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.
Waynebro:
“Are you saying his theory that Israeli operatives may have played a role in an attempt to get the US into their war against the Arab nations? Yea, that’s crazy huh?”
**************
What I say is simple: Prove it!
There’s the aluminum hat thing again.
Are you saying his theory that Israeli operatives may have played a role in an attempt to get the US into their war against the Arab nations?
Yea, that’s crazy huh?
I mean, what possible motive could Israel have for drawing the US into their war against the Arab nations?
See, your two conclusions are just that. Your two conclusions. There are many possible players here and many possible conclusions, from complicity to incompetence to just looking the other way. There’s lots of questions. You just don’t like people asking them.
Think I’m wrong? Then answer Vince’s question about why Bin Laden is not wanted for the 911 events, but for the embassy bombings.
Then you can explain to Vince why the govt, our govt, the one who’s story you are in here selling, flew dozens and dozens of Osama Bin Ladens family out of the country without any interrogations or serious questioning, just TWO days after 911.
Explain those two things. Just those two.
vince:
My “minions” and I think you bear the burden of proving your extraordinary and defamatory claims with extraordinary and convincing proof. I see all innuendo, coincidence, ad populum argument, and a person believing –and desperately wanting to believe– the worst about his Country with nothing more than a preconceived notion fitting a warped value system. Should you be serious you, like every citizen, may appear before the Special Grand Jury and present your “proof.” Let’s see if your fellow citizens reward you with indictments or those funny aluminum hats.
Mespo and his minions –
Apparently you people are in a complete state of denial. You cannot admit that our gov’t would kill 3000 of it’s own citizens in a false flag attack to justify going to war and taking away our Constitutional rights. Have any of you pro-gov’t dstory people even seen any of the films I recommended in my last post? I doubt it. Seems your only sources for your belief are the gov’t itself, the PM article and the NIST report. None of these entities answers the many questions surrounding this event. There has been strong evidence found indicating it was a controlled demolition. Thermate residue was found at the towers site. Thermate is only used for controlled demolitions. Witnesses at the Pentagon say they smelled cordite. Cordite is a rocket explosive. It would not be found on a commercial plane. BTW you people don’t seem to want to talk about the Pentagon. Please explain how a plane can hit the Pentagon and leave no plane debris? No engines, seats, luggage, wings, fuselage, landing gear. Nothing, zilch. Plus teh hole in the pentagon is way to small for a 757 to go thru but the right size for a missile. Also if you look at the towers going down in slow motion you can see explosions below the blast wave. Please explain that. Most people who know anything about this event have discarded the NIST report, the PM article and the gov’t itself to be bogus. The 911 truth movement has much more evidence to support a inside job. The 911 truth movement has many more physicists, engineers, and other educated people on their side than the gov’t has. Even Ray McGovern, who worked at the CIA, I think for 24 years, says it’s a inside job. Bin Laden is wanted by the FBI for African embassy bombings but not for 911. When asked why they say there is not enough evidence that supports that he did it. The gov’t has been told that about 1/2 of the hijackers are alive and well, yet they do not update the hijackers list. They can’t because if they do it will be evidence they know it’s a inside job. And please explain to me the 5 israelis that were caught filming the towers and celebrating as it happened. The cops caught them, released them to the feds and they let them go back to Israel where they said on TV they were sent there to document the event. They were MOSSAD agents. What I say is all documented. It is not made up. I believe our gov’t and the gov’t of Israel were behind this. It would not be the first time Israel attacked the US and blame the attack on a enemy. Look up USS Liberty. It’s really amazing and pathetic to see how gullible so many people in this country are. I guess if the gov’t says it’s so it must be. Watch the films I recommended and then come back and say it was 19 arabs.
You’re ignoring the firing of the NTSB investigator who for a while had a website up detailing his findings and his firing. That’s all disappeared now. Couldn’t tell you where it went.
