"Loose Change" or Loose Screws?

I love conspiracies. Not because I believe in them, but because they’re a fascinating glimpse into the minds of the over imaginative. From Elvis lives to aliens abducting my neighbor, it amazes me where people will find conspiracy and oddity. One such oddity for me is the hubbub about what really happened to America on September 11, 2001, because obviously our government is hiding something and we need to force them out into the open. We can’t have people believing what the news or government tells them, even though quite a lot of the “evidence” comes from quotes made on the news and from videos off of television. “But that’s the only way to get any information because that’s what we’re limited to” you might say. Well, if the conspiracy theorists were so damn much smarter than the rest of us sheep, they’d find the material. Me? I’ll just use my common sense, thank you very much.

Just a short while ago I finished watching the ever-thought-provoking conspiracy pieces called “Loose Change” and “Loose Change 2^nd Edition.” I won’t link to them because I think they’re full of it, but it shouldn’t take you long to Google them. If you do, please, by all means, watch them and then take a little of what I have to say here with you on your way in. I’m not about to refute and debunk every statement made in the videos, but I’d like to comment on a few of the things the creators of the films put forth for our ingestion (or indigestion). Here’s my take on things, in no particular order.

The single incident on 9/11 that “Loose” (I’ll just call them both this from now on) centers on as being evidence that what we thought happened didn’t really happen was the attack on the Pentagon. The evidence goes from “the hole is too small” to “where’s the plane?” Well, I have a single answer for both, and it’s shown in a video I saw a while back. Check it.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3939904420012109745&q=f4+crash

This is video of an F4 Phantom slamming into a chunk of reinforced concrete. What does this prove, and how does it make “Loose” a pile of garbage? Watch the video carefully and tell me what’s left of the F4 after impact? The only parts of the plane to survive were the tips of the wings which were sheered off. Well my friends, what was the wall(s) of the Pentagon made of? You guessed it; reinforced concrete. The 747, while obviously bigger than the F4, is made of the same aircraft grade aluminum as the F4, and couldn’t survive such an impact either. There’s no wreckage of the 747 simply because it both disintegrated and flew inside the building. Why the director/narrator/whoever thought there’d be big chunks of plane out on the lawn is beyond me.

What about the size of the hole in the building? Besides that day, how many times have you seen a 747 crash into a reinforced concrete building? Yeah, me either. So, show of hands, how many of you believe it would leave a 747-shaped hole in such a building? Yeah, me either. I’ve heard everything from “the wings would have folded back” to “the hole would be twice as big” and none of them take into account that the skin of a passenger airplane is much thinner and weaker than they think and that the plane’s infrastructure isn’t made of titanium or any other such strong metal. I guarantee that if you could slam your car into a wall like that, or anything else for that matter, it would also disintegrate. Oh, and it also wouldn’t leave a car-shaped hole in the wall.

Something else to consider is the number of firefighters, law enforcement and even pedestrians and passers-by that either saw the plane crash, or helped with the cleanup. I find it quite hard to fathom that all of these people were either planted by the government, or were paid to say what they saw. Someone, someone, would have squawked.

Another side of “Loose” is it’s questioning of the collapse of the Trade Center towers. It tries to convince viewers that there’s no way the towers would/could have collapsed after the planes hit. This is substantiated by showing clips of other buildings that either caught on fire or had been hit by a plane (well, only one was, the Empire State Building) and telling us that they didn’t collapse. That’s fine and dandy, but with the exception of the Empire State, none of the other buildings had been hit by planes! Hello, McFly!

The designers of the WTC have stated that the buildings could take a direct hit from a commercial airliner (though I could have sworn they mentioned a plane smaller than a 747). I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that they really designed it to take such a hit, but like the Titanic, you can’t truly prove a claim until it’s put to the test. Until that fateful day, even the designers of the WTC couldn’t have known exactly what would have happened if a jet hit their buildings. Unfortunately, they did find out. It just didn’t go they way they’d hoped.

I’ve watch many controlled demolitions before. I’ve watched entire documentaries devoted to them. In almost all of them, two things were prevalent: the explosions took place very quickly and almost all at once, and the buildings had a tendency to collapse from the bottom, not the top. You can clearly see from any of the videos that the WTC towers began their collapse from around where the planes had hit, causing the top portions of the building to pancake on top of the next. “Loose” points out what they think are explosions coming out of the windows, but I’ve got a better idea. How about those little puffs of smoke are caused by the floors just above crashing down through the ceiling? Not so far fetched now, is it?

