Links

Unless directly acknowledged, the views expressed herein are not necessarily those of Cyrano's Journal Online (CJO), its contributors, its staff, nor its editors. CJO is an independent media platform for writers and activists to express themselves without the hindrances and filters put up by the corporate-controlled media. CJO operates under the assumption that America's Constitutional liberties are still in effect, in particular our priceless First Amendment, guaranteeing freedom of speech, assembly and the expression of grievances. It is precisely this liberty that keeps the frustration of dissenters from a corrupt system from boiling over into open rebellion. CJO does not intend to encourage or foment illegal/unethical or violent activity or behavior. Above all, CJO does not intend to foment infantile revolutionism, but the careful study and development of oppositional tactics and strategies. For the record, the information herein is solely intended for entertainment, educational, research, academic, or other lawful purposes. —The Editors

Physicians for a National Health Program is a non-profit research and education organization of 17,000 physicians, medical students and health professionals who support single-payer national health insurance.Click here to learn more!

It's back to school days here at the Troubletown headquarters, that means that we're getting the kid all suited up for public school grade 2. I don't know what's going on in politics and the news except for the fact that health care is, maybe, fucked? And people keep showing up to political rallies with guns? I dreamed this solution last night. What can I say? It came from my unconscious.

President Obama is headed to Belgrade, Montana today and Grand Junction, Colorado tomorrow for a pair of town hall meetings on his healthcare reform legislation. The meetings are part of a final public relations push by the president to answer critics of reforming the healthcare system before the Obamas go on vacation.

We don't vouch for the truthfulness of any report on this site. If you feel a location has been reported in error, or want to dispute a report, please contact the site owners: © 2006-8 Maciej Ceglowski <maciej@ceglowski.com>

In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger asks his readersto set aside the usual summer holiday reading lists and reach for books that help us make sense of extraordinary times and to resist our "training" to make war.

INGLEWOOD, California (Reuters) - Inside an aging sports arena, where rows of dental chairs and a hospital smell have replaced the former Los Angeles Lakers basketball court, thousands of Americans are seeking free healthcare.

"Guns & Butter" investigates the relationships among capitalism, militarism and politics. Maintaining a radical perspective in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, "Guns & Butter: The Economics of Politics" reports on who wins and who loses when the economic resources of civil society are diverted toward global corporatization, war, and the furtherance of a national security state.

