Michael Hardner

They missed mentioning that the suspect was Muslim, when everything else in the article points to that. That doesn't warrant concern. I'll be there are many imbalanced people committing crimes for some cause or other - and I'm sure only the Muslims get reported.

That's 220 Floors... tens of thousands of people... They're not god. They didn't have cameras set up to watch everybody in the twin towers. Some of these ideas that people have might come from popular espionage films and books that overstate the capabilities of intelligence services. Shows like '24' and 'CSI' make spies and investigators into supermen. It's not like that in real life.

I take back the 'inconceivable amount' remark. I overstated it there. But it would take a lot. And there would be some kind of evidence that they were there. They couldn't just slip a few guys in and plant explosives. Did you know there was a CIA office at the WTC ? BBC Article

That is utterly ridiculous. If you accept the idea that they would allow the attacks to happen, then these conspirators could sit back and do nothing and the terror effect would have been practically the same as if the buildings didn't fall. They took all the risk and undertook an inconceivable amount of planning just for an extra 'special effect' - the falling buildings - with negligible benefits ? Why didn't they plant a nuclear bomb in the towers and detonate that ? Oh, right... TOO MUCH TERROR. They had to have just that right amount. None of it makes any sense, even as fiction.

Government shouldn't do this at all ? I disagree. I'd rather have legislation protecting the stupid than have to see them rotting on the street as the result of their stupidity. It sounds good, but it's not practical. The mostly private system in the US costs much more and covers less services.

But it's easy to imagine the attacks being worse... or not as bad. So... they had to make an attack that was just right to produce the perfect amount of terror... The planes had to do more than hit the buildings - the buildings had to fall. But they couldn't fall over... that was too much. That makes a plan that's already extremely risky and complex several times more risky and complex. Why ? To achieve that PERFECT amount of terror. .... That doesn't fly as reality or fiction. It's too contrived - like you're trying to set up act III.

That's even more bizarre than I thought. So... the planes didn't hit the towers ? They were afraid of causing much more damage, so they brought the towers straight down ? Neither of those things make any sense. How was the plane hit staged when so many people saw it and videotaped it ? Why were they afraid of topping the towers to cause more damage when they risked killing tens of thousands ?

So the psychological impact is in having the planes hit AND the towers falling down. Either event happening on its own wouldn't have been damaging enough ? And in order to make both events happen they had two have separate attacks - the plane hijackings, and a second secret operation to bring down the towers. It seems that such a plan would make things a lot more complicated, and more risky for not much more gain.

Brookings Institute Report The results are summarized before. The overall improvement of the economy isn't disputed, only the benefits to different classes of wage earners.

So the standard of living has gone up, but most individuals aren't making real gains.

Can we see a report on that statistic first ?

Let me get this straight. It has nothing to do with the oil ? If Alberta had a different government, the oil would just be sitting there in the ground then ? As somebody pointed out, Saudi Arabia got pretty rich and they're run by a royal family. Should their governments also be given credit ?

The top .01 %.... Check the source if you don't believe it. The point of the article is that the extreme cases are doing much better by way of economic legislation. Free Trade is sold as being beneficial to society as a whole. As time goes on, technology and better business practices such as Free Trade improve productivity so that real gains are made in the economy. Isn't it reasonable to expect that benefits should generally accrue in ways other than cheaper goods ?

thelonius: I'm not sure if this scenario presupposes the hijacking was also part of this plan or not. Either way, the additional psychological impact would be marginal. In hindsight, that seems obvious but beforehand any reasonable plan would have to take account that the population would blame the current administration, the damage done to public faith in the government - securitywise and otherwise - the enormous financial impact to the nation in general, even the possibility of civil unrest. Well, I guess it's good fiction then. gosthacked: Frankly, I think the allure of mystery has caused you to ignore the obvious explanation. The terrorists wouldn't have been able to do it. So if you mean this was part of the aforementioned conspiracy, again I ask - how much extra risk would the mission have to take in order for their marginal gain in psychological impact ? riverwind: They would have had to have conspiracy from civillians. There should be some record that some other maintenance company did major work on the WTC at some point in the last year. This company would probably have been a phantom entity. If not, then you have to add more complexity, more exposure to risk. This maintence company would probably have to have been pre-approved by WTC management. They would probably have to shut down offices they were working on, as these types of places are active 24 hours a day.

