Down South Perspective

 

Hi folks,

Boy did I screw up.

In my “debunking” of Popular Mechanics’ “debunking” I broke my own cardinal rule, i.e., PAY ATTENTION!

Let’s play Spot The Jerk Off’s Screw Up.

From my message yesterday:

Some of the lies in the Popular Mechanics piece do take outside fact checking. One example: They claim:

In the decade before 9/11, NORAD intercepted only one civilian plane over North America: golfer Payne Stewart's Learjet, in October 1999. With passengers and crew unconscious from cabin decompression, the plane lost radio contact but remained in transponder contact until it crashed. Even so, it took an F-16 1 hour and 22 minutes to reach the stricken jet.

Let’s take that last sentence first: “Even so, it took an F-16 1 hour and 22 minutes to reach the stricken jet.”

Through some simple Googling I brought up the NTSB Report on the incident. Here’s an excerpt (it’s at http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/2000/AAB0001.htm):

At 0933:38 EDT (6 minutes and 20 seconds after N47BA acknowledged the previous clearance), the controller instructed N47BA to change radio frequencies and contact another Jacksonville ARTCC controller. The controller received no response from N47BA. The controller called the flight five more times over the next 4 1/2 minutes but received no response.

About 0952 CDT,7 a USAF F-16 test pilot from the 40th Flight Test Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base (AFB), Florida, was vectored to within 8 nm of N47BA.8 About 0954 CDT, at a range of 2,000 feet from the accident airplane and an altitude of about 46,400 feet,9 the test pilot made two radio calls to N47BA but did not receive a response.

The F-16 intercepted Stewart’s plane 21 minutes after the controller lost radio contact with it, not “1 hour and 22 minutes.” (And fifteen minutes after the controller decided something was wrong and made a call.)

Right! There was a switch to CDT (Central Daylight Time) from EDT (Eastern Daylight Time), meaning the Popular Mechanics paragraph appears to be accurate. It did take about “1 hour and 22 minutes” to reach the stricken jet.

Shame on me! (This still does not explain why SOP was “broken” here and if the White House gave the go ahead to send up the jet, which is the SOP story now.)

Only three of you noticed this mistake on my part, which is itself distressing. It appears that you folks weren’t paying sufficient attention (to me) either!

Now I’m doubting myself on the document I said I saw that said there were 67 military intercepts in 1999.

Can someone help me on this? Let’s see if it’s true. (A Nexus search engine would be a help, if you have it.)

It’s really important, if you think about it. Here’s what I sent yesterday:

From the Popular Mechanics excerpt from their definitive book “debunking” the “conspiracy theories”:

In the decade before 9/11, NORAD intercepted only one civilian plane over North America: golfer Payne Stewart's Learjet, in October 1999.

Another blatant lie. There were 67 intercepts just in 1999, let alone the decade. I saw the report on this about a year ago, I think it was from the NTSB (National Transportation and Safety Board) as well. Could have been a NORAD document. I forget.

This Popular mechanics lie is supposed to explain why no military jets were scrambled for an hour and a half while the sky was full of hijacked airliners bent on catastrophic destruction. They are trying to rewrite history about “standard operating procedure” (SOP).

I know there are a lot of smart people out there – much better than I am at researching and googling. See what you can come up with. Let’s see if I was right on this one. If I was, it means there was probably a “stand down” order that day.

It would be a great service to Truth if someone did a report on military intercepts not only in 1999, but for a decade, right up until September 11, 2001.

A great service. I don’t have the time or skills.

Be especially great if a believer in the “official version” did this. Come on, prove me wrong, and that the government told the truth. I dare you.

Speaking of smart people, here’s a piece of an email I got from one of you:

A UK Airline called RyanAir recently announced a technological breakthrough - thanks to a new device in its planes we can at last make intelligable mobile phone calls from airliners. Hmm, didn't the 9-11 hijack victims somehow manage that 5 years ago without any difficulty? Or did they? Where did "Let's Roll" actually originate? Curioser and curioser.

I’d heard this: that the cell phone calls from the hijacked jets were improbable because cell phones don’t work from commercial jets. I don’t know if this is true.

Is there anyone out there that knows about this?

Can we clear it up?

Hey: With all you smart people out there, let’s launch our own investigation! (I have engineers and physicists and etc., etc., on my list. Really smart people.)

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Just a short note on the reactions to yesterday’s message: 80% of you were encouraging and lauded me for my bringing up this stuff. Very gratifying. I even had a couple people saying that I’d changed their way of looking at this matter, and the lies in general we’re being told.

HUGELY GRATIFYING. Maybe I’m not a jerk off after all!

The negative emails all had one thing in common: they did not rationally and specifically deal with the issues I raised; the lies I exposed.

As I specifically asked them NOT TO DO, they asked questions that had nothing to do with the issue at hand, which was this: Were we lied to about these specific matters?

This is the way of people who believe what makes them comfortable. Evidence contrary to their beliefs is merely NOT DEALT WITH.

Here’s what I said yesterday:

“Notice I’m not saying what did happen. I’m only pointing out lies. That’s all. So don’t email me with questions that you figure prove that the lies are other than lies. That’s dumb ass.”

This was ignored, of course, since had it not been ignored, the respondents would not have been able to launch into their “talking points” about how big the conspiracy would have to be or how you can “get experts” to say anything, or, my favorite, how Bush and co are not that smart. Totally irrelevant stuff to the matters at hand.

I’m not going to go on about this. I’ll soon be starting a Blog and – more important – a Reader’s Forum, so you folks can yell at me and at each other. We’ll continue on with this then, and those of you who are not interested can ignore it. Fair enough?

So: Huge and embarrassed apologies for my error, which is big bore ammunition for some of you. If I was wrong about that, I must be wrong about everything, right?

Okay. Whatever.

Allan

Steve James, I’ll ask again: Where are you? I need your confirmation or someone else gets the board!

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Oh: Last year I read a newspaper account of the Payne Stewart Learjet incident. I recall that the article said that the F-16 intercepted the Lear “about 20 minutes” after the tower lost contact with it. This could be faulty memory on my part, but what if it isn’t?

If I’m remembering correctly and if the story is accurate it would mean that the NTSB Report was later falsified by changing the time zone (one letter need only have been changed, i.e., “EDT” to “CDT.”)

It might take some creative Googling (or whatever) to uncover this – if it did happen – but it would be worth it.

And they would have had the motive, since the Stewart Lear story is a mainstay of the “conspiracy theorists.”

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One last thing: I’ve been getting lots of emails from people who have started Can’t You Get Along With Anyone?

So far all of them have been either positive or outright raves. I can’t tell you what a relief this is to my sorry ass.

So if you’re reading the book, please do shoot me feedback. (If you don’t like it, say so, and try to explain why. I’ve learned from you guys in the past, and I expect I will do so again, here.)

I’m still learning. In a sense, the reader is always right.

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