As for referencing Ryan as that’s the crux of doubt on the issue is laughable. You ignore so many events, so many issues, like the FBI agent who was silenced for speaking out pre 911 on Muhammad Atta and the others taking flying lessons on Jets without landing lessons. What was her name? Rawley? I honestly don’t remember. Because unlike your attempts to paint me as such I’m not a “conspiracy theorist” and I don’t have a never ending wealth of data at my fingertips to debate you with on the topic. I “read” the data, I didn’t memorize it. I don’t obsess over it.
The current “official story” is full of holes. NIST never bothered to look for any actual evidence. After all against objections of so many investigators Bush ordered the site plowed under before any real investigation could take place. They cited safety reasons of course, which whenever cited causes the general population to emit a collective “ahhhhh” as their eyes roll over backwards in their sockets, but clearly there was ample evidence to demonstrate the last thing the officials were concerned with was worker safety. They still aren’t.
And as for what we “all saw happen”? If you remember correctly several announcers were speculating that the buildings were felled, as was most people watching at home, because that’s what it looked like. That’s what we saw. That’s what our eyes told us. The fancy computer simulations are there to tell us we saw something than what our eyes showed us.
No Mespo, sorry, but there’s so many holes in the official versions of the events as well as the cover ups and attempts to cover up, the stonewalling, the destruction of evidence. There’s certainly ample reason to doubt the official story.
As for the two possible conclusions you demonstrate limited thinking. I’ve thought of literally dozens of possible conclusions, perhaps hundreds. The truth is often not black and white and that’s why waiting for real investigations to occur is important. Of course even then we may never find out. After all Bush successfully buried the evidence.
Anyway all I can say what I told you a day ago. I don’t know and I don’t think you do either.
“You also might ask why Bush fired the original investigators.”
***********
Well I am not sure fired is the right word. Clearly the FBI took over the investigation (displacing NTSB) of this mass murder pursuant to federal law since it was, after all, a crime scene. I did however consider the claims of those people reprimanded for statements saying it couldn’t have happened the way most of us saw it happen. And I reached two possible conclusions: First it either was because Bush was hiding the biggest criminal cover up in the Nation’s history with literally thousands of eyes watching his every move from Boston to Bangkok, or second, it was because the “investigators” was reckless and jumped to a judgment without sufficient knowledge gleaned from a comprehensive analysis of teh event by various pertinent disciplines. You either believe that one guy has all the answers or you don’t. Put me in the camp of the skeptics. After reading about Kevin Ryan’s (the UL Lab director for Water Quality) letter disputing the conclusions without any authority from Underwriters Laboratories, I think I am on the side of the angels here. I have seen too many experts like Ryan climb out on limbs created by their incredible egos. I find them more humble and circumspect in packs.
JT, I heard someone comment, I don’t remember who, when it was announced that the bars were staying open until 4am in DC for the inauguration that it was clear that whatever else happens, it’s clear, ‘we’re gonna need alcohol’…
mespo, I agree. The ‘Incompetence Theory’ is a good one and I’ll stand by it.
jonathanturley 1, January 4, 2009 at 8:30 pm
“Thanks, Patty C.”
Yea by all means lets thank her.
Lets thank her for declaring that instead of walking into a thread where I’ve said absolutely nothing to her and just calling me ignorant and a high school drop out and not worth of arguing with such lofty educated professionals like herself like she did here today, and on several other occasions, she’ll now only walk into threads where I’ve said nothing to her and tell me to “stick a fork in it”.
That’s so much more reasonable.
I really enjoy her constant unprovoked insult attacks along with her incessant proclamations of her own lofty moral and intellectual superiority. She must be superior because she’s always telling me so. She’s indeed a legend in her own mind.
Yes, thanks.
Thanks a lot.
Patty C:
I just read that editorial this afternoon and thought it captured the essence of the last eight years perfectly. If the present really does ride the shoulders of the past, Obama best look out for the bottom of the coffee table to avoid hitting his head. Maybe we have a new metaphor. Perhaps the past is now the dwarf and the present the giant!
