Pat Curley will Always be the Better Ringmaster

Comment from Scootle:

Over at the Screw Loose Change blog, Pat Curley has commented on 'Jesse's Pentagon Circus', I agree with many of his comments, but there are a few points that need addressing.

Pat writes:

The standdown witness is an LA building inspector? Of course, it makes complete sense to me! And it's no surprise that he tunes in to "the high-level police radio frequency" and learns that a missile hit the Pentagon. Let's put some timeframes on this. Jesse clearly states that Lewis learned this after he learned about the standdown. But what time was the Pentagon hit? Around 9:38 in the morning, right? What time is that in LA? So now we're supposed to believe that an LA building inspector was at work at LAX before 6:30 in the morning?

Now I know Pat read my post on the program, he mentions it in his article, but he obviously did not read the 911truth.org article I linked to.

In that article, Charles Lewis writes:

On the morning of 9/11, I was working as Deputy Inspector representing the City of LA Building and Safety Department for the seismic retrofit of the LA Hilton Towers Hotel, only a few minutes by car from where I had worked at LAX. When I realized, after the second strike on the WTC, that the country was under attack, I decided that I should go to the APO, because I was one of only a few persons who would know how to fix certain parts of the new security systems if problems developed. Especially crucial were the systems at Guard Post II, for which I had managed the design changes and construction. So, after telling the workers to leave (because of my fear that the hotel might be struck) and informing Hilton Security of my order, I rushed to LAX Guard Post II. Arriving at about 6:35 AM (PT), I explained my purpose for being there to the Security Guards. I then heard some very interesting things.

According to his testimony, he was at work around 6:30AM. I think Pat is suggesting that we are too stupid to consider time zones and could be duped by false accounts. No, we're not the BBC!

In the original post I stated that it was good that CIT was not on the show, to which Pat responded that CITs flyover theory was mentioned. What I meant was, I was happy they didn't feature Craig or Aldo claiming the flight path was wrong or on to accusing ordinary citizens of complicity in mass murder. That really wouldn't have done the movement any good.
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Comment from John-Michael:

Never mind that I stated that I disagreed with most of what Jesse Ventura's program presented and that Scootle was just highlighting the good points of the show. Pat acts like Scootle's opinion is representative of this entire blog and that Scootle didn't criticise many aspects of the show.

It is also important to note that in the link Scootle provided, Charles Lewis suggested a multitude of ways in which his story could be corroborated. And never mind the common "debunker" argument that if 9/11 was a conspiracy people would have talked. As I've pointed out, there are no 9/11 whistleblowers if you claim they are all confused or lying.

It could be argued that since we believe a plane did hit the Pentagon and that I don't believe Flight 93 was shot down that it is inconsistent to not dismiss what Lewis says he heard about a stand-down, but as Aidan Monaghan noted on 911blogger.com, "After all, some TV reports also wrongly described "missiles" attacking the WTC." So confusion that day about physical aspects of the attacks is one thing, but overhearing that "NORAD had not responded, because it had been 'ordered to stand down'" is quite another.

Pat states:

Note that they interview Rob Balsamo at Freeway Airport. Why not interview Marcel Bernard, as Dylan did, or one of the pilots who actually flew with Hani Hanjour the day he was refused rental of a Cessna? Could it be that Bernard's assessment of Hanjour as an average to below average pilot wouldn't support the conspiracy theory?

Jesse's gofer proves unable to hit the Pentagon in the flight simulator (with a Troofer as his co-pilot). But why not have a real professional pilot who's not a nutbar try it? The gofer says he's flown "a few times" in small planes; Hanjour had a professional air pilot's license and hundreds of hours in a simulator. It's pretty clear that Jesse's bending over backwards to support the conspiracy theory.

Hundreds of hours? If Pat would have looked at the link that Scootle provided when he stated, "I was going to give a detailed response to the Hani Hanjour stuff and the thermite stuff, but JM already covered that," he would have found the following, which was also located right under Scootle's post:

HistoryCommons.com contains the following entry on Hanjour's perseverance:

Hani Hanjour practices on a Boeing 737-200 simulator for a total of 21 hours at the JetTech International flight school in Phoenix, Arizona. Hanjour also attends ground school and pays just under $7,500 for the training. Despite only completing 21 of his originally scheduled 34 hours of simulator training, according to the FBI this is the best-trained of the four hijacker pilots (see Spring-Summer 2001). However, an instructor comments: “Student made numerous errors during performance… including a lack of understanding of some basic concepts… Some of the concepts involved in large jet systems cannot be fully comprehended by someone with only small prop plane experience.” [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia; Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006] The school contacts the FAA to warn it of Hanjour’s poor English and flying skills (see January-February 2001).

The article "How the FBI and 9/11 Commission Suppressed Key Evidence about Hani Hanjour" notes:

The 9/11 Commission Report fails to discuss or even mention this negative written evaluation, even while presenting Hanjour’s substandard performance in a Boeing 737 simulator as sufficient evidence that Hanjour could fly a Boeing 757, an even larger plane! The wording of the final report succeeds in giving this impression, however dubious, even while obscuring the facts: an amazing achievement of propaganda.

...And yes Freeway Airport's chief instructor Marcel Bernard did say that, "There's no doubt in my mind that once that [hijacked jet] got going, he could have pointed that plane at a building and hit it." But as the article on suppressed evidence points out, upon accompanying Hanjour on three test flights, instructors Sheri Baxter and Ben Conner at Freeway observed that Hanjour had trouble controlling and landing a single-engine Cessna 172 and based upon their assessments Bernard refused to rent him a plane.

