There is an interesting fight brewing over the planned memorial to Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The owner of the land, Svonavec Inc., refuses to sell a critical part of the needed land and the relatives want President Bush to seize the property to allow them to start construction of the memorial so that it can be finished by 2011 — the tenth anniversary of the tragedy.
Patrick White, vice president of the group Families of Flight 93, has asked President Bush to empower the Secretary of the Interior to take the land. They are demanding 2200 acres for the memorial — much of which are owned by Svonavec. The company has refused to negotiate and the National Park Service has indicated that it is retaining an independent appraiser for 275 acres in dispute.
The government has set aside $58 million for the memorial. The company reportedly turned down a $250,000 offer from the Park Service as well as a $750,000 offer from Families of Flight 93. The company reportedly wants $10 million for the land and forced the Park Service to move the temporary memorial off his land, citing security reasons. The difference between $10 million and the price offered is a bit curious. Either the company is profiteering or the group is trying to force an effective corporate donation of the land. Notably, there have been three appraisals including a second appraisal that was never released by the service.
Mike Svonavec of Svonavec Inc. has complained that the National Park Service and Flight 93 groups are “trying to make my company and myself look like the bad guy in this.” They appear to have succeeded.
For the full story, click here.
There has been no closure on this tragic matter and many still believe that Flight 93 was brought down by an airforce missile. It is a very bad idea to commemorate this destruction until the truth is out there.
Bob,Esq:
I do note that all the hubub died down once PM talked to the actual experts who shared their accounts of the scene. Most notably the mysterious “White Jet” which of course was asked by the FAA to investigate and was a corporate jet who happened to be in the area of Shanksville, and the infamous “missing debris field” scam at the Pentagon attack that was easily disproved by photographs taken of the scene. That structural engineers cannot explain every nuance of a building collapse of that magnitude should not make you distrust the main thrust of he piece which is that the event unfolded just as most of us believe it did. It’s hard to explain a failure when you cannot simulate the exact occurrence even with computer models. That jet fuel doesn’t burn at the melting point of steel “I” beams does not suggest to me that the heat was insufficient to make the metal infrastructure brittle, and hence reduce its efficiency to the point where the concrete caused it to fail.
I suspect most of these conspiracy folks were glad 9-11 came about to relieve them from their frustrating pursuit of a “live” Elvis based upon the truly revealing misspelling of his middle name, Aron,on his tombstone.
If you hear thundering hooves on the prairie, it’s still probably horses and not zebras.
“On the PM report, most people believe it to be accurate and are satisfied it addresses the problems raised by the crazies.”
Mespo, Mespo, Mespo.
“How’s that aluminum foil hat fitting? Read the Popular Mechanics analysis of 9/11 conspiracies and quit reading those conspiracy blogs! They make one sound stupid.”
Mespo,
I hope you have your fencing regalia handy; so to speak.
First, I take it that when we attorneys speak of ‘conspiracies’ we’re referring to one of the three incohate crimes that does not merge with the underlying offense; yes?
And when we speak of truth, surely you agree with Immanuel Kant when he wrote:
“The question, famed of old, by which logicians were
supposed to be driven into a corner, obliged either to have
recourse to a pitiful sophism, or to confess their ignorance
and consequently the emptiness of their whole art, is the
question: What is truth? The nominal definition of TRUTH,
that it IS THE AGREEMENT OF KNOWLEDGE WITH ITS OBJECT, is
assumed as granted; the question asked is as to what is
the general and sure criterion of the truth of any and every
knowledge.” (Critique of Pure Reason, p. 097, Kemp Smith Ed.)
And, as an attorney, surely you’ve encountered the informal fallacy known as the “Straw Man” have you not?
Mespo, I submit to you that the arguments set forth in the Popular Mechanics piece regarding 9/11 were as intellectually dishonest and down right pathetic as the ‘arguments’ made by the trolls that occasion these parts.
I know, I’ve set forth a claim and now the rules of argumentation constrain me to bolster the claim with facts and evidence; i.e. illustrating the agreement between knowledge and object. However, since the topic of article upon which we are “commenting’ has nothing to do with ‘Debunking 9/11 Debunking’ I’ll leave you with this for now:
Do I hear it said that the rules of argumentation empowers people to re-write or ignore some of the most basic laws of macro-state physics simply to gain assent of the listener/opponent?
Do I hear it said that ‘the need to move on’ entitles one to lie to one’s self by accepting blatant lies and contradictions as gospel?
Do I hear it said seeking tranquility over the truth is now considered a virtue?
And one last thought; have you ever considered your use of the word “conspiracy theorist” while listening & responding, allegedly in earnest, to another’s argument?