[This is the second article in a four-part series stemming from our organization’s crafting and presenting a proposed bill in late 2008 to nine members of the U.S. House. It urges an independent investigation by national and international experts in science/technology to determine which of the 14 major theories about primary causal agents—fire and thermite to directed energy weapons—destroyed the World Trade Center Twin Towers. Since then, four other major theories have surfaced (nuclear reactors, mini-nuclear bombs, plasmoid gas, and flurorine) which will be included in the revised bill presented to key House members in Fall. The first article in the series was on the theory that nuclear reactors were the causal agent of destruction. Contact your House representatives to hopper a bill for this independent scientific/technological investigation to finally discover the cause(s).] It wasn’t just fleeing tenants and First Responders who insisted they heard explosions throughout the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers (WTC 1 and 2). Or reporters for The Washington Post and USAToday. It was the Federal Bureau of Investigation as well as the New York Fire Department’s celebrated Special Operations head, Timothy Roemer, an investigator of the 1993 WTC bombing and the Oklahoma City disaster. He said the South Tower (WTC 2) was bombed because: “The collapse of the building was too even to have been caused by anything else”).(1) And at least one 9/11 circuit speaker—William Deagle, MD—and three other explosive experts believe the morning explosions in WTC 1, 2, and 7 were caused by nuclear mini-weapons, also called “milli-nukes,” or “micro-nukes. One is a Deagle colleague. The other two have been forced by these dangerous times to use pen names of “Anonymous Physicist” (“AP”) and “The Finnish Military Expert” (“FME”) in the tradition of satirist Voltaire during the French Revolution and Samuel Adams, the 1776 revolutionary with a dozen names.(2) The three have arrived at a nuclear theory because in the 9/11 events, an estimated 45% of the nearly 3,000 who failed to escape the Towers’ destruction seemingly were vaporized into dust or bone debris in nanoseconds, much like Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s estimated 96,000 from the first nuclear weapons ever used. Vaporization is a signature of a nuclear weapon’s use.(3) Moreover, the molten metals at the footprints of WTC 1, 2, and 7 were not extinguished via water and soil changes until December 19, 2001. They, too, are among the fingerprints of a fission-triggered thermonuclear blast’s aftermath in an enclosed environment.(4) Placement of any kind of explosives presented challenges to the perpetrators. Each of the 110-floor Towers contained 47 core columns, each weighing 20 tons; the 236 outer columns weighed 50-tons. Deagle, his colleague, and “AP” believe these “mini-nukes” (from four to 35 per skyscraper) were the traditional high-yield kind, triggered by a fission source of energy that also emitted radiation.(5) By contrast, “FME” believes that the causal agent was single low-yield fissionless (no-radiation) fusion mini-nukes: “The thermonuclear bomb used was a ‘pure’ hydrogen bomb, so no uranium or plutonium [was used] at all. The basic nuclear reaction is Deuterium + Tritium > Alpha + n.” (6) Further, he posited that preparing the destruction of WTC 1, 2 alone had to have involved six months of 20 people wrapping perhaps 10,000 cutter charges (possibly Thermate®) around each Tower’s 283 steel columns and 4,000 for those WTC 7, respectively. Added to that was the placement of napalm (“to draw the interest from the planes to fires”) and electronic homing devices to trigger the detonators.(7) Definitions What’s the difference between a pure fission-fusion bomb and a fissionless-fusion nuclear bomb? Fission refers to dividing an atom into two or more atoms of different elements. For example, the original atomic bomb was a fission device. Fusion refers to combining two or more atoms of different elements to create a single atom. So fissionless fusion is a nuclear reaction without detonation by a radioactive fission device. The more powerful hydrogen bomb is a fissionless-fusion device, without long-term radioactivity.(8) Because the fissionless-fusion bomb releases more energy, it has a greater explosive force. Some allusions to it in the literature, as shown throughout this paper, now call it a “fusion” bomb. An additional explanation and diagram by two experts is: “The most common man-made fusion reaction, and the one responsible for most of the fusion energy release in thermonuclear explosions, involves two isotopes of hydrogen: deuterium (D) and tritium (T).4 Deuterium is a non-radioactive isotope, with one proton and one neutron in the nucleus. Tritium, which has one proton and two neutrons in its nucleus, is highly radioactive. A fusion reaction between these two isotopes produces an alpha particle, which is a helium nucleus and a neutron. “….All ECF schemes have two basic components: the fuel pellet and the driver. The fuel pellet contains the fuel, typically a mixture of deuterium and tritium, as well as other components. The driver provides the energy to the pellet to compress it to the high densities and temperatures needed to initiate the fusion reaction. “Types of drivers that have been considered include lasers, light and heavy ion beams, chemical explosives, and electromagnetic energy sources.(9) Historically, hydrogen bombs once required a small fission bomb as a detonator. This is like needing a blasting cap to set off a charge of dynamite. The fission trigger did release long-lasting radiation, but not any more because of “fissionless-fusion” bombs.(10) Fissionless fusion is part of the family of the once-disparaged, highly controversial cold-fusion process, forecast since 1989 to be our cheapest energy source. Cold fusion involves “the fusion of hydrogen atoms into helium at room temperature.” “Cold fusion” here also refers to low-yield nuclear fusion, while fissionless bombs are high-yield nuclear fusion.(11) Up to 2009, most establishment or influential scientists have either ridiculed cold fusion’s possibility or avoided experimentation to protect their reputations in the scientific community. But in late March, a team from the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command announced in a respected peer-reviewed journal—and at an American Chemical Society’s conference—that they had found “clear evidence” of cold-fusion’s output: “Using a similar experimental setup [used by] Fleischmann and Pons, the researchers found the “tracks” left behind by high-energy neutrons which, they suggest, emerge from the fusion of a deuterium and tritium atom.” (12) Meantime, the Pentagon, the national research laboratories, and their contractors have paid little attention to the nay-saying scientists outside their circles. They’ve been working on fissionless fusion bombs, low-yield fusion devices that don’t require a fission trigger for detonation. They can attain energy equivalent to the sun in one moment and, the next, “cool-down” to 10,000ºF in a nanosecond. And radioactivity is supposedly non-existent.(13) Developmental History One of the first atomic bombs was named “Fat Man” for good reason. Fully assembled, such a highly complex weapon weighed 9,700 pounds (including 140 pounds of uranium). They were 10-feet long with 28-inch diameters and came in two parts. The parts had to be merged almost over the World War II targets of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. Presumably, that was to ensure that the always unreliable fission did not “fizzle” out before being dropped on the two cities.(14) American civilian leaders began warning that the military and its vendors certainly would not stop nuclear weapon design, testing, and production. They, political and military historians knew that once investment was made in any weapon, it would be tested—usually in secret—and then used on enemies. Only the self-deceived failed to recognize that the Age of Armageddon had arrived and the day would come when military leaders would regard those weapons as ordinary ordnance and, thereby, vaporize the world’s population (as at Hiroshima and Nagasaki). Or that storage of decaying nuclear waste eventually would make Earth uninhabitable for millions of years. Many also feared human error, carelessness, and/or drunkenness in transporting and/or storing these horrific weapons.(15) Out of that concern came the founding in 1951 of the United Nations’ Disarmament Commission with the noble mission of banning nuclear weapons. But U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower was a pragmatist, made that way by being a former five-star general who was only too familiar with weapon makers and Pentagon thinking. In his 1961 farewell address, he warned Americans about the industrial-military complex and particularly their tacit and vital need for the science/technology world.(16) His warning went unheeded except by “alarmists” and pacifists. Two years later, the Commission began what eventually seemed to be its only industry: Getting major and minor powers to sign nearly a dozen treaties for controlling the proliferation of nuclear weapons as this list illustrates. • 1963: Partial Test Ban Treaty • 1967: Outer Space Treaty • 1967: Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America • 1968: Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty • 1971: Seabed Treaty. • 1974: Threshold Test Ban Treaty • 1980: Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material • 1985: South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty • 1987: Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty • 1995: Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapons Free Zone • 2002: Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty The proliferation of these treaties would seem to indicate Eisenhower’s cynicism was well placed because without enforcement powers, the pacts were essentially worthless. Nations might sign and then ratify a treaty, but either find loopholes in the text to keep creating, testing, and producing nuclear weapons or quietly ignore what they had signed. Or like Israel, India, and Pakistan in 1968, they might refuse to be signatories. Even when U.N. members finally began using the power of economic sanctions to force compliance, it has failed to stop Iran and North Korea from pursuing nuclear research and development programs.(17) Between the 1960s and 1980s, three U. S. National Research Laboratories (Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, Sandia) and the munitions vendors raced in secret to comply with Pentagon demands for smaller and lighter nuclear weapons such as: •The U.S. Navy’s 163-pound SADM (Special Atomic Demolition Munitions) with a payload of 0.02-1 kiloton •The U.S. Army’s 76-pound Davy Crockett rifle with a payload of 0.01 kiloton. • The U.S. Army’s 59-pound B54 land mine. (18) Despite Congressional ratification and presidential signatures for all those treaties, development of even smaller nuclear weapons was proceeding. Up to that point, only those closely involved in the American nuclear industry were likely to know that fission-driven mini-nuke success was being concealed from the public, just as it was for WWII’s Manhattan Project that produced the world’s first atom bomb. And with the same rationale: Neither frighten the public, nor telegraph enemies about the newest weaponry until the next generation of devices is well underway. In this respect, Livermore researcher John H. Nuckolls in the late 1990s revealed his efforts from 1952-62 to create fissionless fusion. One major goal in 1959 was to figure out how to ignite a “minimum size, high-gain fusion explosion” without using fission as a trigger. He called it “IFE” (inertial fusion energy) and wrote: “I proposed a novel scheme: implode a milligram of DT [deuterium and tritium] to super high densities by a radiation implosion in a tiny hohlraum [a closed metal tube, blackened on the inside, with a narrow slit cut into one of the flat ends] energized by a non-nuclear primary external to the hohlraum—an efficient, stand-off, repetitive ‘primary’ (known today as a ‘driver’).” (19) By 1976, Livermore boasted publicly that it was testing hardware of “the first laser-driven radiation implosion product.” The energy source triggering the payload was not revealed even in Nuckolls’ 1998 report—30 years later. Nor did he include Livermore’s first- and second-generation experiments in the 1990s that required 10 to 20 laser beams to explode DT-loaded pellets. A Georgia State University scientist noted that one product might be particle-beam fusion weaponry: “If a high-energy beam of electrons or other particles can be directed onto a tiny pellet or micro-balloon of deuterium-tritium mixture, it could cause it to explode like a miniature hydrogen bomb, fusing the deuterium and tritium nuclei in a time frame too short for them to move apart.” (20) Livermore and probably the other national laboratories apparently had arrived at fissionless weaponry by 2000, the kind that left only two nuclear fingerprints: “shockwaves” sensed by people within a detonation’s range and (EMP) electromagnetic pulses that could destroy nearly everything electrical in a targeted area, including vehicle engines. But at least these fissionless bombs would not spew radioactivity.