This isn't just a "a battle of the scare quotes"..., because the preponderance of qualified opinions and other evidence is clearly on our side of the argument.

Now to what I didn't cover in my original post. Note that the time "Jesse's gofer" spent in a 757 simulator is is more time than Hanjor spent, which amounts to zero minutes! The co-pilot that Pat speaks of was Captain Ross Aimer, who has 40 years and 30,000 hours worth of flying experience, including flying time in two of the actual United Airlines aircraft that were used on 9/11. Even he says he couldn't have done it, but in Pat's world he is not "a real professional pilot." Having Aimer as a co-pilot certainly helped, on the other hand, Hani Hanjour's likely co-pilot could not fly either.

But yes, Hanjour did get his pilot’s license despite his dubious skills.

And we are "the guys at the misnamed 9-11 Debunkers site"? I expect nothing less from the king of scientific peer-review!

Jesse Ventura's Pentagon Episode & a response to Neighborhood Rationalist

Now I personally believe a plane did hit the Pentagon, and alot of leading people in the truth movement such as Richard Gage, Kevin Ryan and Jim Hoffman have warned about disinformation relating to the Pentagon attack and the divisive and damaging effect such speculation has on the movement. So I was skeptical about this episode, and almost didn't bother watching it. But I'm glad I did, it was so much better than I thought it would be.

They exposed how Norman Mineta's testimony that suggests a standdown was covered up. They interviewed Charles Lewis about what he heard at LAX. They demonstrated the ludicrous difficulty of the official flight path using a flight simulator. They demonstrated the power of voice morphing technology, which was mindblowing even for me. And the exposing of the 9/11 commission at the end was excellent.

And best of all, no CIT!

Jesse's programs really put the mainstream media to shame. If Jesse could accomplish what he has on a relatively low budget, imagine what Popular Mechanics or the BBC could have done if they actually did their jobs.

But it would have been nice if they interviewed someone in the truth movement or a witness or firefighter or someone who disagrees with no-plane theories to give both sides, and emphasized that the question of what hit the Pentagon is less important than why/how it was hit, like what Dylan did in Loose Change Final Cut.

We know a plane approached the Pentagon - noone denies that. There's no evidence that the plane flew over the Pentagon. No witnesses have come forward saying they clearly saw a plane flying away from the explosion or anything like that. In order for the 'north-side flyover' theory to be true, the damage to Lloyd England's taxi would have to have been staged. Some proponents of no-plane theories have accused Lloyd England of being an accomplice with no evidence whatsoever. Not only is there no evidence that the scene was staged, but it is also implausible that they would be able to stage such a scene in broad daylight within just a few minutes of the explosion. Even if they could stage the scene, and indeed the entire Pentagon attack, what would be the point? Considering the amount of stuff that would need to be faked, it seems ridiculous that they would go through all the extra unnecessary trouble of staging a fake plane crash, and risk jeopardising a highly compartmentalized operation, when they could just crash a plane into the building!

One much simpler theory that isn't discussed much, which seems to fit the evidence and eyewitness accounts better than any other theory and could potentially explain the observed damage and debris anomalies, is the theory that there were explosives of some kind on board Flight 77 that were detonated a split second before impact to weaken the plane and reduce damage to the Pentagon.

Futher Reading...

Is The Missing $2.3 Trillion Really Missing?

"Fake" Phone Calls? What The Evidence Shows

9-11 Review: Pentagon Attack Errors

A dozen questions about Flight 77 and the Pentagon that might lead to justice, and one that won’t

Jimd3100's response

Related Info:

TruTV's 'Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura' - 9/11

The fact that Hani Hanjour -- the alleged pilot of the Boeing airplane which crashed into the Pentagon -- could not fly at all is now being challenged by apparent CIA informant Louai al-Sakka, who says that it was actually Nawaf al-Hazmi who piloted the plane. No, HE Couldn't Fly Either

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On another note, Neighborhood Rationalist has responded to my earlier debunking effort. I was going to give a detailed reponse to the Hani Hanjour stuff and the thermite stuff, but JM already covered that. So I'll respond to the improbability stuff.

Incidently, I noticed Neighborhood Rationalist, in defence of the 9/11 Commission Report, quoted the 9/11 Commission Report - the very thing we are challenging. This reminds me of the Countering Criticism of the Warren Report document, which at one point says "Where possible, counter speculation by encouraging reference to the Commission's Report itself".

Anyway, when I wrote my earlier post, I was at work lol. So I wasn't able to watch that video I posted about improbabilities before I posted it, if I had I probably wouldn't have done so. I confused it with another video I've seen but can't find in which someone mentions I think about 20 'coincidences' surrounding 9/11 and assigns each one a modest one in ten probability. The conclusion is that the probability of all 20 of those coincidences being 'just coincidences' would be one in ten to the power of twenty.

Edit: I found the video I was on about, turns out it has absolutely nothing to do with 9/11, I was thinking of this clip from the documentary The Priviledged Planet, which argues that Earth-like planets are rare in the universe. This is what happens when you research so many different topics! How embarrassing!

Nonetheless, the same method can be applied to 9/11. There are hundreds of coincidences surrounding not just the events themselves but stuff relating to the truth movement (Barry Jennings' death for example), and that number is ever increasing. Even if you were to give each one a modest one in five probability, the probability of there being no conspiracy would still be ludicrously low. So it takes an enormous amount of faith to believe in the official story. Ironic since Conspiracies R Not Us seem to like to claim that we are the ones with faith.