Aftermath, by Joel Meyerowitz

A very useful book, "Aftermath," by Joel Meyerowitz. It's a huge book (and I mean HUGE. It's almost as big as my torso). Contains a treasure trove of high quality pictures of Ground Zero and the debris. Also shows the huge struggle the rescue workers went through clearing it up. It's also useful for refuting the Judy Wood crowd (look through this book and then tell me the Towers' steel was "dustified"). Recommended if you don't already have it.

Long Island Medium: Racial Stereotypes = Accurate Psychic Readings

The Long Island Medium is a fraud. There's just no better way to put it. Like every psychic we've seen pop up over the years, she is a lying, manipulative, fame/money hungry douche. And recently I was treated to a fine display of her douchebagery at, of all places, work. There I am, sitting in the break room having lunch, when who should just happen to appear on the break room TV than Theresa Caputo herself, on the Meredith Vieira Show. And yes, I did nearly lose my appetite. 

She did her usual shtick; asking her vague questions to an audience of over a hundred, most of whom probably came to the show already believers. Parts were aggravating (especially seeing members of the audience driven to tears by Ms. Caputo's "readings"), and other parts were just boring. But I will admit, one segment in particular made me nearly fall out of my chair. Say what? Did she perform some mind-blowing reading that was beyond impressive? Had she truly demonstrated that she could in fact speak to the dead? Ah... no such luck. What happened was something that may have shown more proof that I'm psychic (I'm not btw. I promise :) )

As you might imagine, several of my co-workers were also on their lunch breaks too, and were subjected to Ms. Caputo just as I was. In between segments I explained to them how she did her readings; cold reading, using large crowds, vague descriptions, etc. They were all very receptive, and mostly agreed with me that she was indeed a fraud. At one point I mentioned a reading she had done on Katie Couric's show, which I myself first learned about from the Opie and Anthony Show. Here's how they described it:

I was at the gym... and I was watching Katie Couric's new show, cause it was on and I was like "eh, what the fuck, I'm gonna take a look at this." And this Long Island Medium was on. And then she starts working the crowd, and she actually said, and I'm kinda paraphrasing, "I'm feeling someone's loved one died recently." And then this black woman's like "Oh my God, me!". Like she just gives it up. And then of course in an audience like that someone's loved one died recently. And then this broad goes "I'm getting a vision or feeling that you might have sung in church." She says this to a black woman!

Eventually I found the clip they were talking about, and sure enough, Ms. Caputo got a "message" from "somewhere" that a black woman in the audience may have sung in church before. My reaction to this was pretty much the same as their's, and likewise my friends thought this sounded like a pretty, shall we say, sketchy reading as well.

But now the unbelievable. Not fives minutes after I told my friends this story did the program start up again, and Ms. Caputo went over to a sobbing black woman and asked her the following:

Do you sing, or do you listen to church music, or gospel music? Because all I keep hearing is "release my soul, awake my soul." And I keep hearing like "Allelujah" [sic]. That song "Allelujah" [sic].

I lost it. I simply lost it, and so did my friends. We couldn't believe this happened, like I said, less than five minutes[!] after I told my story. We all sat there utterly dumbstruck at this, me being in a mixed state of laughter and rage. So apparently Ms. Caputo decides to resort to this tactic on more than one occasion. Good to know. If this isn't cold reading taken to a new low, I don't know what is.

"It's not about who it is, getting the details of how they died,

their name, their birthday, their this, what they wore on their

left hand. It's not about that. It's about delivering the message

of healing." -Theresa Caputo to a sobbing audience memeber

An Afternoon With Richard Carrier

On December 6th of last year, I had the amazing honor of meeting Dr. Richard Carrier at the Humanist Community of Central Ohio 2014 Winter Solstice Banquet. Dr. Carrier gave a fantastic talk on feminism and its importance in the atheist movement. The transcript of his talk is now available online. Afterwards, Dr. Carrier was kind enough to sign two of his books I brought with me. His talks are great to watch online, but seeing them in person is an enlightening experience. 

Meeting Dr. Carrier for the first time.

Dr. Carrier was kind enough to sign two
of his books I brought with me.