Stay in your own movie,
Bob
P.S. You may want to revisit the story of Andre & Arnold and closely examine the thoughts and actions of G. Washington when he ignored the pleas of his most trusted officers/advisers, e.g. Hamilton & Talmadge, by sending Andre to face the felon’s noose.
waynebro:
On the PM report, most people believe it to be accurate and are satisfied it addresses the problems raised by the crazies. It may not be complete nor comprehensive, but it puts to rest the main fallacies of the conspiracy crowd, who, after all, bear the burden of proof of their extraordinary claims. Extraordinary claims do require extraordinary proofs, and innuendo, speculation, and the accounts of frantic eyewitnesses neither qualify as such nor persuade me as much as the comments of the professionals in the various fields cited by PM. Witnesses are only as good as the people they were before the event, and we can probably agree that most folks, when faced with cataclysmic events, are poor observers and worse historians.
waynebro:
Heck I sound stupid sometimes myself. You are what you habitually do, not what happens on occasion. Maybe vince is a Nobel laureate having a bad day!
mespo727272 1, January 2, 2009 at 1:46 pm
“By the way, I didn’t conclude that vince was stupid, merely that he sounded that way.”
And telling someone they sound “stupid” is better how exactly then telling them they are stupid? You’re splitting that hair pretty thin.
I’ve read the PM report and it’s incomplete and has plenty of holes in it. It doesn’t really prove anything with regards to the other building collapse. It’s facts about the burning materials in the offices are a joke (offices burn all the time and they don’t drop the building) it doesn’t address the people that came down from ABOVE the 90th floor who walked past the fire that was supposed to be burning according to PM at 1800 degrees. (they’d have melted, yet they reported NO heat). It doesn’t address the fact that just because theres a fire 90 stories up, how does that soften steel a few thousand feet down at the base so as to perfectly collapse an entire bldg on itself. And not one bldg but TWO bldgs, plus the one down the street. It doesn’t address the firing of Bush’s investigator who brought up the fact that he didn’t see how the bldg collapsed from what he called a low intensity fire so high up. It doesn’t explain what witnesses saw around flight 93. It just doesn’t jive.
Now, YOU can believe it if you want. But given the Bush administrations past issues with truth, I’m not buying it. I’m not buying any conspiracy theories either. All I’m saying is after having read the FIRST report from Bush’s own NTSB investigator, who was then FIRED and having read the SECOND report AFTER Bush fired the first guy, I can say there is room for doubt.
waynebro:
We shall never know the exact truth about anything, even events we witness. The question is, or should be, what does the evidence show? Any thinking person who reads the PM report will conclude that the conspiracy theory crowd is either stupid, or holds malicious intent. I chose to give vince the benefit of the doubt. By the way, I didn’t conclude that vince was stupid, merely that he sounded that way.
And of course what we read in “Popular Mechanics”.
I wouldn’t call Vince stupid for merely voicing his opinion. An opinion that at least has a degree of plausibility to it. The juries not in yet on the events of that morning and they won’t be until an independent party gets to investigate all of the facts surrounding it.
I doubt Vince is correct, but I’m not so sure you guys are correct either. Usually the truth in murky areas like this are less grand than both sides wants to allow for. Its likely the truth lies somewhere in the middle, and until the Bush administration is out of office how can any of us say we really “know” anything about that morning? Other than what we saw on television and what the Bush administration, or its nemesis the conspiracy theorists tell us.
Mespo,
Beat me too it.
vince:
How’s that aluminum foil hat fitting? Read the Popular Mechanics analysis of 9/11 conspiracies and quit reading those conspiracy blogs! They make one sound stupid.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html
I think this whole thing is criminal. The owner can ask whatever he wants for the property. The families are acting like fascists. Seizing this property for a memorial is a fascist act, especially when you consider that the plane never even crashed there. 911 was a inside job and a full investigation should be done before any memorial is made. There is more evidence to show flight 93 being shot down than there is evidence supporting a crash. There are even records that show Flight 93 landed at Cleveland an hour after it supposedly crashed. Until the truth is known there should be no memorial.
Sounds like a good motto.
As long as its not “Hope but Villify”.
Wayne,
My new motto is, “Hope but Verify!”.
And well you should. I certainly don’t think he’ll “fix everything” particularly considering his vote on FISA. But I am holding out hope that he will undo a lot of the damage and certainly will uphold the Constitution rather than describe it as an “Interesting Document”.
He’s going to be better than Bush, of that I am sure. How much better remains to be seen. But until it’s seen I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Wayne,
I get really nervous when people say Obama will get in and everything will be restored. I don’t believe it. There’s a lot of work to be done to restore our rights. Obama voted to strip our 4th amendment rights and I haven’t heard of any plans for him to give those back. We will get our rights back by being vigilant and clawing them back from those who took them away. That includes our craven Congress, both Republicans and Democrats and it includes Obama. If we are lulled into believing Obama will come in and make everything O.K. again, we can be assured it will not. It’s dangerous to hand over that kind of power to any president. Only we the people can make this whole mess right again. JT spoke about this under his torture entry. We have got to stop being chumps.
The problem with a Constitutional Memorial is that it presupposes the Constitution is dead. Which it is not.
It’s just in stasis for a few more weeks.
i saw cheney say that and i was stunned. “high point”
excuse maybe, in fact, probably but high point says it all!