(21) By 2003, monitors publicized the news that work on fissionless mini-nukes had been ongoing in at least three national laboratories: Lawrence Livermore (California), Los Alamos and Sandia (Arizona). The verdict on such activity was: “These hypothetical weapons, if possible to develop, would not need a fission primary bomb to ignite the fusion of deuterium and tritium (heavy forms of hydrogen). For many years, the United States and Russia and perhaps other nuclear weapons states have researched whether it is possible to create high enough temperatures and pressures inside a confined space to fuse together deuterium and tritium for the purposes of a developing a novel weapon. “Unlike these secretive military programs, the open civilian fusion research programs are well known and are not intended for nuclear weapons’ development. Pure fusion weapons offer the possibility of generating a nuclear yield of very small amounts. “A study several years ago expressed concern that pure fusion weapons research and development would subvert the intent of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Pure fusion weapons offer the advantage of reduced collateral damage stemming from radioactive fallout because these weapons would not create the highly radioactive fission products associated with standard nuclear weapons. “Despite the many millions of dollars spent by both the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories in the years from 1952 to 1992 to produce a pure fusion weapon, no measurable success was ever achieved by either laboratory. “The power densities needed to ignite a fusion reaction still seem attainable only with the aid of a fission explosion or in large reactors, such as the Sandia Z-pinch, the Livermore National Ignition Facility, or various tokamaks. Regardless of any claimed advantages of pure fusion weapons, building those weapons does not appear to be feasible.” (22) Many scientists did not agree. A contributor to a physics website was among the enthused: “…it is no longer impossible to imagine a fissionless fusion-based tactical nuclear ‘hand grenade’ for a modern, fission-free H-bomb trigger whose thermal output is capable of turning to plasma everything within a 10-foot radius.” (23) As predicted, that excitement from both the science/technology fields and the Pentagon seem to have become so immune to the terrifying power of nuclear weapons as delivery systems become smaller and more sophisticated. Familiarity has bred contempt, unfortunately for those who may be vaporized. Time was that nuclear tests were done on Pacific Ocean atolls or in the world’s deserts where populations were evacuated. Yet in 2000, many of those chosen for the Bush Administration staff, including the future Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Department Secretary Don Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, drafted a document suggesting that increasing national security and Pentagon funding would require a “new Pearl Harbor.” That kind of philosophy indicated the need for another surprise attack on American. Five years later, Cheney and Rumsfeld would institute a doctrine of pre-emptive strikes at the discretion of field commanders. So it is not surprising that an array of nuclear weapons such as mini-nukes would be included. By then, mini-nukes” were reclassified as “safe for the surrounding civilian population, minimizing the risk of collateral damage.” (24) That this kind of thinking from powerful leaders in the Reagan Administration would suddenly be published may explain why many American activists now view the Oklahoma City bombing of April 19, 1995 as a dry run for 9/11 and achieving that cabal’s goals of a bolstered military that would dominate the world. Certainly, the explosion that destroyed the front of the federal Murrah building far exceeded the power law officials attributed to a “fertilizer” bomb—ammonium nitrate fuel oil (ANFO)—in a truck, according to several explosives experts.(25) The way the federal government seized total control of the investigation went beyond the involvement of a federal building. What looked like an open-and-shut case of a private vendetta against the government was being treated like a major military secret. The government could scarcely proclaim foreigners were responsible because Americans Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols were found guilty. Federal officials closed off the area, took charge of the building’s demolition examinations, seized evidence and records, and in general shut out the baffled lawmen and officials.(26) Local and national suspicions grew. It wasn’t long before such tactics were seen as a federal cover-up of something far more important nationally than a vengeful bombing. What was it concealing? That McVeigh and Nichols had filched an atomic bomb from the government? Both men are still seen by many as only hapless foot soldiers carrying out orders for a far larger organization.(27) One expert in explosives was so curious about the authorities verdict that he tested the ANFO theory using three times the amount allegedly used by McVeigh and Nichols. Standing 1,000 feet away from his “Ground Zero,” he remained on his feet during detonation. He reported that: “…4,800 pounds of ANFO wouldn’t have scuffed the paint on the building!” So the causal agent of that monumental explosion had to be far more powerful than ANFO.(28) Another expert was the Air Force’s Brig. Gen. (ret.) Benton K. Partin, considered one of the world’s major authorities on explosives. When no one in Congress raised questions of the Administration about the bombing, he was outraged enough to hand-deliver his analysis to every member of Congress. Among the points he emphasized: “….reinforced concrete targets in large buildings are hard targets to blast. I know of no way possible to reproduce the apparent building damage through simply a truck bomb effort…. “The Murrah Federal Building was not destroyed by one sole truck bomb. The major factor in its destruction appears to have been detonation of explosives carefully placed at four critical junctures on supporting columns within the building. “The only possible reinforced concrete structural failure solely attributable to the truck bomb was the stripping out of the ceilings of the first and second floors in the “pit” area behind columns B4 and By. Even this may have been caused by a demolition charge at column B3. “It is truly unfortunate that a separate and independent bomb damage assessment was not made during the cleanup, before the building was demolished on May 23 and hundreds of truck loads of debris were hauled away, smashed down, and covered with dirt behind a security fence. “All evidence of demolition charges had been removed from the building site (i.e., the stubs of columns B3, A3, A5, A7 and the demolished junctures at the header with columns A3, A5 and A7). All ambiguity with respect to the use of supplementing demolition charges and the type of truck used could be quickly resolved if the FBI were required to release the surveillance camera coverage of this terribly tragic event.” (29) Oklahoma’s Gov. Frank Keating agreed, telling television viewers: “One device has been deactivated. Apparently, there is another device. Obviously, whatever did the damage to the Murrah Building was a tremendous…a very sophisticated explosive device.” (30) One nuclear-medicine expert supporting that verdict was Deagle, then working in a Colorado hospital as an occupational physician. One of his patients had been a First Responder at the bombing. Deagle’s diagnosis was that the patient’s symptoms indicated fission nuclear weapons had been employed. With the patient’s permission to quote him, the oral statement was: “….what happened in Oklahoma City wasn’t caused by ammonium nitrate bomb in the small truck they say was parked by the building…..See this rash. It was caused by radiation. We broke three radiation detectors there. See, we were the same team that was sent to Riyad, Saudi Arabia and the bomb only blew the windows into the building. We estimated the explosion was by our calculations to be seven times more [than the] ammonium nitrate in that truck bomb. The whole front of the building was sheared off…. cleanest controlled detonation our munitions expert forensic team has seen ever…. “There were micro-nuclear bombs placed on support pillars in the walls of the Federal Building, by special units of the ATF and FBI. They were paged out not to enter the building on the morning of the detonation, and the Federal Judge was warned to cancel court that day. We removed two undetonated softball sized micronuclear bombs, and one C4 pineapple bomb, attached to the pillars of the remaining building.” (31) Mini-Nuclear Weapons at the WTC The foregoing history underpins yet another theory about the destruction of the WTC 1, 2, and 7: That it was caused either by fission-driven or fissionless fusion mini-nuclear weapons. Even if these were part of a combination of causal agents—a “redundancy”—it would mean that the Bush administration had planned to commit that monstrous deed as an excuse to conquer Iraq and seize its oil fields. Or had teamed with another ally which had its own agenda—or with a global cabal bent on a subtle conquest of the world. Perhaps suspicions started that 9/11 was “an inside job” because doubts arose that two airliners could ultimately destroy the entire World Trade Center’s seven buildings. Or incredulity that hijackers had made their way into Manhattan without a fighter squadron to deter them. That one pilot’s passport was found in near mint condition two blocks from WTC rubble (“he must have opened the window and thrown it out before crashing”). Architects, engineers and demolition professionals were even more incredulous that blame was attributed to jet-fuel fires when fire has never brought down a steel-framed building in history.(32) Other evidence undermined the Bush Administration’s claims. Several 50-ton exterior columns of the Towers were flung upward across streets to pierce the 15th and the 17th floors of the neighboring Deutsche Bank and American Express buildings, respectively, plus the 22nd floor of the Verizon building, the lower southwest corner of WTC 7—with no debris near it—and a college building behind WTC 7. Too, witnesses and First Responders at the Towers insisted they heard a string of explosions far beneath floors allegedly struck by aircraft. What about the energy of boiling black smoke and pyroclastic flow, all resembling a volcano—or an atomic-bomb blast? Doubts also fed on the Towers dissolving mostly into dust, not 30 stories of rubble as would have happened if the building had “pancaked,” as some theorize.(33) The most mystifying event of all was that the 47-story WTC 7 (not hit by a plane) should collapse within 6.5 seconds almost completely in its own footprint late that afternoon. Again, NIST insisted it was caused by fires set off by WTC 1’s flaming debris penetrating its roof and windows. Yet a NIST photograph of a debris-free roof, locked rooftop doors and unbroken windows belied their own claim.(34) New questions surfaced to challenge the Bush/Cheney Administration’s official explanation: Could a two-airliner crash emit shockwaves that knocked people off their feet? That could burn out vehicle engines and fling car doors to the pavement? What about the significant seismic and audio evidence of massive ground explosions—not just two for the Towers, but three bigger ones more than an hour later? What about EMP indicators of momentary communication shutdowns exactly on impact of planes and Towers? Or what about the discovery six days after 9/11 by the U.S. Geological Survey’s teams of astronomically elevated levels of nuclear residue: strontium, barium, vanadium, lead, and zinc. Above all, why couldn’t First Responders extinguish the pools of molten metal from WTC 1, 2, and 7 with water and daily changes of soil until December 19, 2001.