25 August 2008

WTC 7

Last week, the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology released a 77-page report on the collapse of the World Trade Center Building 7, which you can read here. As you might imagine the report is pretty boring, but some of the language used is pretty interesting. There is a pretty subjective "reconstruction" of the events that lead to the collapse on 9/11, and some different explanations for why certain scenarios are more likely that others, blah blah blah. But what's interesting is to compare they're language with the language used by the New York Daily News story that covers the report. The NIST report, which took three years to write, explains its purpose as an attempt to understand the safety problems that caused the building to collapse, without acknowledging the importance of an official report to quell any conspiracy theories about 9/11. The Daily News makes the implicit assumption that the reports only purpose is to debunk any theories, as we can tell from the headline, "Fire - not explosives - brought 7 WTC down."

9/11 conspiracy theorists believe that the official explanation that fires caused structural damage that ultimately led to the collapse of all three WTC buildings is physically impossible. In all of the 9/11 videos and media, you will hear pseudo-scientific explanations of why this is so, using evidence like "no building in history has collapsed because of fire damage" and videos of controlled demolitions which closely resemble the building 7 collapse. This is part of the narrative strategy of conspiracy theories, using "evidence" that may have no basis in reality, but reporting as though it is absolute truth. It works because conspiracy theorists are by definition not mainstream and not expected to work within guidelines that a institution like the NIST must. The discrepancy creates an interesting dialog, where the officials generally don't bother to acknowledge the conspiracy theories, while conspiracies don't really attack the official story or actual evidence in a credible way. The only link between the two are media sources like the New York Daily News that are able to create a more interesting story by juxtaposing the two.

As of right now there are 43 comments on the Daily News story, which create kind of a hilarious dialog between people who believe the conspiracy and others who vehemently oppose it. It's hard for me to imagine the people behind these comments, but I suppose they could really be anyone. You would assume a lot of college students and maybe some precocious high schoolers, but for all I know my parents are secretly posting comments written in all caps on news stories in the spare time.

More on Anthrax Conspiracy

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just kidding.

07 August 2008

Anthrax Conspiracy

Crazy story in the New York Times yesterday: A scientist named Bruce Ivins, suspected of sending the anthrax letters which killed five people and injured a bunch of other ones a week after 9/11 in 2001, committed suicide by taking a massive dose of pain killers. Government investigators are now claiming that the case is shut and that Ivins was the perpetrator. Now if you think like a conspiracy theorist this seems a little too convenient. The FBI is claiming that Ivins acted alone. But there is some contention on that issue (as well as plenty of contention that Ivins did it at all as most of the evidence is circumstantial and there are some holes in the Feds' story). To me this is an important distinction. If it was just Ivins than most likely he's just a crazy dude, but if there were other people involved that points to a conspiracy within the government. The Times piece is really fascinating, but you need a subscription to read it, but here's a clip of Keith Olberman explaining what happened:



We've known for a while that the anthrax used in the attacks originated from US government labs, though President Bush and others originally speculated it came from Iraq--keep in mind this is a week after 9/11, well before Bush and others started making a case for the war in Iraq. Here's a pretty boring anthrax conspiracy clip as well:

06 August 2008

Astronaut Buzz

It's kind of sad that the only times I've paid attention to NASA since the Columbia Shuttle exploded in 2003 (which led me to wonder if there were any Columbia Shuttle conspiracies which led me to this gem) is the diaper murderer thing. But recently NASA has made it back into the news in the form of former Astronaut and sixth man on the moon, Edgar Mitchell, and the interview in which he exposes his and NASA's knowledge of extra terrestrials (he even has his own website). The blogs have been buzzing.

Typically I don't care much for extra terrestrial theories, and if you check out the YouTube page for the guy who made the Columbia conspiracy video, you will understand why. Unlike certain 9/11, JFK, New World Order, etc etc, conpiracists, these guys are so crazy that you can't even pretend to take them seriously, and then it's just no fun. But, for those of you who are interested here's a video with the interview.



It has some funny captions and typical extra terrestrial imagery, but is really pretty boring. There's also a recording of the same guys calling NASA, who apparently wasn't aware that this was going on at all. I can't find any official response from NASA, and there's a rumor that the whole thing is a big media hoax, which is pretty funny, but I doubt it, considering how boring this is compared to all the other possible hoaxes out there. It would explain why Mitchell's personal site doesn't have any content about aliens, though there is a bunch of new-agey cosmic weirdness that's kind of funny. Mostly it just seems like he's an old guy who lost his marbles.

Better luck next time.

Conspiracy Theories in cartoons

I was excited to see my favorite online comic make fun of conspiracy theorists. Interesting that Chris Onstad chose the two most unsavory of Achewood characters for the gag.

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