BBC 9-11 Third Tower
I am not much on conspiracy theories. This is on today’s BBC – a slow Saturday, I don’t imagine it will get a lot of attention.
9/11 third tower mystery ‘solved’ |
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The final mystery of 9/11 will soon be solved, according to US experts investigating the collapse of the third tower at the World Trade Center.
The 47-storey third tower, known as Tower Seven, collapsed seven hours after the twin towers.
Investigators are expected to say ordinary fires on several different floors caused the collapse.
Conspiracy theorists have argued that the third tower was brought down in a controlled demolition.
Unlike the twin towers, Tower Seven was not hit by a plane.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology, based near Washington DC, is expected to conclude in its long-awaited report this month that ordinary fires caused the building to collapse.
That would make it the first and only steel skyscraper in the world to collapse because of fire.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s lead investigator, Dr Shyam Sunder, spoke to BBC Two’s “The Conspiracy Files”:
“Our working hypothesis now actually suggests that it was normal building fires that were growing and spreading throughout the multiple floors that may have caused the ultimate collapse of the buildings.”
‘Smoking gun’
However, a group of architects, engineers and scientists say the official explanation that fires caused the collapse is impossible. Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth argue there must have been a controlled demolition.
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The founder of the group, Richard Gage, says the collapse of the third tower is an obvious example of a controlled demolition using explosives.
“Building Seven is the smoking gun of 9/11… A sixth grader can look at this building falling at virtually freefall speed, symmetrically and smoothly, and see that it is not a natural process.
“Buildings that fall in natural processes fall to the path of least resistance”, says Gage, “they don’t go straight down through themselves.”
Conspiracy theories
There are a number of facts that have encouraged conspiracy theories about Tower Seven.
- Although its collapse potentially made architectural history, all of the thousands of tonnes of steel from the skyscraper were taken away to be melted down.
- The third tower was occupied by the Secret Service, the CIA, the Department of Defence and the Office of Emergency Management, which would co-ordinate any response to a disaster or a terrorist attack.
- The destruction of the third tower was never mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report. The first official inquiry into Tower Seven by the Federal Emergency Management Agency was unable to be definitive about what caused its collapse.
- In May 2002 FEMA concluded that the building collapsed because intense fires had burned for hours, fed by thousands of gallons of diesel stored in the building. But it said this had “only a low probability of occurrence” and more work was needed.
But now nearly seven years after 9/11 the definitive official explanation of what happened to Tower Seven is finally about to be published in America.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology has spent more than two years investigating Tower Seven but lead investigator Dr Shyam Sunder rejects criticism that it has been slow.
My comment:
If you go to the BBC News Link (this if filed under Conspiracies) you can watch a video of the third tower going down. It looks pretty controlled to me, too.
Khadra and The Swallows of Kabul
While waiting for our luggage to be offloaded, we were passing time, visiting with our greeter / expediter, asking about his family, his life in Zambia.
“How does this work, travelling with your son and your daughter-in-law?” he asked us. “Do you like her?”
Nothing on earth could disguise the delight on our faces as we both said “Yes!” We truly adore her.
When our son was only seven years old, a Christian speaker passing through said that if you have children, it is likely that their mates have also been born, so to start praying now for the unknown mate your child would choose, and we did.
When our son called us from university, and told us there was someone he wanted us to meet at graduation, and graduation was still months away, we knew, we just knew, that this might be THE ONE.
We were so delighted when we met her, we liked her immediately. What parent isn’t happy to see his/her son/daughter happy, and choosing well?
“But!” our meeter/greeter added, “how do you like her family?”
And we laughed again! We love her family! Her father is smart and very funny, and her mother is kind and practical, and we all share the same values on family and friends and living our lives. She comes from a large rowdy family that gathers when they can, and so do we.
And YOU are thinking “what does all this have to do with The Swallows of Kabul?” but I am getting there.
On the trip, we all had books for our quiet time, and I could see EnviroGirl deeply engrossed in this book. When I asked her, she said she had gotten it from her father’s wife, a woman with whom I often talk books, and that she (EnviroGirl) was trying to finish it so that she could leave it with me.
And thank goodness that she did! I couldn’t put it down!
First, you think it is written by Yasmina Khadra, but that is a pseudonym. The real author, Mohammed Moulessehoul, was Algerian army officer, and he used the pseudonym to avoid having to submit the manuscript for approval by military authorities. That got my attention right away.