                                      

Amateur Hour at the "9/11 Debates" Facebook Page

I've had plenty of debates with debunkers in my time. Some of them have been mostly civil, and some have been pretty heated. And then there are the ones that are just plain batshit insane. For about a year or so I was part of a Facebook group called "9/11 Debates," which was meant to host debates and discussions among truthers and debunkers. And boy did I make a big mistake going there. It's a page that appears to be almost entirely run by debunkers, and they're about as biased as you can get. Granted I haven't been involved in as much 9/11 related issues for a while now, but I occasionally popped on over there just to see if there was anything worth discussing. The particular thread that finally convinced me to leave is here (if you can read it): 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/602197473157395/permalink/856420744401732/ I won't bother rehashing everything discussed over there. The main thing I want to discuss is the absurd ineptitude of some of the admins there and their apparent inability to read.

The most infuriating of the bunch was Elizabeth Tague, who did nothing but rant and rave about how I have no particular expertise (something I've never denied) and how therefore she doesn't have to take me seriously. Of course, I have no idea what her expertise is either, but at the very least I've actually read the NIST WTC7 Report, something I'm confident she hasn't done. Why do I think this? At one point in the discussion the subject of WTC7's free-fall of 2.25 seconds was brought up, and according to Elizabeth this was always known by NIST. Of course, those of us who've actually bothered to carefully pay attention to NIST's WTC investigation know that it was David Chandler who had to point this out to NIST, and as a result they mentioned it in their final report. But according to the oh-so accurate Elizabeth, NIST actually mentioned Building 7's period of free-fall in their Draft Report. Say what? Yes, you read that right. So after gathering myself from that face-palm moment, I asked her to tell me where in the Draft Report they said this. Here was her response.

What the Draft Report actually says:

From Draft Report NIST NCSTAR 1-9, Vol. 2, pp. 595-596, to be exact. You see, clever Elizabeth is quoting the FINAL Report on WTC7 (p. 601). So, in her attempt to show that the Draft Report said free-fall occurred, she instead quoted NIST's post-draft Final Report. And I know she hasn't actually read it, since she's just quoting almost verbatim someone on a different forum who also incorrectly said the draft mentioned free-fall. Elizabeth should probably know that when finding out what a report says it's probably better to actually read the report itself instead of just quoting forum posts. But hey, as I was frequently reminded, I have no expertise, so what do I know? I'm just a guy who, you know, can read.

And it got even better from there. Another admin, Keoki George, pipped in and gave her two cents on the issue. Did she chastise Elizabeth for quoting from the wrong report? No, that would have been the logical decision. Instead, the equally bright Keoki tried to make it seem like I was the one who did something wrong. 

Now this would have made complete sense if those comments were directed toward Elizabeth, but no, they were directed at me. Ms. George completely missed the point. I only referenced the Draft Report because Elizabeth said it mentioned WTC7's free-fall, which I proved it did not! I only talked about it because she did. How is this hard to understand? And in an attempt to cover for Elizabeth's error, Keoki quoted a part of the draft that does talk about free-fall.

I'll give her a little credit, she actually went and read the report, which is more than Elizabeth did. But unfortunately, that's all she did right. Setting aside the fact that this is obviously not the passage Elizabeth quoted, see the word highlighted in the above screen-cap? It's good to know that Ms. George's preferred method of investigation is just doing a word search for the particular word you want to find. But if you read that passage carefully, you'll see that what it actually says is that the theoretical time of free-fall for Building 7 would have been 3.9s. In other words, the report says what would have happened had the building fallen at free-fall. It is NOT saying that at any point the building actually did fall at free-fall. So yes, my original point stands: the Draft Report said nothing about Building 7 going into free-fall, and it was only after David Chandler pointed out the 2.25 seconds of free-fall did NIST update their findings and mention this in their Final Report. 

Perhaps now you have a good idea of why I left that page. I've had other encounters with them and others over there in the past, and none of them have been fun or productive. Bottom line, don't bother with that group. There's nothing to gain from debating with a bunch of children in adults' bodies. I may be an amateur (and probably always will be), but at least I can read. My advice for Elizabeth and Keoki...