Patty C 1, January 4, 2009 at 6:56 am
“Waynebro, from the very first moment you showed up here you’ve done nothing but display you ignorance.
How dare you, a high school drop out, attempt to argue with those of us with advanced degrees and ‘real’ ie professional jobs.
You should shut your pie hole and listen to mespo and me. You might actually learn something!”
–
Lest anyone think you’re as superior as your constant protestations to the fact would indicate.
Oh and its’ “your” ignorance.
Not “you” ignorance.
😉
jonathanturley 1, January 4, 2009 at 7:24 am
I have to ask you to dial down on the personal attacks, Patty C. While I recognize that a culinary devotee might gravitate to expressions about shutting pie holes, there is a civility rule on the blog and everyone’s views are welcomed equally. As one of our founding (and most valued) bloggers, I really need you to help maintain the decorum of the blog — and continue to fork over proven recipes with poignant observations!
———-
Forgive me. Dialing down.
Next time, I’ll convey my displeasure by telling Waynebro aka Bartleee/Cromagnum Man to ‘stick a fork in it’! 😉
I agree with mespo most of the time and this is no exception.
I offer this Oped by Paul Krugman entitled ‘Bigger than Bush’
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/02/opinion/02krugman.html?_r=1
Thanks, Patty C.
I did read the editorial, though I was more interested when I heard the the Republicans had become “winers.” It turns out that he thinks that they are just “whiners,” far less interesting. The best GOP winer was Sen. Tower, but there are some in close competition on both sides of the aisle.
By the way, don’t take my refusal to debate this topic, or more correctly, allowing you to force me into debating a position I do not possess, as any sort of animosity. I enjoy our debates, this is just not an issue you really want to debate, nor do I. You want to mock any deviation from the Bush official position and I don’t really have a position other than I doubt the Bush position based on the ORIGINAL reports from the NTSB and the cover ups, hush ups, etc, so there’s nothing really to debate.
You believe Bush.
I don’t.
But we can always debate something else.
I’ve listened to both sides, read and absorbed as much data on the subject that my “ignorance” permits, and after reviewing both sides I can honestly say there’s room for serious doubts on the official story. I did look at the data from the original investigator from the NTSB, right before Bush fired him. He said there wasn’t near enough heat to impact the steel 90 stories below. He also brought up a lot of the things I mentioned above that you just so lazily skimmed over in your dressing down of me. He discussed the lack of heat impacting the rescue workers and survivors that would have had to have been present for the steel to be so hot. He discussed the temperatures of office material and how hot it burns. He discussed the quick consumption of “most” of the jet fuel in the first explosions. He discussed the improbability of not one but both towers falling in the same manner and he discussed the improbability that Building 7 could have been ignited so badly, much less what could have weakened the supports of Bldg 7, since there was no magical jet fuel to help weaken the supports. The impact of the planes a block away would not be sufficient to collapse the steel of that building as has been speculated, particularly since no other buildings suffered a similar fate. A fate that has never happened once before I might add, in all of human history. He made his report, then Bush fired him, and hired a new group who’d say what he wanted them to say. Just like he did when Alberto Gonzales tried to get John Ashcroft to sign off on Domestic spying. When Ashcroft refused and declared domestic spying illegal, Bush fired him, and hired a guy (gonzo) who would say it was legal.
Its what Bush does, and for the life of me I cannot imagine why you’d think he’d do any different here. Perhaps the possible answers are just “too big” for most people to deal with. After all, imagine the ramifications if there was any sort of skulduggery with regards to 911. Of any sort.
But feel free to cling to the NIST report Bush prepared for you. Its your call. But you might some day considering asking yourself why at no time did the NIST investigation even bother to test for explosives.
You also might ask why Bush fired the original investigators. You might also ask why the office with Cheney’s documents was destroyed, when no other buildings were. You might ask yourself all sorts of things. You might, but I doubt you will. I on the other hand will wait until these and so many other answers are forthcoming. Answers NOT included in your precious “NIST” report.