The book is about Taleban era Afghanistan, and starts out with utter hopelessness, describing the deterioration in life brought about by the arbitrary imposition of religious rule, as interpreted by men who have memorized the Qur’an, but have a poor understanding of what they have memorized. Women lead a dismal, limited life, at the mercy of men who treat them as detestable if they are seen in public, even totally cloaked.
His language is beautiful, poetic and compelling, even describing despair and desolation.
We meet two couples, Atiq, a jailer, and his wife, Musarrat, who risked her own life to save his life back when he was seriously wounded and left for dead, and Mohsen, former member of a moderately successful merchant family, married to the love of his life, Zunaira, who is beautiful, educated and from a wealthy background. These men love their wives, and have a strong, genuine connection to them. Their ability to maintain that connection, and to stay connected to their own values, withers in the dry, dusty context of fundamentalist rule.
Their lives and relationships have been changing gradually, increasingly limited and undignified under the stress of Taleban rule, and the novel follows a rapid spiral of deterioration and folly. The steady decline of their lives speeds when Mohsen makes a terrible impulsive decision, has to live with the consequences, and confesses to his wife.
Atiq, too, faces dismal consequences. Even though we know he is limited, he becomes a sympathetic character. His hardness of heart covers a genuine grief that his wife is dying, and he can do nothing to stop it, nor to alleviate her pain.
We all face hard times. In our family, when someone lashes out unjustly, we often ask “is it something I have done, or am I just the nearest dog to kick?” It always gets a laugh, and it puts things back in perspective, puts us on the same side. Sometimes we can’t always vent our frustrations against those people or events creating the frustration, so we take it out on those we love – and who love us. It’s not right, it’s not fair or just, but it is very human, and once you get that out on the table, it is easier to discuss the real issue.
When Zunaira ends up in jail, Atiq’s world is shattered as if by an earthquake – the earth moves under his feet, all his understanding of life is shaken.
“As he cleans up, he cautiously lifts his eyes to the roof beam looming over the cell like a bird of evil augury, and his gaze lingers on the anemic little lightbulb, growing steadily dimmer in its ceiling socket. Screwing his courage to the sticking point, he walks back to the lone occupied cell, and there, in the very middle of the cage, the magical vision: the prisoner has removed her burqa! She’s sitting cross-legged on the floor. Her elbows are on her knees, her hands are joined under her chin. She’s praying. Atiq is thunderstruck. Never before has he seen such splendor. With her godess’s profile, her long hair spread across her back, and her enormous eyes, like horizons, the condemned woman is beautiful beyond imagination. She’s like a dawn, gathering brightness in the heart of this poisonour, squalid, fatal dungeon.
Except for his wife’s, Atiq hasn’t seen a woman’s face for many years. He’s even learned to live without such sights. For him, women are only ghosts, voiceless, charmless ghosts that pass practically unnoticed along the streets; flocks of infirm swallows – blue, yellow, often faded, several seasons behind – that make a mournful sound when they come into the proximity of men.
And all at once, a veil falls and a miracle appears. Atiq can’t get over it. A complete, solid woman? A genuine tangible woman’s face, also complete, right here in front of him? He’s been cut off from such a forbidden sight for so long that he believed it had been banished even from people’s imaginations. . . ”
Atiq has a friend, Mirza, who thrives under Taleban rule, as a soldier, and also running illegal businesses highly profitable under the current regime. He encourages Atiq to abandon his cancer-striken wife, to get rid of her and to find a fresh, young wife. He offers Atiq shady business opportunities, and tells him a wise man bends with the wind. Ignorance and chaos benefit Mirza, and he has no wish to see the good old days return.
In spite of the bleakness, the desolation, the crushing arbitrariness and inhumanity, there is hope, love, and compassion in a thin, steady stream throughout the book.
Once I started reading, I had to finish. It was a great book for the long trip back to Kuwait, one I am eager to pass along to the next avid reader.
Jody Shields and The Fig Eater
This is one of those books I picked up off the staff recommendations shelf at Barnes and Noble – one of the very best sources for cult classics like Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, books that don’t get a lot of press hype but whose readership grows slowly by word-of-mouth.