(35) One observer knowledgeable about nuclear weaponry toted up all this evidence and concluded: “The factual evidence indicates that our government is using and has used 3rd or possibly 4th generation hydrogen bombs domestically and internationally. …The process of exclusion based on the known facts leaves only one viable option for the destruction of the World Trade Center buildings—a relatively pure hydrogen bomb.” (36) In other words, most of the evidence to him and others pointed to a mini-nuclear bomb. His supposition was that the causal agent was a weapon capable, within little more than an hour, of destroying molecules of the Towers’ concrete, steel, interior combustibles—and people—into curb-high dust or borne by hurricane-force winds out to sea. That weapon also, he decided, reduced WTC 7 to five stories of rubble and produced pools of hot molten metal atop footprints of all three skyscrapers that burned for three months. It would take monumental and masterly coordination of timing to get aircraft crashing into the Towers while—simultaneously—high-yield explosives hollowed out basements in six of the Center’s seven buildings, and then were followed by either mini-nuke blasts or high-yield demolition-type explosives to destroy the Towers and WTC 4, 5, and 6. This theory of mini-nukes is that WTC 7 was tumbled by explosives that also triggered a high-yield, non-explosive cutter-charge compound called Thermate®, hot enough to slice through steel beams holding up the building. The theory’s supposition involves the view that the wholesale destruction of the WTC required at least a year of planning. Other evidence about explosions in the basements began to appear, some scientists also tagging nuclear weapons as the prime vehicle of destruction. One major piece of evidence was the unusual Richter-scale readings from Columbia University’s seismic station across the Hudson River at New Jersey’s Palisades—and repeated at 13 of its 34 branch stations on the East Coast. A detriment to the plan was the Towers’ huge protective barrier—the “bathtub”—occupying Basement Levels 3 to 5. It was built to fend off the river from flooding Lower Manhattan basements and subway tunnels. Because the bathtub had three-foot concrete walls, it may have skewed precise readings up to the rim on Level 3.(37) Judging from events, the perpetrators’ plan would have required matching aircraft hits high on the Towers—for show and political reasons—with basement explosions. Then, after an hour’s lull, mini-nukes would sequentially finish off the Towers and mask destruction of the three smaller buildings in the complex—WTC 4, 5, and 6—by mini-nukes. Debris from the Tower hits by aircraft would destroy the slim, 22-story WTC 3. As for the 47-story WTC 7, no aircraft could come in low enough without plowing into neighboring skyscrapers. It would have to be rigged for destruction months before the Tower hits. The theory is that its beams would be wrapped in cutter charges to quietly slice them from holding the building together. (Cutter charges do not explode.) The theory’s supposition is that when the basement explosives were detonated, the building would collapse within seconds and fall neatly into its own footprint just like a controlled demolition in, say, Las Vegas. Most important, its demise would be barely noticed by the media in the chaos surrounding Tower destruction and fires in WTC 3, 4, 5, and 6. Statements by witnesses and First Responders also attested to hearing explosions as well as indications they were nuclear in power and signature. For example, two minutes after the North Tower was struck, New York firefighter Lt. William Walsh and his crew were at its West Street entrance and saw brown smoke coming out of the hit site—a sign of nuclear weapons—and a “lot of ash…[and] paper on the ground.” When they raced into the lobby: “…[it] didn’t appear as though it had any lights. All of the glass on the first floor that abuts West Street was blown out, The glass in the revolving doors was blown out. All of the glass in the lobby was blown out. “The wall panels on the wall are made of marble. It’s about two or three inches thick. They’re about ten feet high by ten feet wide. A lot of those were hanging off the wall. …In the center of [two banks of side express elevators from Floors 30 down would be elevators bound to lower floors. They were blown off the hinges….and you could see the shafts. [The other elevators] looked intact to me. “….I noticed two civilians that had more than third-degree burns. They were in pugilistic position. They were black burnt. Their skin and their clothes were burnt off. They were smoldering. And they were trying to get up. They were just moving around. I estimated they had less than a half minute left in their lives…” (38) Just prior to their arrival down in the North Tower’s Basement Level D, stationary engineer Mike Pecoraro was alerted to flickering lights by a coworker. Dreading the trouble of a power outage, they climbed to Level C where smoke made it difficult to breathe and see. But they found the machine shop gone (“nothing there but rubble”) and that a 50-ton hydraulic press had vanished. (It was later judged to have been vaporized.) The parking garage on that level was gone: “There were no walls. There was rubble on the floor. And you [couldn’t] see anything.” On level B, a 300-pound steel and concrete fire door was on the floor. It was “wrinkled up like a piece of aluminum foil,” he said.(39) Minutes before a plane struck WTC 2, two city officials were ordered to get over to WTC 7, as was customary in “May-Day” protocol. The two were Michael Hess, the city’s chief corporate counsel, and Barry Jennings, deputy director of the Housing Authority’s Emergency Services Department. They rushed into the lobby which was intact and devoid of firefighters and most police. Tenants had been evacuated. Accompanied by a “police triage,” they took a freight elevator to the 23rd floor headquarters of Mayor Rudy Giuliani‘s Office of Emergency Management. What they assumed would be a beehive of action turned out to be empty quarters with signs of an instant evacuation: half-eaten sandwiches and hot coffee. When Jennings put in calls for information, the last one ordered them to “leave and to leave right away!” They were mystified because all signs downstairs indicated the building was safe. Yet elevators were inoperable. So they sped down the stairs on the building’s North side. At the 6th floor landing, a tremendous explosion took out the landing and stairs below, presumably the primary bomb intended to open the basements for the building’s collapse—covered by WTC 2’s destruction across the street. They climbed hand over hand via the stair rails to the 8th floor in darkness, intense heat, and heavy smoke. Jennings broke one of the sealed windows with a fire extinguisher to shout for help from the firefighters ordered out less than an hour before. They promised to rescue the two. WTC 1 was still standing, but shortly would disintegrate into huge dust clouds. Jennings said his prayers and sat down to wait for the firefighters—or death. As he described events immediately after his rescue: “I was trapped in there for several hours. … And all the time, I’m hearing explosions. …I know what I heard. “When [the firefighters] finally got to us, they took us down to what they called the lobby. I said: “Where are we?” He said: “This was the lobby.” …. Total ruins. ….It looked like King Kong had came through and stepped on it. Now keep in mind when I came in here, the lobby had nice escalators. It’s a huge lobby. And for me to see what I saw, it’s unbelievable. “And [one of the] the firefighters that took us down, kept saying, “Do not look down!” And I kept saying: “Why not look down?” And we were stepping over people. And you know you can feel when you’re stepping on people. “And I was so destroyed, I didn’t know where I was. “And so they had to take me out through a hole in the wall. A makeshift hole that I believe the fire department made to get me out. “This big, giant police officer came to me. And he says, “You have to run!” I said: “I can’t run. My knees are swollen.” He said: “Then, you‘ll have to get on your knees and crawl because we have reports of more explosions.” And that’s when I started crawling. “I know what I heard. I heard explosions. The explanation I got was it was the [diesel] fuel-oil tanks. [But] I’m an old boiler guy. If it was the fuel-oil tank, it would have been wiped out of the building.” (40) Curiously, Jennings and Hess’s accounts differ about the moments when firefighters failed to arrive and death seemed imminent. Both were immediately interviewed by the media—Jennings, a second time days later. Hess was interviewed, just before noon, a block from City Hall, nearly a half-mile from WTC 7. Though he was New York City’s chief attorney and supervised 700 lawyers, Jennings described him as panicked during their frightening ordeal (“We gotta get outta here!”). And he had just run a hair-raising half-mile in WTC dust. Yet he seemed too cool, too collected, and too careful in uttering his only televised remarks about their life-threatening experiences in WTC 7: “I was up in the Emergency Management Office on the 23rd floor. And when all the power went out of the building, uh, another gentleman and I walked down to the eighth floor where there was an explosion and we’d been trapped on the eighth floor with smoke, thick smoke all around us for about an hour and a half. But the New York Fire Department, as terrific as they are, just came and got us out.” (41) Not even the ear-splitting noise seemed to bother Hess. But firefighter Lt. Robert Larocco was overwhelmed with it, especially from WTC 2 during its disintegration: “…I heard that loudest noise in the world…getting louder and louder….It was the loudest noise I’ve ever heard in my life. It was in both ears. Kind of like those rockets that they launch the space shuttles with. It was like I had one going off in each ear. When I thought it was the loudest noise I ever heard, every second it was just increasing. Getting louder and louder and louder. [His fellow firefighters were] crying like babies.” (42) Underground nuclear explosions are followed by pyroclastic clouds of materials initially almost as hot as the sun. What follows are shock and blast waves, and base-surge ground-hugging clouds of debris, plus and powerful electromagnetic pulses (EMPs). On 9/11, shock waves seem to have set vehicles afire. Base surges of dust and other debris were several stories high and filled the eyes, ears, mouths, and lungs of victims fleeing down nearby streets. EMPs apparently shut down all electricity momentarily—elevators, lighting, computers, radios, cell phones, vehicles. That would explain the Center’s lighting failures, elevator shutdowns, and the silence on many First Responders’ Handy-Talky radios. When Jennings looked out the window of WTC 7, he saw the shock-wave results: vehicles afire. A First Responder reported getting hit when a car flung its door. Four others—one from WTC 1’s sub-basements—suffered the “hanging skin” seen in survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.(43) The two main advocates that mini-nuclear weapons were used at the WTC—fission or fissionless types—list several other giveaways: • Pulverization of 99% of concrete into ultra-fine dust particles that moved upward, steel particles moved downward. • Nearly 2,000 missing people, presumably vaporized. • Missing debris from two-thirds of the Towers. • Partially vaporized steel beams from WTC 7. • 50-ton corner beams from WTC 1 and 2 flung upward and across streets to pierce neighboring buildings nearly 400 feet away. • Short seismographic spikes trailing off, indicators of ground-level explosions. • Elevated levels tritium, strontium, barium, and zinc residue, all elements of nuclear weapons. • Pyroclastic flow amid the boiling smoke, indicative of the volcanic-like energy of nuclear explosions. • Afterglow of explosions. • Vaporization of 200,000-gallons of water in sprinkler tanks on Tower roofs.(44) If fissionless mini-nukes were used, radiation would be nil. But whether fission or fissionless types were used, they also were now “directable,” so the effects would be confined inside the Towers and WTC 7—and away from damaging the “bathtub” under WTC 1 and 2.(45) How Mini-Nukes Might Have Entered the WTC How could nuclear weapons have been planted at the WTC if Security was intensified after the 1993 bombing in the North Tower? The destruction of the entire Center demonstrates it was easy and, also, that perhaps no high-rise building is entirely immune from those bent on destruction or bioterrorism in ventilation systems. The WTC, particularly the North Tower, has a history of those slipping past Security. Back in August 1974, for example, France’s celebrated high-wire walker Phillipe Petit performed a 45-minute illegal, yet breathtaking, act crossing eight times from the North to the South Tower’s 110th floors. A friendly tenant had permitted him to store equipment and his team, all brought up in van on a freight elevator. And in February 1993, a van full of terrorists and urea nitrate got past North Tower basement guards. That explosion left six dead, 1,000 injured, and $500 million in repairs to five basement levels.(46) Security was supposedly tightened in 1996 when the Port Authority hired Securacom. Its chief executive officer was President Bush’s cousin; his brother Marvin Bush was on its board. They did install cameras everywhere and added personnel. Vehicles, especially delivery vans, underwent minute examinations by staff and bomb-sniffing dogs. ID tags were de rigeur for tenants, clients, and sightseers. Despite all this, in January 1998 a Mafia-type team used “maintenance access” to grab over $1.6 million from a Brink’s crew about to enter the Bank of America on the North Tower’s 11th floor. One of the four had worked at the WTC for 20 years so his ID card was used in the robbery.