Anthony Lawson, 1935-2015

I've just recently learned that Anthony Lawson sadly passed away on January 8, 2015. For those unfamiliar, Anthony Lawson was the creator of the massively popular video "WTC7 -- This is an Orange." He was also one of the most meticulous debunkers of the various WTC "no-plane" theories, one of the best I've ever seen. Though he did hold some views I would soundly disagree with (e.g. "no plane at the Pentagon;" "real planes switched with different planes"), his work in the Truth Movement was overall extremely beneficial, and was a great help to me and others. He will be missed. The video below was made by his son Ashton, and is the last video that will ever be uploaded on his YouTube channel. As he says in the video description, any donations to assist the family's medical costs would be very appreciated.

Anthony Lawson passed away on the 8th of January, 2015 due to colon cancer. This video will be the final one on his channel.

The months leading up to his death were filled with much anguish and confusion, as after an operation to fix his inguinal hernia there were a series of follow-ups and other procedures to determine the causes of the severe back pain that followed. In the end, the cancer was discovered on New Year's Eve, far too late to have anything done, and his mental state as a result was too erratic for him to truly know what was wrong.

The medical costs have placed the family in a tight situation, so if anyone would like to make a donation, however small, please send an email to lawson911@gmail.com.

Update Feb 3, 2015: Some people have requested an obituary of sorts, so here it is:

Anthony Charles Ashton Lawson passed away on the 8th of January, 2015 in Phuket, Thailand, at the age of 79 due to colon cancer. He was born on March 31st, 1935 to Lionel Lawson; a violinist and leader of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and Queenie Ashton; a renowned soprano radio actress. In early life he sought work in the field of radio, making a name for himself as one of the best radio editors in Australia, later moving to the UK where he progressed into camera work, eventually becoming an award-winning commercial director and producer, having shot advertisements across Europe, in the US and in Asia. He moved to Hong Kong to take up positions as creative director, and also lent his voice to various commercials; most notably to Cathay Pacific and Star TV. Having always enjoyed tinkering, he turned to invention, moved to Thailand and created a food mixer known as ChefMaker, which did not see success due to the global shock that was 9/11. Having always valued the truth and having always taken a stand against injustice throughout his life; traits passed down to him by his mother, he spent his final years using his vast experience to shed light on the events of 9/11 and the terrible world events that have since followed. He is survived by two sons and a daughter.

9/11/2014: Responding to Chris Mohr

As we’ve come to the 13^th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, I’ve decided to release one of my long-overdue projects. As many of you probably know, in 2011 Chris Mohr released a series of videos responding to Richard Gage’s presentation 9/11 – Blueprint for Truth. Shortly thereafter I began work on a lengthy response to these videos, with the intent of posting it on the 911debunkers blog. Eventually, the plan became that my response would instead be published at ae911truth.org as their official response to his video series. However, due to some disagreements between me and ae911truth regarding the content, the publication of my response was put on hold for further review. My response has actually been finished for a few years now, and I’ve decided that its publication has been put off for long enough. 

So today, I am releasing my paper on my own site, which you are encouraged to use in any way you see fit. I’m very grateful for the help ae911truth provided in editing my paper (especially Chris Sarns for his extensive review and recommendations), but I’ve decided that the wait is over. And at the end of the day, this was always going to be MY response to Chris Mohr. So to my fellow truth seekers, I release to you the most extensive work I’ve ever written on the events of 9/11. Looking back on it, there are probably a few things in it that I would tweak here and there. But for the most part, I can vouch for it. There’s a lot of really good information in it, with nearly 400 references included. I merely ask that you use this paper in the most responsible way possible. Use it not only to answer our critics, but also to educate others in the hope that we will finally see justice served for everyone who tragically perished that day. 

A Response to Chris Mohr's Respectful Rebuttal of Richard Gage's 9/11 Blueprint for Truth, by Adam Taylor

Dr. Victor J. Stenger, 1935-2014

It saddens me to report on the passing of a great scientist. I've learned so much from Dr. Victor Stenger about physics and cosmology, and about religion and its relationship to science. You will be sincerely missed Dr. Stenger. Thank you so much for all you taught me and countless others.