The cover caught my eye. This woman is dressed modestly enough, all the important parts are covered, but look at her eyes – there is a sultriness there, and a challenge that I find intriguing. This shows signs already of being an-out-of the-ordinary book.
The book opens in the early 1900’s with a murder. We follow the investigations of the chief Inspector, and we follow the parallel investigations of his wife, a Hungarian, Erszebet, and her ally, the English Wally. It’s a mystery, and in this exquisite book, the process of solving the mystery is so much more interesting than who actually did it, or even why.
The most fascinating character in The Fig Eater is the nature of fin de siecle Vienna, it’s customs, it’s caste system, it’s manners, and the fusion of East and West. Entire meals are described, cafe’s, cakes, cooking methods. Clothing is described in loving detail, and we visit a tuburculosis sanitarium as well as an insane asylum.
We study Kriminalistics with the Inspector and his assistant, we learn the fundamentals of early photography from an three fingered photographer. We experience early Viennese medical practices.
We learn all kinds of Hungarian superstitions and beliefs, we dance at the Fasching Balls of Vienna, and we simmer with the repressed sexuality of the times. We mourn with the bereaved, we shiver in the cold winter, and we steam in the brutal heat of an extended summer.
The end is so totally unexpected that I had to go back and read it again. My bet is, that if you accept the challenge of reading this book, you will have to, too. Even after you have read it again, you will not be totally sure what has happened, and yet . . . it is a satisfying ending.
This was a wonderful read.
I will leave you with a quote:
The Inspector has always prided himself on his ability to listen, as a good Burger is confident of his business acumen. During interrogations, he can distinguish the different qualities of the witnesses silence, as if it were a tone of voice.
He had admonished Franz more than once for interrupting him. Don’t be so hasty. Slow down and listen. In the Pythagorean system, disciples would spend five years listening before they were allowed to ask a single question. That was in the 4th Century BC. Another philosopher, Philo of Alexandria, wrote about Banquets of Silence, where even the correct posture for listening was determined.
In Kriminalistic there is a text on the subject. He orders Franz to read it as part of his lesson. “To observe how the person question listens is a rule of primary importance, and if the officer observes it he will arrive at his goal more quickly than by the hours of examination.”
No Release, No Travel, reports Darwish
In today’s Kuwait Times, Badria Darwish informs us that:
“the Ministry of Electricity and Water (MEW) has decided to ask all expatriates before exiting the country – whether on holiday or permanently – to obtain a certificate of clearance from the ministry. The certificate is only valid for one month. If the expat doesn’t have it, he will be returning from the airport the same day . . . “
On page 2, a news article confirms her report.
“The Ministry of Electricity and Water announced it is in the process of issuing a legislation. It said it instructed the Assistant Undersecretary Jassim Al-Linqawi, in charge of consumer affairs at the ministry, to coordinate with the Interior Ministry to enforce the legislation. The legislation, it added, will mandate all expatriates planning to proceed on vacation to obtain a clearance document from the Ministry of Electricity and Water that they are clear of all pending bills. All expatriates having arrears will not be permitted to travel either through the airport or the various surface borders around the country. The legislation is expected to be enforced soon . . .
The Ministry of Electricity also instructed the Interior Ministry to empower their employees, who collect electricity dues, to force their way into the residences of all those residences of al those residents who refuse to let them check the electricity meters. . . . “
Oh! Those pesky expats, running red lights and neglecting to pay their electricity and water bills. Yeh. Right.
This does present the bureaucracy with a fascinating challenge. First, to immediately construct a way in which all consumers can receive bills, like through a postal system. Second, to collect the accurate information for each customer, making sure that “no one is above the law.” Third, to bill consumers in a way that they know that they have been billed, and to have a follow up procedure – you know, like warnings, and a way to turn off the service? Fourth, a way to follow all this by computer – accurately. Oh, yes, and co-ordinating between the MEW and the MOI. And have it ready to be enforced “soon.”
Feedback
As I am chatting on the phone with AdventureMan, he brings up the blog.
“I don’t get it,” he says, “You get like fifty-seven comments on any article about the Qatteri Cat, and you get NO comments on a perfectly wonderful article like the Lemba and their DNA link to the lost tribes of Israel!”
I just laugh. I’ve gotten used to it.
