The Thing That Went Wrong on 9/11: The Timing of WTC7's Destruction

One frequently hears the argument that 9/11 couldn't have been an inside job, since something surely would have gone wrong.  Well perhaps there was something that did go very, very wrong:  the timing of the demolition of WTC7.  Perhaps it was meant to go down at 10:45am.  Surrounded by the dust from the collapse of the North Tower that happened at 10:30am, WTC7's collapse would have been invisible to almost everyone.   Instead, there is some evidence that the demolition that was supposed to happen, didn't.  Watch the following:

A Hypothetical Timeline of WTC7's Destruction

I Finally Succumb to Showing a Cat Video

A friend sent me this one.  I think the encaption is in Greek, so I don't know how to look it up on my blogger service, but here is the link. It was the audio that got to me.

The Core of Thomas Nagel's "Mind and Cosmos"

A friend sent me a link to a summary of Thomas Nagel's book, Mind and Cosmos, Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False , by Nagel himself.  It's short and to the point and should help remove misunderstandings and clarify the issues.

Government Attempt to Intimidate Glenn Greenwald Has Opposite Effect

Glenn Greenwald waxes wroth over the detaining of his partner in Britain:

This is obviously a rather profound escalation of their attacks on the news-gathering process and journalism. It's bad enough to prosecute and imprison sources. It's worse still to imprison journalists who report the truth. But to start detaining the family members and loved ones of journalists is simply despotic. Even the Mafia had ethical rules against targeting the family members of people they felt threatened by. But the UK puppets and their owners in the US national security state obviously are unconstrained by even those minimal scruples.

If the UK and US governments believe that tactics like this are going to deter or intimidate us in any way from continuing to report aggressively on what these documents reveal, they are beyond deluded. If anything, it will have only the opposite effect: to embolden us even further. Beyond that, every time the US and UK governments show their true character to the world - when they prevent the Bolivian President's plane from flying safely home, when they threaten journalists with prosecution, when they engage in behavior like what they did today - all they do is helpfully underscore why it's so dangerous to allow them to exercise vast, unchecked spying power in the dark.

Risking One's Life for 9/11 Truth Graffiti

HT: 911Blogger.com

If, like me, you've wondered how the 9/11 Truth Graffiti artists have been able to do it, you might want to watch this video:

Besides being illegal, this is crazy.  I pray that they don't get themselves killed.  For their sakes I hope they stop.

What on Earth do We Know about Heaven?

At least Randal Rauser comes up with book titles that intrigue me, such as What on Earth do We Know about Heaven?

 And he guarantees that this is the best book on heaven that he has ever written.  I guess I'll risk ten bucks on it.

UPDATE: Adam Hazzard offered some good advice:

"Perhaps the title could use an asterisk and some small print, like the ads for prescription drugs : Warning: The work "know" is used here in a figurative sense and does not imply actual knowledge. Assertions contained in this work are unverifiable. Customers requiring a fuller description of any possible afterlife are advised to solicit information from those who have already died. No warranty is offered or implied."

  UPDATE II: I just read the Afterword: Waiting for the Dream Car. Worth reading.

How to Design Evolution

Intelligent Design covers a rather wide spectrum of views, from Young Earth Creaionism at one extreme, to Front-loaded Evolution at the other. Mike Gene is the best known proponent of the latter view, and a recent essay tries to explain what it's all about, or How to Design Evolution.

Doing My Duty

Over at Uncommon Descent, Barry Arrington posted "Doing My Duty." It was rather short:

  “We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men” (George Orwell).

 Design is obvious. 

I wouldn't want to let ol' George down, so I thought I would follow suit:

 Controlled demolition of the following is obvious:

If you have an ipad, you probably need to go to this link to see it.

UPDATE: In the comment section at Barry's post, Alan Fox provided the context for the Orwell quotation:

  Here is the quote in context, taken from “The Road to Wigan Pier”, written in 1937 

 If there are certain pages of Mr Bertrand Russell’s book, Power, which seem rather empty, that is merely to say that we have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. It is not merely that at present the rule of naked force obtains almost everywhere. Probably that has always been the case. Where this age differs from those immediately preceding it is that a liberal intelligentsia is lacking. Bully-worship, under various disguises, has become a universal religion, and such truisms as that a machine-gun is still a machine-gun even when a “good” man is squeezing the trigger — and that in effect is what Mr Russell is saying — have turned into heresies which it is actually becoming dangerous to utter. 

“The Road to Wigan Pier” describes Orwell’s research into working-class conditions in the Midlands and North of England during the depression and is an argument for genuine socialism.

A Effective Way to Say "NO" to the NSA?

A small email service shut itself down rather than give the NSA confidential information. If all the giant servers did the same, I imagine somebody would get the message.

More Government Motives for Murdering Michael Hastings

I thought Micahel Hastings'death might have just been General McChrystal's revenge. However, journalist Russ Baker explores the connections between Michael Hastings, Edward Snowden and Barrett Brown and the war with the security state. Clearly, there may have been other government motives for murdering Hastings.

VJ Torley Asks Some Good Questions Regarding What Place ID Should Have in Public Universities.

Dr. Jo Ann Gora, president of Ball State University, has sent a letter to the faculty forbidding the teaching of intelligent design as a scientific theory in science classes.

VJ Torley has asked several questions in an open letter to Dr. Gora in response.  I think it's worth reading and thinking about.