(47) The Towers also always had high vacancy rates—15% after their doors opened (WTC 1: 1970; WTC 2: 1972)—despite proximity to the New York Stock Exchange and global financial institutions. Empty floors and offices are ideal hiding places for those bent on destruction. On September 11, 2001, WTC 1 had 16 empty floors; WTC 2 had eight. No count of empty offices has been issued.(48) WTC 7’s owner Larry Silverstein had almost no tenants in 1986 when that building was scheduled to open. He was rescued at the eleventh hour by a financier who later went to prison. But by that time, it was filled with federal agencies—SEC, IRS, Secret Service, FBI, etc.—retaining them up to 9/11 by attractive rent discounts. So dire was the situation in the Towers by 1996, however, that the Port Authority eagerly agreed to provide five empty floors in WTC 1 (8, 35, 85, 91, 92) as rent-free studios for artists and sculptors. They were supposedly vetted by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s World View Project.(49) True, the Towers were sightseeing icons, but internally and externally, they creaked and were rotting with age. Externally, the aluminum cladding was corroding and needed replacement before sections fell to the sidewalks and killed passersby. And aside from plumbing and wiring needs, the owners—the Port Authority of New York/New Jersey—kept postponing asbestos abatement while petitioning the city for demolition permits. In turn, the city complained the Port was still getting tax abatements on the Towers since their 1966 groundbreaking. Tenants complained about the “closely spaced, poorly-lit floors,” and when their iron-clad leases expired, many fled to more attractive space nearby. Undoubtedly, many more departed when Silverstein became the WTC landlord on July 24, 2001 and promptly raised rents by 40%. (50) On September 11, WTC 1, 2, and 7 apparently contained 27 empty floors and an unreported number of vacant offices. Because most tenants and visitors in shabby buildings rarely give others a second glance, the perpetrators had an array of disguises: workmen, maintenance and restaurant personnel, the well-dressed feigning interest in renting offices or in visiting tenant allies. Or posing as “artists-in-residence” in jeans and sandals, lugging easels and equipment boxes and chattering in a foreign tongue. One victim’s brother recalled his saying in the months before 9/11, that several “foreign-looking” men were frequenting the communication center on the 110th floor of WTC 1 to make international calls in a foreign language. That witness was unusual. Most rarely give others a second glance.(51) But in late July 2001, when Silverstein’s $3.2 billion bid for the WTC leases made him the landlord, abrupt changes began.(52) He dispensed with the Port’s interim security system between September 1 and 7, 2001 “to let [Silverstein Properties] more fully operate everything from safety systems to tenant relations.” Yet it would have been impossible for his people to master that vast assignment, let alone monitor the thousands passing through Tower lobbies by September 11. Kroll Associates then took over security hiring the FBI’s deputy director John O’Neill on August 23. His forte was field assignments, however, not supervising building security.(53) In that interim between July 24 and September 10, tenants may have been asked to temporarily shift quarters for “repairs” or “upgradings” of utilities. Those above the Towers’ 48th floors were notified three weeks before 9/11 that a powerdown to recable for expanded broadband was scheduled for the weekend of September 8-9. That meant no electricity on those floors, nor elevator service—or surveillance cameras—again, ideal working conditions for 9/11 perpetrators.(54) An additional troubling sidelight was that at that time, one of the world’s leading demolition experts, Mark Loizeaux, admitted he was in WTC 7’s Emergency Management Agency on the 23rd floor when Silverstein became the Port’s landlord. His company had demolished 7,000 buildings, including Detroit’s Hudson Department Store. He was fully knowledgeable about the complex (“I did a report on the World Trade Center when I was at college and I knew exactly how it was built”).(55) If Loizeaux were in Silverstein Properties offices in WTC 1 to discuss demolition of one of the company’s other properties, that was one thing. But it was quite another to be in Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s command bunker for the city’s security. In fairness, the session could have involved notification that Silverstein was preparing the aging, asbestos-laden white elephants for demolition and to make another plea for the city to issue the permits. Giuliani’s security people would need to be alerted.(56) The latter case seems quite possible because after seeing the WTC 2 hit and jet fuel pouring down its sides, Loizeaux did not contact officials about fire and aircraft crashes. Instead, he “called a couple of people on the National Research Council Committee involved in assessing the impact of explosives.” That does seem to indicate demolition rigging was already in place.(57) An author of a book theorizing about nuclear factors at the WTC, William Tahil, points to yet another angle to Loizeaux’s visit: “It is clear that anyone intent on carrying out an illegal or clandestine controlled demolition of a building would require the advice of an expert on how to do it. The best way to obtain that advice would be under a pretext of some sort, such as security planning.” (58) In short, the Center was wide open for planting any kind of explosives that would bring about its destruction. As previously noted, mini-nuke pellets are now small enough—5mm-diameter (0.195 of an inch)—for someone in a suit with hutzpah, carrying a briefcase—or a vendor in uniform, someone in a hard hat carrying cable and a box, or an artist type in jeans pushing a box-filled dolly—to sneak in parts of fissionless or fission mini-nuke.(59) Fission-Driven Mini-Nukes The two mini-nuke advocates whose theories are featured in this paper—“Anonymous Physicist,” (“AP”) and one calling himself “The Finnish Military Expert” (“FME”) agree on the simultaneous timing of aircraft hits and basement explosions to ultimately destroy all seven WTC buildings. However, they differ on whether fissionless- or fission-triggered devices were the initial weapon—with adjunctive cutter charge redundancies or conventional demolition explosives such as RDX. They also differ on the kiloton power (one kiloton vs. one-tenth of a kiloton), as well as how many devices were planted. Obviously, high-rise demolition experts had to have provided information to the perpetrators on the most effective locations.(60) “AP” posits that fission-driven mini-nukes set off a domino effect with accompanying conventional explosives or non-explosive, high-temperature cutter charges to quietly slice and melt the WTC’s steel beams. He points out that explosions from nuclear weapons consume only 1 to 6% of the fissionable material. As for what happens to the remaining 99 or 94%: “…the micro-nukes—even the properly fissioning ones used inside the WTC—were, at least partially, contained during the destruction. But as the buildings were being destroyed, even vaporized, the remaining fissile material would be able to reach all around the WTC area, and some would likely reach significantly beyond as well. “Some fissile material from the sub-basement nukes, would likely be trapped in the largest concentrations, to be found in the aftermath, in these basement areas. These radioactive fragments would also be inaccessible to the usual radiation-lowering mechanisms that were extensively employed beginning the very next day–water hosing, and “coating” with sand /earth….Indeed all the facts involving exploding numerous micro-nukes in an enclosed (or partially enclosed) space appears to make the China Syndrome aftermath not only plausible, but inevitable!” (61) He believes that the sun-like heat from the mini-nukes’ “radioactive fragments” created the molten pools of metal in footprints of WTC 1, 2, and 7 that smoldered for 99 days. He calls this phenomenon “the China Syndrome” because of the myth applied to Chernobyl that a meltdown of a nuclear reactor’s core could send the flow to penetrate Earth from Ground Zero to China.(62) New York Fire Chief Jerry Gumbo attested to the heat, the greatest he had ever experienced, yet no fires were near him: “At the time of the [planes] impact, we were able to feel heat that was generated from the explosion at the command post, which was across West Street. And West is fairly large street with that island in there, and debris was showering all over West Street.” (63) Cleanup vendor Bechtel Corporation, with 40 employees at the site, also mentioned the heat in its report about working conditions: “The debris pile at Ground Zero was always tremendously hot. Thermal measurements taken by helicopter each day showed underground temperatures ranging from 400ºF to more than 2,800ºF. The surface was so hot that standing too long in one spot softened (and even melted) the soles of our safety shoes. Steel toes would often heat up and become intolerable. This heat was also a concern for the search-and-rescue dogs used at the site. Many were not outfitted with protective booties. More than one suffered serious injuries and at least three died while working at Ground Zero.” (64) Those views were echoed by California’s Rand Corporation’s statement when it sponsored a conference about lessons learned from First Responders: “…the rubble pile was so hot in places that it melted the soles of boots (a problem noted by members of the trades, law- enforcement, and firefighter panels). Work shoes with steel reinforcements in the soles and toes protected feet against punctures by sharp objects, but often could not be worn because they conducted and retained the heat, causing blistered or scorched feet. One special-operations member said, ‘Steel toes never break in. We’d all be sitting there at night bandaging up and everybody had the same blisters. It was related to wearing the steel toe for that duration.’ “ (65) Weighing all available evidence about mini-nukes, “AP” declared: “….fission was a certainty, and that fusion (fissionless) probably did not occur, and the tritium data release should be discounted. Some fission reactions even produce tritium.” (66) He estimated the number of bombs used (35 per Tower), placements, and explosive power of each (one-tenth of one kiloton) and added: “…at least a minimum of 4-6 nukes per tower were used. Each one having a radius of about 10-15 floors, or a diameter of about 20-30 floors. “Nukes would be placed strategically (centrally?) to try to vaporize the strong 47-beam steel core—the sturdiest and most heat-resistant part of the towers’ structure—and therefore likely the last to get vaporized…. “With a nuclear device that vaporizes most of the inside—which will soon be micro-particles floating around outside—there would be little left of the inside to need support! While preferable to do away with as much of this 47 steel beam support as possible without “over-nuking” everything, it was therefore not essential for its entirety to be vaporized. Indeed, we may see [in photographs] that some of this support—up to about the 60th Floor—remained after “collapse” of WTC 1—and was then itself likely vaporized, during the “nuclear glow”. “Why was there a need to vaporize the left-over support beams? Because…100% obliteration of these beams is more necessary for the bogus, gravitational “collapse” mechanism, than for the actual nuclear destruction mechanism! “….A decision as to whether, or not, to use more nukes towards the end of each tower’s destruction—when smoke and debris would shield the state of the remaining building could have been facilitated by helicopters, planes, even satellites overhead—using wavelengths that see through smoke—and directed more nuclear (or conventional?) explosions—especially at the lower levels or ground—as needed.” (67) As for the eight-story WTC 6 and the nine-story WTC 4 and 5, “AP” speculated that “underpowered nukes” were used so it could be later claimed that Tower debris and ground-level reverberations caused their destruction. “AP” believes an oversized mini-nuke was used on WTC 6 and might have been a mistake (“..smaller ones, to hide the nuking, was the order of the day…”).(68) Aerial photographs of the dust-covered WTC by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on September 23, 2001, show sizeable basement-to-roof cylindrical holes in WTC 6 (100’ diameter). WTC 4 was sheared exactly from its flattened South wing. That wing seemed to contain the same size crater as WTC 6 and was three stories deep).