“Months from now I will get a letter from some academic who has been looking for that article and can’t find it,” I tell AdventureMan. “And months from now, that article will still be getting hits while the Qatteri Cat entry is long forgotten.”
Chatting with my Mom on the phone, this morning, she mentioned how she was working out in the water these days, trying to build strength in her legs and knees and hips, and how when she gets discouraged she thinks of the entry on The Magic Bullet and how she really does feel better and have more energy when she finishes. I’m so proud of my Mom. She is 84, living on her own, and had one of her old best friends as a houseguest this weekend, and they attended a fashion show in which my sister Sparkle was modeling. They had a great time. I can only hope to be as fit and active as my Mom when I am her age, and, God willing, still living on my own.
This morning I got an e-mail from Kuwaiti Woman / Dirty Dinar letting her regular commenters know she is back in the blog world once again. I am so glad she wrote to us – I had deleted her from my list of favorites when so much time went by without an entry. Her blog is about the great adventure of learning to manage your own money. She is a very courageous woman, lets us in on all her failures as well as her successes, and because she does not spare herself, she is totally addictive. Who hasn’t had to make tough financial decisions from time to time that blow the budget?
These feedbacks – and the wonderful, additive feedback of your comments – are what keep this blogger going.
Yes, I am having fun. How cool is it knowing your own Mom copied out the recipe for Penny Carrot Salad? How cool is it learning that there are Arab wolves in the desert, and that they are in danger of extinction because they are interbreeding with feral dogs ( R’s comment on Total Crack Up) This blog has made me feel connected in Kuwait, and connected to like-minded people around the world.
I still protect my anonymity, and at the same time, I have a realistic fear that I am getting closer and closer to the day when one of my good friends will look at me sharply and say “I think you are blogging. Are you Intlxpatr?” I don’t know what I will do when that happens. I’m not a good liar, and why would I want to lie to a friend? I just don’t know how long I can expect to keep my identity a secret.
Hope in a Bottle
From BBC Health News comes this report on a face cream that really works.
The problem with creams that claim to prevent wrinkles, or to reverse aging, is that they make claims like “visible difference in 7 days.” I buy them, try them, and after seven days, I may not see a visible lessening of wrinkles, but on the other hand, neither do I know what I might have looked like if I didn’t use the cream. Few of these claims are ever tested scientifically.
You tend to think that the more you pay, the better the cream. It isn’t necessarily so.
Face creams under the microscope
An “unprecedented” clinical trial on a high street anti-ageing cream may change the face of the skin care market in this country, dermatologists say.
At present there is a lack of clinical data to prove which creams really do slow down the skin’s ageing process.
Industry is thought to have shied away from major trials in part for fear products, if effective, could then be deemed medicines and tightly regulated.
But the trial on a Boots moisturiser may prove if these fears are founded.
There was a run on the chain’s No. 7 Protect & Perfect Beauty Serum after the BBC’s Horizon programme last year suggested it might be one of the more effective creams on the market.
Chris Griffiths, professor of dermatology at the University of Manchester, has just concluded a clinical trial on the lotion, involving 60 volunteers over a period of six months.
The data is now being analysed before being submitted to a scientific journal for peer review – in what is thought to be an unprecedented process for a high street skin care product.
“If it is proven to work – and there is certainly no guarantee that’s what we’ll find – then the debate will start on whether there is a point at which a cream is so effective it becomes a medicine,” he says.
The active ingredients in the cream include white lupin – a flower extract – and retinyl palmitate, on top of a plain moisturising base. The trial will not establish which, if any, is effective, but how the combination works together.
You can read the entire article HERE.
Stalking Purgatory
The blogger Purgatory has recently expressed anxiety about being stalked. (Actually, he sounded very pleased about it.) He had evidence; a note accompanying a cookie (someone knows the way to his heart!).
Purg, trust those feelings. Be very wary. Your stalkers are everywhere:
Big Plans, No Action
Hmmm, let’s see . . . plans drawn up, billions allocated for renovation and restoration and blah blah blah and nothing happens. Good ol’ Kuwait? Nope! The tragic quagmire of post-Katrina New Orleans. You can read the entire article at The New York Times.
By ADAM NOSSITER
Published: April 1, 2008
NEW ORLEANS — In March 2007, city officials finally unveiled their plan to redevelop New Orleans and begin to move out of the post-Hurricane Katrina morass. It was billed as the plan to end all plans, with Paris-like streetscape renderings and promises of parks, playgrounds and “cranes on the skyline” within months.