The median income is rising in real terms or with inflation ? What about the mean ? Whether or not Krugman or Marx say something doesn't make it true - the facts do. The facts Krugman quotes show that economic policy is doing a great job for the top .01 %. Get an education, and you can increase your income almost 1% a year. Inherit a few billion and you can increase it 500%.

But the net economic benefit to the country is greater. Here's a good column to read: Paul Krugman To summarize, college earners have been gaining 1% per year more from 1972 to 2001.

That's the whole question of Free Trade isn't it ? It sounds to me you're saying what's good for business may be bad for Canada as a whole. Next stop, NDP. But later ?

Education and skills don't mean much anymore. White collar jobs are being outsourced more and more. If you want to earn a good wage, get in a union or a job protected by a professional association.

So the US intelligence arm finds out there's a plot against the WTC buildings, and instead of trying to stop it they plant explosives in the walls of the buildings ? And why would they do that ? To make the attack worse ? That just makes no sense at all. No one could have predicted beforehand how many people would have been killed, much less the political and social impact.

Leafless, I find your posts here to be quite hypocritical. You say that Geoffrey is being offensive, when all he's doing is discussing the issues of church and state. You decry minority religions' right to worship freely, while demanding that Christianity dominates. I consider myself to be Christian in philosophy. The Golden Rule of Christianity demands that we treat others as we ourselves would be treated. It demands personal accountability in thoughts and actions. It dismays me to read the opinions of people like you who call themselves Christian, but fail to adhere to the Golden Rule. No wonder Christianity has garnered such a bad name in some circles. You would deny the rights of Muslims to pray, to attend public schools, and expect others to simply obey your wishes. A true Christian would respect others, and would lead by example. Show some personal accountability and admit that you're not a Christian, simply somebody that doesn't like Muslims for whatever reason. That would be a good first step towards redemption - the Christian thing to do. I'm sorry but I feel frustrated by your posts, and I want to show your the error of your ways.

I agree with you Geoffrey. It's backward thinking to try to build a nation based on what happened hundreds of years ago. More to the point, it shows a shameful lack of personal responsibility to present your own prejudices as somehow based on principles.

So you've come up with a modification to the original principle which is effectively tailored towards Muslims. I'm well aware that it's still an objective principle-based opinion, but - let's face it - wouldn't it be more honest for people to to say 'I don't like Muslims. Let's keep them out.' if they feel that way ? I'm not saying you feel that way, but there are people on this board who do, and they hide their prejudice behind logical constructs such as this. Agreed.

From what I read, it was a broad based discussion of a plan - a plan nowhere near as deadly, destructive, complex as a purported 9-11 plan would be. And even that plan didn't get approved by Kennedy. You can't say it was possible based on the fact that a much simpler plan was floated, not approved, and not tried. The 9-11 conspiracies that are put forward - an administration plan to secretly attack America to engender support for foreign wars - are just ridiculous.

If you support public cameras everywhere but the bathroom stall, then I will too.

You can't look at the physical evidence yourself, and even if you could then you'd need an expert to tell you what you were looking at. You rely on authorities to explain everything for you. Suffice it to say, the issue comes down to: you simply don't trust the establishment authorities but you do trust a different set of authorities. Picking through the wreckage, or through millions of events that happened before and after 9-11 is bound to turn up some unexplained happenstances. You can't expect everything to be explained and certainly nothing has turned up that would overturn a common sense evaluation of what happened. Your third point implies that the government mean to kill up to fifty thousand or more of its own inhabitants in a massive coverup that would require operational authority from every level of government, thousands of individuals, and hundreds of public and private organizations. Imagine what it would require to find people who were willing to play along with such a plan, to plant them in place or two recruit them and ensure their complicity. Imagine the years of planning that would be required. Imagine the cost. Imagine the risks that it would fail. A single well placed individual could back out of the plan, or die, and the whole thing would have to be changed. Or a single person could let out part of the secret and the plan could be ruined. All of this, supposedly, was done so that the US could invade Iraq. Do you think the US needs a similar plan to invade Iran ? Will they destroy Los Angeles in order to do so ? Will they fly a plane into the White House to justify invading Syria ? If these plans sound crazy, they're on the same scale of what you're saying happened on 9-11.