melted the steel super-structure” theory, or so says the US State department. According to Ms. Rice’s debunking page “The Top September 11 Conspiracy Theories”, Osama claimed in his confession video that “Due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building.”

http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=pubs-english&y=2006&m=August&x=20060828133846esnamfuaK0.2676355

(Continued after the jump...)

The following message was sent to Michael Newman, spokesperson for NIST’s WTC investigation, on June 19th.

Dear Mr. Newman,

I've been asked to identify a defender of the official story of 9/11/01, for a possible debate or discussion on the Thom Hartmann radio show.

Would anyone from NIST be interested in joining me for this debate? If so, please respond to me, and David Pool (copied), the producer of Thom's show.

Thanks.
Kevin Ryan

To date there has been no response to this invitation, from Mr. Newman or anyone else at NIST. Having waited nearly three years to hear back from NIST’s Frank Gayle, I can say that this is no surprise.

But here is a new paper covering one of the issues that might have been discussed in such a debate, that is, if NIST scientists actually did have the integrity to stand up for their work.

http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/2007/Ryan_HVBD.pdf

Dear President Córdova,

Congratulations on your recent appointment at Purdue University. As a long time citizen of the state of Indiana, I welcome you to what I know to be an outstanding institution of higher learning. At the same time, I hope to help you see an immediate opportunity to make a great positive difference in the lives of the people of our state and, in fact, a great difference in the lives of people everywhere. Through your appointment you have been given this opportunity to speak out and denounce what can be called, at best, criminally negligent science on the part of a small segment of the Purdue faculty.

Last month, a few Purdue professors, along with some students, presented a short animation ostensibly related to the 9/11 tragedy at the World Trade Center (WTC). Surprisingly the University then announced this animation in a news release, as if it represented a scientifically accurate simulation of the impact of a Boeing 767 into the WTC's north tower.[1] Unfortunately, this short video clip is far from a scientifically-based production, as it actually contradicts several of the government's own, much more intensive studies, and shamefully fails to capture some of the most basic aspects of the related events. To make things worse, Purdue University paradoxically implies that this brief animation provides support for the overworked fire-induced collapse hypothesis. By simultaneously contradicting and voicing support for the official story, Purdue has helped to promote the Bush Administration's fraudulent 9/11 Wars, and instantly earned a notorious place in modern history.

“In fact, Underwriter Laboratories does not certify structural steel.”
David Dunbar, executive editor of Popular Mechanics [1]

We now know that US Government scientists were not able to produce evidence for "widely dislodged" fireproofing within the World Trade Center towers on 9/11. Because of this, the distinction between the fire-based hypothesis of collapse and the demolition hypothesis depends on, among other things, the answer to one important question. Were the steel assemblies used to construct those buildings tested for fire resistance as required by the New York City code?.

As I have stated many times in public, UL made it clear to me and others that they performed this testing. Of course I have their statements on the subject in writing, and I would have been a fool to have made such claims publicly without possessing such documentation. In contrast, Mr. Dunbar of Popular Mechanics does not seem to mind acting like an irresponsible fool in public, as his statement above indicates. His statement is foolish because it is widely known that UL does test and certify structural components for buildings such as the World Trade Center towers.

Even beginning students know that UL is one of the few important organizations supporting codes and specifications because they "produce a Fire Resistance Index with hourly ratings for beams, columns, floors, roofs, walls and partitions tested in accordance with ASTM Standard E119." [2] The Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) itself made this point clear in their WTC report by saying "the UL Fire Resistance Directory ...is the major reference used by architects and engineers to select designs that meet the building code requirements for fire resistance ratings." [3]

Additionally UL's own Tom Chapin, the Chemist and manager of their Fire Protection division, with whom I was in contact, admitted to UL's involvment in testing steel for the WTC in a letter to the New York Times editor published April 15, 2002. In this letter, Chapin said "The World Trade Center stood for almost an hour after withstanding conditions well beyond those experienced in any typical fire. In that time, thousands of people escaped with their lives. ASTM E-119 and UL's testing procedures helped make that possible." [4]

When Matthew Rothschild, editor of the online magazine The Progressive, wrote an article called “Enough of the 9/11 Conspiracies, Already”, we all knew he was not talking about the conspiracy theory that the US government sells us to justify the expanding 9/11 Wars.[1] To the contrary, in writing that article Mr. Rothschild was selling that same theory himself. What he actually meant was that people should not question the US government’s story of terror because credentialed experts have been found to support it. But the fact is that the experts found to support the official conspiracy theory of 9/11 are predominantly those who profit from doing so. That’s not to say that all of these people were “part of the conspiracy”. But they are, whether consciously or not, a part of the cover-up. And that, of course, is the greater crime.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
Martin Luther King Jr.

http://www.ultruth.com/

Another Opportunity to Understand Our Predicament

Over the years we’ve heard from a few educated people who claim to understand and support the latest story given by the US government for the unprecedented destruction of the WTC buildings. Unfortunately, those folks usually turn out to either work for the Bush Administration directly, like FEMA and NIST, or are in some other way profiting from the War on Terror. Some people accept what these Bush scientists say because they have PhDs in scientific fields, or because certain media sources promote the official myths. In a way, the curious behavior of these scientists and media sources allows us to better see the predicament we all face.

With the case of Manuel Garcia, and his three recent, rapid-fire articles in Counterpunch, we appear to have another opportunity to examine the phenomenon of Bush science. Here we see a fully educated scientist making strong supportive statements of the Bush Administration’s 9/11 theories, despite the fact that he must know those theories are based on false or unsubstantiated claims. For our own understanding, let’s take a closer look at Manuel Garcia and his efforts.

Garcia not only works for the government, he works for a very interesting organization in terms of the best hypothesis for what happened that day. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Garcia’s employer, appears to be where explosive thermite was invented, and it continues to be a focus of research there.(1) At LLNL, government scientists have learned how to combine the exothermic power of the thermite reaction with organic moieties to produce a thermite reaction that can do pressure/volume work (i.e. turn massive quantities of concrete and other building materials into dust). From the research of Steven Jones, we know that the thermite reaction likely played a role in bringing the towers down, and it would not be surprising if technology developed by LLNL was involved. Could that be why Manuel Garcia is so intent on seeing Physics that don’t exist, in order to avoid seeing links to technology developed by his employer?