But a year after a celebratory City Hall kickoff, there have been no cranes and no Parisian boulevards. A modest paved walking path behind a derelict old market building is held up as a marquee accomplishment of the yet-to-be-realized plan.
There has been nothing to signal a transformation in the sea of blight and abandonment that still defines much of the city. Weary and bewildered residents, forced to bring back the hard-hit city on their own, have searched the plan’s 17 “target recovery zones” for any sign that the city’s promises should not be consigned to the municipal filing cabinet, along with their predecessors. On their one-year anniversary, the designated “zones” have hardly budged.
“To my knowledge, I don’t think they’ve done anything to any of them,” said Cynthia Nolan, standing near a still-padlocked, derelict library in the once-flooded Broadmoor section, which is in the plan.
“I haven’t seen anything they’ve done to even initiate anything,” said Ms. Nolan, a manager in a state motor vehicles office who has painstakingly raised her house here nearly four feet. “It’s too long. A year later, and they still haven’t initiated anything they decided to do?”
The library still bears the cross-hatch markings made by emergency teams in the days immediately after Hurricane Katrina, to indicate whether any bodies were inside (there were none).
The city official in charge of the recovery effort, Edward J. Blakely, said the public’s frustration was understandable, but he suggested that bureaucratic hurdles had made moving faster impossible. Mr. Blakely said crucial federal money had only recently become available, the process of designing reconstruction projects within the 17 zones was time-consuming, and ethics constraints on free spending were acute, given a local history of corruption.
Spam Comments
Before you go any further, this comment which I found in SPAM is a “fund-raising” SCAM. I am only printing it as an example of some of the “Nigerian” scams out there – this is a new one for me, clearly targeting Muslims. It is hard for me to believe that people act on these letters, and find themselves out of their life savings.
The moral: if it seems to good to be true, it IS too good to be true. Don’t let greed blind you. This is a SCAM:
Dear Sir,
I’m Ali Ahmed, from Gambia West Africa,I want to explain my problem to you as Muslim father.My biological father name is Mohamed Ahmed,my father was born in a christian home,but my father and I find Islamic religion as the only true religion,and my father and I started practising Islam for good two years before my father relatives poison him because he changed to Islam.Now they after me,trying by all means to terminate my life,so that they will wipe Islamic religion in the family, As am writing to you my life is in danger,I can no longer go to my fathers compound,I cannot move freely in the street because their running behind me, My father was a successfully international business man, he trade on mineral resurces all over Africa.My father deposited 20,000 000 Million united state dollars to the national security company Gambia,of which I am the next of kin.All the documents both the depositing certificate is in my possession, Pleas sir, I want you in the name of Allah to help me come to your country and invest this money. May Allah Bless you, You can call me through this number
Tel (removed by blogger)
Email (removed by blogger)
Thanks
Yours faithfuly
Ali Ahmed
“Bookstores, Bathouses, Bars . . . “
I’m following The Shield, a hard-edged detective show I have followed, when I can, ever since Glen Close was the police chief. If you thought Glen Close was tough as Cruella de Ville, wish you could see her as police chief/ 😉
The guy standing next to her is Detective Vic Mackey, a renegade plainclothes cop who plays fast and loose with the system. You know me, Mrs. Law and Order – whoda thunk I would find myself rooting for this guy as he undergoes close scrutiny from the Internal Affairs Division. He’s really a bad guy. He does really bad things. He is a LIAR! He lies to everybody! He kills people, he steals dope and money. And somehow you find yourself pulling for him. I don’t know why.
But the reason I am writing about this is because in yesterday’s episode, a couple guys get their private organs caught in rat traps because they stuck their organ in a place called a “glory hole” for a little excitement and got more than they had bargained for (ouch). See what you can learn from these shows? And this is on during daylight viewing hours?
So the new police chief, a very cool and tough black woman, tells the detectives to go check “bookstores, bathhouses, bars, you know, the places these perverts hang out. . . ” and I am thinking “BOOKSTORES?” BOOKSTORES?? I hang out in bookstores all the time! I never see any perverts at the Barnes and Noble, or Half Price Books!
The things you learn on televison. I hope children are not watching this show!
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Early Voting in Florida