(69) “AP” suggests WTC 7, in contrast to its WTC companions, was a botched job because of the fission “fizzles” inherent to nuclear weapons. He posits that is why backup mini-nukes apparently were involved in the Oklahoma City bombing and immediately and quickly retrieved by federal agents from the premises after the bombing, as previously noted. As to WTC 7’s destruction, the likeliest plan was to wait until WTC 1 and 2 were destroyed, then spread the rumor that this third skyscraper’s beams had been weakened either by: 1) ground reverberations from the Towers’ destruction; or 2) flaming debris from WTC 1 that somehow vaulted past WTC 6 next door and Liberty Street to set it afire. Besides, amid all the chaos of black clouds of dust, the shouts, screams, and sirens, few even in the media would notice that the nearby 47-story WTC 7 had collapsed in 6.5 seconds. In this, the perpetrators were successful.(70) That all-day delay also permitted the scramble of key federal tenants in WTC 7—FBI, CIA, Secret Service—to rescue files while an estimated 4,000 tenants made their orderly, hour-long evacuation after the first airliner hit. Strangely, the staff at the Securities and Exchange Commission failed to remove 3,000-4,000 files on illegal activities by investment banks. And the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) would later report that 45 major case files were missing, including one against Morgan Stanley Global Investment Management. Add to that the IRS’s loss of critical files.(71) If Jennings’ timetable was correct about the explosion that collapsed the stairs out from him and Hess, that had to be when the fissionless nuke went off in WTC 7’s basements to hollow them out for the rubble of 47 floors. The bodies in the shattered lobby they climbed over may have been maintenance workers or tenants caught in the basements’ blast or elevators, as had happened in WTC 1. One firefighter never forgot that scene: “There was elevator doors ajar. There were elevator doors missing. I could see an elevator car twisted in the shaft….there was a bunch of rubble on the floor…about three feet high in the middle. The ceiling wasn’t charred. So I had thought the floor blew up…I came to learn that that was bodies. We had to climb over and around this pile.” (72) The bodies in both lobbies, obviously retrieved from fire-blistered elevator cars, seem to indicate they were sacrificed by explosives under the shafts to clear basements for rubble. Both a NIST preliminary report in 2004 and the final report note that between 12:10 to 12:15 p.m.: “Firefighters found individuals on floors 7 and 8 and [led] them out of the building,” but reported no bodies, but “heavy debris” in the lobby, in addition to white dust and hanging ceiling wires. Because a gash in the Southwest corner was photographed—lobby to the 10th floor—it would appear that damage was not done by debris falling from WTC 1, across the street. It had to be something large, perhaps a heavy column beam, propelled upward by a powerful explosive force from the WTC 7’s basement and through the lower floors of its southwest corner wall. Whether a single beam or several were thrust into surrounding buildings such as WTC 6 across the street is not known. What is known from photographs is that something large was flung from WTC 7 to penetrate what appears to be the sixth and seventh floors of the eastern side of the Verizon building across a side street between the two structures. In addition, behind WTC 7, large holes were blasted into the south façade and southeastern side of City University of New York’s Fiterman Hall. (73) However, 15 minutes after Jennings and Hess had to have been led to safety, the deputy director of Giuliani’s OEM arrived. That report never included bodies, but did note signs of a tremendous explosion. NIST’s investigators evidently were ordered to ignore it in the Administration’s mandate to bring in a verdict of fire as the causal agent of WTC 7’s collapse. That meant ignoring an elevator car blasted into an upper hall, falling objects: “…columns just hanging from the upper floors. Gaping holes in the floors above us.” (74) WTC 7 May Hold Key to the WTC Destruction Whomever Jennings called that morning about the evacuated OEM headquarters obviously knew the building was about to be demolished and shocked to learn two high-ranking city officials were on the premises. But considering the thousands to be killed in the Towers, it seems unlikely any change was made to the detonation timing. They at least had been warned to flee. Their lives were saved when the explosives apparently took out only the basement levels, not the entire building. That WTC 7 was still standing after WTC 2 disintegrated and before WTC 1 was destroyed, indicated to “AP” that the perpetrator’s precise timetable seems to have gone significantly awry. Like a burned-out bulb on a string of Christmas-tree lights, he has surmised that one or more of the always-perishable fission bombs, “all its nukes—including the redundant one(s)—fizzled.” If true, the perpetrators now faced a spectacular predicament because it would be difficult to hide a second attempt at demolishing WTC 7. At least someone in authority had ordered almost all First Responders out of the building before the first attempt so the perpetrators could finish the job in secret.(75) Their Plan B seems to have involved at least five major remedial tasks: 1). Replace the mini-nukes with fresh ones. 2). Get rid of the bodies in the lobby. 3). Set and stoke small and highly visible fires throughout the building. 4). Send out media releases that the building was about to collapse. 5). Silence Jennings and the firefighter(s) who rescued him. “AP” envisioned the perpetrators’ frantic eight-hour activities: “…it took a few hours to get replacements [for the mini-nukes], possibly even needing time to test, or try to test, the new ones before emplacing them…I would hypothesize that perhaps even the errant early notice to the worldwide media that WTC 7 had already collapsed [before 5:20 p.m.] may have been once again due to another defective nuke ‘fizzling.’ ” (76) The clumsy damage-control efforts expended on WTC 7 doomed the Bush/Cheney story that Arab hijackers had destroyed the Center. For one thing, the perpetrators were unaware that fire had never brought down a steel-framed high-rise in history, something most veteran firefighters around the country know. And something probationers learned when the steel structures of WTC 5 and 6 remained erect, though gutted by fires. Nor did they seem to realize that high-rise demolition specialists would point out it takes months of preparation to achieve a collapse without damaging neighboring buildings. Or that WTC 7’s locked rooftop doors and sealed windows would prevent WTC 1’s alleged “flaming debris” from entering the building. It’s doubtful that debris would still be “flaming” after traveling 355 feet across the street. Nor did those in charge know that arson should start on a top floor, not the seventh floor. Or that documents would show that the fire alarm system was turned off at 6:47:42 a.m. and back on at 2:48:22 p.m. when alarms were unneeded. Or that television cameras showing No. 7 still standing would be rolling when a BBC reporter said it had already collapsed. (At least one source found media reports that it had collapsed at 11:07 that morning.) And how could the planners know that a pair of videographers would capture its sensational 6.5-second collapse straight into its basement and somehow escape officials seizing tapes?(77) What they did know was that most Americans would believe anything their President, his staff and the mass media told them about these terrible events. Not to overlook the public’s short attention spans and easily distractive natures, plus the anti-Arab dispositions from the 1993 North Tower bombing, the public’s patriotism and vengeful proclivities. The perpetrators also had to have demanded and received continued cooperation of those orchestrating the subsequent massive cover-up, especially when Bush administration was finally forced to institute and control the 9/11 Commission investigation. Unfortunately, they overlooked the incredible power and world-wide reach of the yet uncensored Internet. Almost from Day 2 of the disaster, bloggers and hundreds of activists began to do the investigative work that three prizewinning mediums—The New York Times, The Washington Post, CBS News—failed or refused to do. These one-time matchless investigative mediums joined the perpetrators’ other accessories in the mainstream media in telling a shocked world that two airliners had leveled the WTC. And that Osama bin Ladin’s al-Qaida operatives had single-handedly done the deed. Most Americans up to that time also believed almost everything purveyed by television and the press, especially accounts from the Bush Administration’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In fairness to the Times, “AP” notes that an “inside job” was first inadvertently suggested in late November 2001 by one of its stories. In a “round-up” set of interviews from the national “community” of structural engineers and architects, the reporter wrote they were utterly baffled by WTC 7’s collapse. “Flaming debris” and the tanks of diesel fuel were ruled out because of thick asbestos coating the beams and that even the hottest fires had never destroyed steel beams.(78) The explosion factor seemingly was ignored, but the reporter’s story included quotes from a renown fire-protection engineering professor, Dr. Jonathan Barnett. He was considered expert enough to be appointed to the WTC assessment team organized by FEMA and the American Society of Civil Engineers. After that interview, he was not invited to be one of the experts producing the 2008 NIST report on WTC 7’s collapse.(79) Prophetically, Barnett was quoted as saying that a definitive answer to the WTC 7 question was the most important question facing investigators. He followed that startling remark with the observation that some of the beams found in the debris pile appeared to have partly evaporated because of “extraordinarily high temperatures.” The intimation seemed to be the beams were not melted by debris, diesel-fuel fires, or Thermate®. The primary cause might be vaporization caused by a nuclear weapon.(80) However, his statement was not followed up by the Times or the mainstream media. Almost all mediums, except the Internet, seemed to deliberately ignore WTC 7’s spectacular collapse from the outset so that most people without computer access were unaware of the third skyscrapers’ existence and death—until a PBS special America Rebuilds included it on the first anniversary of 9/11. WTC 7’s owner Larry Silverstein was interviewed and admitted ordering the building “pulled,” a demolition term. As a life-long realty/construction-demolition expert, he knew “pulling” a building—especially a skyscraper—involved months of planning and implementation.(81) He apparently forgot that NIST and his insurers attributed destruction to fire and that he was on track to collect $861 million in claims from his carrier. That damning gaffe was quickly explained by his spokesman as meaning “pulling out firefighters” in hopes the public would not know they had been “pulled” by mid-morning. The alibi was too late. Silverstein’s admission turned smoldering embers into a firestorm of doubt continuing to this day about WTC 7’s collapse.(82) DVD and YouTube footage of that slip and a frame-by-frame postcard on the collapse seem to have been major recruiting tools for millions to question the “official” story that has set off two wars and a major recession. So did the 9/11 Commission Report which omitted mention of WTC 7’s existence and death. By then, thousands were regularly reading posts on proliferating 9/11 websites and downloading 9/11 documentaries (Loose Change, 9/11 Revisited, 9/11 Mysteries, etc.). Investigative books followed such as Crossing the Rubicon. Thousands of 9/11 groups organized. Street demonstrators distributed DVDs, literature, and promoted a national speakers’ circuit. Millions of T-shirts charged that “9/11 Was an Inside Job.” And millions more now believe it was, a late 2007 Scripps-Howard poll revealing that 36% of them “suspected that federal officials either actually assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them.” The same poll showed that 51% of Americans want Congress to investigate the roles of Bush and Cheney in 9/11.(83) The Fissionless Mini-Nukes Theory The view of Finnish Military Expert (“FME”) seems to dovetail with that of “AP.” He believes, however, that the mini-nukes were of a one-kiloton type, and fissionless—a non-radioactive “pure hydrogen bomb.” He evidently perceived its having the equivalent power of the 35 fission types that “AP” suggested were planted at each of the three skyscrapers. They were enhanced, he has theorized, by as many as 24,000 cutter charges wrapped around each beam, plus napalm for visual effects, and a directional radio homing device to direct the aircraft.(84) The diagram below illustrates his concepts of what was used and the placement sites in this truncated version of one of the Towers.