In the meantime, feel free to mock the fact that I took three comments to respond to your one. I only do it because I’m usually working on something when I blog so I can’t always finish a thought when I want, but I know it gives you and one or two others in here great pleasure in declaring it a sign of my obvious inferiority so have at it.
Waynebro:
Ah, the reference to “‘so-called’ common sense” was directed at the utter foolishness of that term (which refers to something not too common or particularly rational) and not at you. I thought that was fairly clear from its context, but if it wasn’t I apologize for that.
mespo727272 1, January 4, 2009 at 3:35 pm
“You won’t even concede there is a much evidence on the side of the NIST report as perhaps there is against it. An you should know that most people will disrespect your conclusions if all you have is some as populum argument that other people believe it and therefore so do you.”
No, I won’t concede to letting you force me into defending a position I don’t hold.
Your straw arguments about “all you have” are just a pathetic attempt at ignoring the actual details of some of the doubts I presented above to the existing data. I told you what I found troubling with the data but you ignore it, and instead try to compel me into defending a position that you find easier to debate.
…well, not actually debate but easier for you to declare them nutjobs and move on.
Like the neoconservatives you begin your debate by mocking and dismissing anyone with an opposing view or doubts in your theories as “crazies” and kooks. Then you invent “anger” and “hurt feelings” for me or anyone who refuses to capitulate to your position.
No ones angry. No ones feelings are hurt. I just refuse to capitulate to your position or your mockery of anyone who won’t.
mespo727272 1, January 4, 2009 at 3:35 pm
“Waynebro:
It’s hard to argue with a guy who’s determined to be insulted no matter what you say or what you didn’t do.”
So you’re saying that you wouldn’t think I was insulting you if I referred to your “so called intelligence”?
Your “so called” status as an attorney?
Your “so called” honesty?
Your “so called” integrity?
I think what’s bothering you is not your fabrications about my determination to be insulted but my ability to recognize your carefully gilded insults when you deliver them.
Waynebro:
It’s hard to argue with a guy who’s determined to be insulted no matter what you say or what you didn’t do. That’s sort of my problem with your “questions” about Bldg. You won’t even concede there is a much evidence on the side of the NIST report as perhaps there is against it. An you should know that most people will disrespect your conclusions if all you have is some as populum argument that other people believe it and therefore so do you.
mespo727272 1, January 4, 2009 at 8:21 am
“WAYNEBRO:
I accept your doubts as we all have them but at some point we have to decide which is the most probable scenario. The official one of NIST, backed by evidence, or the doubts we have based on supposition and so-called “common sense.”
Statements like this constitute the “respect” you’ve shown my “POV” on this thread. You talk to people who disagree with you like you’re talking to children who are in need of your wisdom. Here, lets examine your respect for my position.
You said – “I accept your doubts “BUT” they’re based on “supposition and so-called common sense”.
Wow. If that’s what passes for respect with you then I’d hate to see your disrespect. My common sense is my common sense. Not my “so called common sense” as your so called “respect” for my position dictates.
People, intelligent people, educated people, experts, have serious problems with the NIST conclusions. They’re not moonbats. They’re not nutjobs. And they’re not as your partner Patty declares, “ignorant”. They’re real people with real questions and doubts and until there is real investigation (meaning where real investigators are not FIRED for stating conclusions not acceptable to the Bush administration) then the jury will still be out for us. Sorry that doesn’t fit in with your conclusions and you’re welcome to your conclusions. But you should not disrespect others simply for not sharing them.
Just to clarify things a little bit, I am not the Vince who posted above as “Vince, January 2, 2009 at 9:37 pm” and as “vince, January 2, 2009 at 11:24 am”
mespo727272 1, January 4, 2009 at 1:56 pm
“My real bile was reserved for the crazies who actually believe the government is in league with aliens and somehow precipitated this mess”
Bile’s a good choice of words.
How many people do you actually think believe the government is in league with “aliens”?
Not many I’d imagine. But statements like that do go a long way towards silencing anyone with questions or doubts on the issue by pushing them all into your neatly wrapped “nutcase” package.