Actually, no. That would be Dick Cheny. But Obama's speech before the NAACP last night scared the BeeJeezus out of me. Far from being inspirational and inspiring, I found it to be mean-spirited and condescending. If you remove the revival tent theatrics and rhetoric, Obama essentially said this: if...

Newser Summary) – Peru's Congress has revoked two laws that led to bloody clashes between police and indigenous protesters, CNN reports. Lawmakers voted overwhelmingly in favor of ditching the laws that opened up the country's Amazon region to mining, logging, and oil companies. Dozens of people died earlier this month when police moved in on indigenous people blocking roads to protest the exploitation of their ancestral lands.

Moviemakr said... The SEC just requested a copy of the new movie about this called Stock Shock. Finally doing something pro-active!!!! Article here:http://satwaves.com/blog/2009/06/26/sec-investigating-illegal-naked-short-selling/

Teachers File Racial Discrimination Suit Against Obama Administration's School “Turnaround” PlanObama’s Health Care CharadeBAR Issue #140, May 27, 2009: A Federal Bailout For Black Radio​? Under What Conditions?

More Newspaper Headline FeedsAustralia, Melbourne Age > NationalAustralia, Melbourne Age > WorldAustralia, NEWS.com.au > NationalAustralia, NEWS.com.au > WorldAustralia, Sydney Morning Herald > NationalAustralia, Sydney Morning Herald > WorldAustralia, The Australian > NationalCanada, Globe and Mail. > NationalCanada, Globe and Mail. > WorldCanada, Toronto Star > NationalCanada, Toronto Star > WorldChina, Peoples Daily > NationalChina, Peoples Daily > WorldEngland, BBC News > NationalEngland, BBC News > WorldEngland, Guardian, The > NationalEngland, Guardian, The > WorldEngland, Sky News > NationalEngland, Sky News > WorldFrance, International Herald Tribune > WorldIndia, Hindu, The > WorldIndia, Times of India > NationalIndia, Times of India > WorldIreland, Irish Times > NationalIreland, Irish Times > WorldItaly, Corriere della Sera > WorldJamaica, Jamaica Gleaner > NationalJapan, Japan Times > NationalNew Zealand, New Zealand Herald > NationalNew Zealand, New Zealand Herald > WorldNew Zealand, Stuff > NationalNew Zealand, Stuff > WorldUSA, Boston Globe > NationalUSA, Boston Globe > WorldUSA, Buffalo News > NationalUSA, CNN > NationalUSA, CNN > WorldUSA, CNN Money > WorldUSA, Crains New York > WorldUSA, Fox News > NationalUSA, Fox News > WorldUSA, Houston Chronicle > NationalUSA, Houston Chronicle > WorldUSA, MSNBC > NationalUSA, MSNBC > WorldUSA, New York Times > NationalUSA, New York Times > WorldUSA, Philadelphia Inquirer > NationalUSA, Philadelphia Inquirer > WorldUSA, Reuters > NationalUSA, Reuters > WorldUSA, Variety > WorldUSA, Wall Street Journal > NationalUSA, Washington Post > NationalUSA, Washington Post > WorldUSA, Yahoo News > NationalUSA, Yahoo News > WorldView RSS feed

A Resource-Based Economy is a system in which all goods and services are available without the use of money, credits, barter or any other system of debt or servitude. All resources become the common heritage of all of the inhabitants, not just a select few. The premise upon which this system is based is that the Earth is abundant with plentiful resource; our practice of rationing resources through monetary methods is irrelevant and counter productive to our survival. Modern society has access to highly advanced technology and can make available food, clothing, housing and medical care; update our educational system; and develop a limitless supply of renewable, non-contaminating energy. By supplying an efficiently designed economy, everyone can enjoy a very high standard of living with all of the amenities of a high technological society. A resource-based economy would utilize existing resources from the land and sea, physical equipment, industrial plants, etc. to enhance the lives of the total population. In an economy based on resources rather than money, we could easily produce all of the necessities of life and provide a high standard of living for all. Consider the following examples: At the beginning of World War II the US had a mere 600 or so first-class fighting aircraft. We rapidly overcame this short supply by turning out more than 90,000 planes a year. The question at the start of World War II was: Do we have enough funds to produce the required implements of war? The answer was No, we did not have enough money, nor did we have enough gold; but we did have more than enough resources. It was the available resources that enabled the US to achieve the high production and efficiency required to win the war. Unfortunately this is only considered in times of war. In a resource-based economy all of the world's resources are held as the common heritage of all of Earth's people, thus eventually outgrowing the need for the artificial boundaries that separate people. This is the unifying imperative. We must emphasize that this approach to global governance has nothing whatever in common with the present aims of an elite to form a world government with themselves and large corporations at the helm, and the vast majority of the world's population subservient to them. Our vision of globalization empowers each and every person on the planet to be the best they can be, not to live in abject subjugation to a corporate governing body. Our proposals would not only add to the well being of people, but they would also provide the necessary information that would enable them to participate in any area of their competence. The measure of success would be based on the fulfilment of one's individual pursuits rather than the acquisition of wealth, property and power. At present, we have enough material resources to provide a very high standard of living for all of Earth's inhabitants. Only when population exceeds the carrying capacity of the land do many problems such as greed, crime and violence emerge. By overcoming scarcity, most of the crimes and even the prisons of today's society would no longer be necessary. A resource-based economy would make it possible to use technology to overcome scarce resources by applying renewable sources of energy, computerizing and automating manufacturing and inventory, designing safe energy-efficient cities and advanced transportation systems, providing universal health care and more relevant education, and most of all by generating a new incentive system based on human and environmental concern. Many people believe that there is too much technology in the world today, and that technology is the major cause of our environmental pollution. This is not the case. It is the abuse and misuse of technology that should be our major concern. In a more humane civilization, instead of machines displacing people they would shorten the workday, increase the availability of goods and services, and lengthen vacation time. If we utilize new technology to raise the standard of living for all people, then the infusion of machine technology would no longer be a threat. A resource-based world economy would also involve all-out efforts to develop new, clean, and renewable sources of energy: geothermal; controlled fusion; solar; photovoltaic; wind, wave, and tidal power; and even fuel from the oceans. We would eventually be able to have energy in unlimited quantity that could propel civilization for thousands of years. A resource-based economy must also be committed to the redesign of our cities, transportation systems, and industrial plants, allowing them to be energy efficient, clean, and conveniently serve the needs of all people. What else would a resource-based economy mean? Technology intelligently and efficiently applied, conserves energy, reduces waste, and provides more leisure time. With automated inventory on a global scale, we can maintain a balance between production and distribution. Only nutritious and healthy food would be available and planned obsolescence would be unnecessary and non-existent in a resource-based economy. As we outgrow the need for professions based on the monetary system, for instance lawyers, bankers, insurance agents, marketing and advertising personnel, salespersons, and stockbrokers, a considerable amount of waste will be eliminated. Considerable amounts of energy would also be saved by eliminating the duplication of competitive products such as tools, eating utensils, pots, pans and vacuum cleaners. Choice is good. But instead of hundreds of different manufacturing plants and all the paperwork and personnel required to turn out similar products, only a few of the highest quality would be needed to serve the entire population. Our only shortage is the lack of creative thought and intelligence in ourselves and our elected leaders to solve these problems. The most valuable, untapped resource today is human ingenuity. With the elimination of debt, the fear of losing one's job will no longer be a threat This assurance, combined with education on how to relate to one another in a much more meaningful way, could considerably reduce both mental and physical stress and leave us free to explore and develop our abilities. If the thought of eliminating money still troubles you, consider this: If a group of people with gold, diamonds and money were stranded on an island that had no resources such as food, clean air and water, their wealth would be irrelevant to their survival. It is only when resources are scarce that money can be used to control their distribution. One could not, for example, sell the air we breathe or water abundantly flowing down from a mountain stream. Although air and water are valuable, in abundance they cannot be sold. Money is only important in a society when certain resources for survival must be rationed and the people accept money as an exchange medium for the scarce resources. Money is a social convention, an agreement if you will. It is neither a natural resource nor does it represent one. It is not necessary for survival unless we have been conditioned to accept it as such.

N.S.A.'s Pinwale Examines Large Volumes of US E-mail Messages Without Court Warrants --E-Mail Surveillance Renews Concerns in Congress 17 Jun 2009 The National Security Agency is facing renewed scrutiny over the extent of its domestic surveillance program, with critics in Congress saying its recent intercepts of the private telephone calls and e-mail messages of Americans are broader than previously acknowledged, current and former officials said. A former N.S.A. analyst who, in a series of interviews, described being trained in 2005 for a program [Pinwale] in which the agency routinely examined large volumes of Americans’ e-mail messages without court warrants. Two intelligence officials confirmed that the program was still in operation.

Robert Reich's Blog Robert Reich was the nation's 22nd Secretary of Labor and is a professor at the University of California at Berkeley. His latest book is "Supercapitalism." This is his personal journal.

By now, you may have heard about our acclaimed documentary I.O.U.S.A., a film that boldly examines the rapidly growing national debt and its consequences for the United States and its citizens. Th...

Iran's green revolution"Red" Ahmadinejad may have met his match June 11 - The day before the Iranian presidential elections, TRNN analyst Pepe Escobar talks about the political energy behind the moderate conservative candidate, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, referring to it as a "green revolution." In a country where 30% of the population is technologically active and 60% of the population are under 30-years of age, the "green revolution has been driven by an ultra-energized, tech-savvy, and very young grassroots base, criss-crossing absolutely everything: urban and rural, ethnic majorities, rich and poor, the women vote," Escobar says. Escobar also emphasizes that "Mousavi green power" is definitely synonymous with girl power: "They are young, they are educated, they love their make-up, and they make the clerics tremble with fear. They are branded as evil feminists. Their role model is none other than Mousavi's wife [Zahra Rahnavard]," Escobar says. However, current Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has the vote of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, the neo-conservative vote, and the bulk of the rural, provincial vote. The Tehran Bureau reports that a hard-line ayatollah has issued a fatwa authorizing changing votes for Ahmadinejad. "However, in the end," Escobar says, "Ahmadinejad may be defeated by an electronic intifadah." To view the complete video, please click here. For Press Inquires, please contact: Sharmini Peries Email: sharmini@therealnews.com