Many of the people on the films claim to have heard various explosions after the planes hit, adding fuel to the conspiratorial fire. Well, is it really so impossible to believe that other things might have exploded in the buildings? I can’t claim to know what was in the buildings, but might they not have gas lines, water heaters, cooling systems, etc.? Any of those things could cause an explosion after being hit by a plane! But, no, there’s too much evidence of drills and floor evacuations prior to 9/11 that prove that explosives were planted. Of course, there’s no account as to whether those kinds of things have ever happened before that time. Curious.

What I find really amusing is that in the first video, they go on and on about “missile pods” and how one of the planes actually fires a missile off before it hits the tower. It’s funny how all of that is missing from the 2^nd Edition video. Maybe it’s because other sources have made total asses of the “Loose” guys for their “pod” idea, and proved them wrong. That’s all fine by me since that frees me up from having to break out Photoshop and show how the outlines they try to make with regards to where the nose of the plane was in respect to the building when the “missile” supposedly hit. Let me just say, it’s laughable.

I’d like to keep going and going, but I’m not here to refute every point. I’ll be honest with you, though. If I were still in college when all this stuff came out, I’d probably be on the bandwagon with the theorists. Back then I didn’t know anything about politics or the “truths” of life. I remember even considering the theory that we never landed on the moon. Man, I was so dumb back then. Thankfully, now that I’m closer to 30 I have a better grasp on what’s going on around me and don’t look too deeply into every dark corner for the answers to all my questions. All it takes is a little common sense to see through the fog of what tripe like “Loose” try to throw in front of us.

So, I guess this is the point where I say “if you actually believe in all this crap, you’re stupid.” This time, though, I think I’ll leave it with ignorant. Ignorant simply means that you don’t know any better. Stupid means you do, but don’t give a rat’s ass. If you look very closely, you’ll notice that it’s only a very far leaning few who actually believe in all this conspiracy junk. Middle America, where most of us sit, just doesn’t see the connection, but we do see the smoke and mirrors. And as you know, David Copperfield never made a dollar if someone saw the wires.

Where's the Racism?

I want to ask a question, that hopefully someone can answer to my satisfaction; where does racism still play out in America today? I’ve read a lot of hoopla lately about racism still being a problem in our country, and that it’s holding people back and preventing racial equality. But where is this happening, and in what form?

The last time I checked, everyone in America, everyone, had the freedom to vote, bear arms, speak freely (though that in itself will be another post at some future time), protest, walk around naked in their home, listen to crappy music, and get an education. So where, pray tell, is this racial injustice taking place?

One area where I’ve heard some say minorities are being held back is in education. It seems some people don’t have the same opportunities to graduate from college as others. I’m not sure which colleges these are, however, and last time I checked there were no exclusive non-minority schools in the country. What can be found are schools that are predominantly attended by certain minorities. Some of these schools even offer substantial financial assistance to minorities to go to school. Where, then, is the racism? Maybe, just maybe, it’s the reverse of what many people define as racism: white against black.

Have you heard Bill Cosby speak recently? He’s been on a mission, it seems, to educated black kids on their responsibility to themselves, and that they need to go to school. Not only that, but that they shouldn’t expect anyone to give them a handout or a free ride as well. What have minority leaders said about this? They hate him for it. You see, Mr. Cosby doesn’t believe in entitlements. He doesn’t believe that the government should pay everyone’s way in life, or should support people who decide not to get an education, thereby denying themselves a good job. What’s stopping any of these people from going to school? There certainly isn’t a lack of universities with which to attend. And there are so many financial aid programs out there that if you can’t afford to go to college, they’ll practically pay it for you. What you might find interesting is that far fewer people aren’t attending college because of money, but because of grades.

I ask again, where is the blatant racism? There were just as many black kids at my high school as there were white, and I live in the state that’s probably seen as the most racists of them all, Louisiana. Yet most of the top academic achievers at my school were black. They went on to college, and from our ten year reunion last year I found out that most of them have way better jobs than I do. Were they held back in any way? Not a chance. They weren’t held back because they actually put effort into learning and taking responsibility for themselves. Just like I never got a handout, they knew they wouldn’t either, and didn’t expect it.

I’m not going to apologize to the stupid people out there who find my statements offensive. If you do, you’re probably the same people who believe the government owes you something. You’re the same people who look at me and think that my life was handed to me and that I have more money than I can count. Rest assured, I worked my knuckles to the bone for what I have, never receiving anything for free. My parents are just as un-wealthy now as they were when they first married. But like all American parents should, they taught my brothers and me that we had to work for our livelihood. They taught us that no one was going to give us anything for free, and they were right.

To all my black and other minority friends, you know exactly where I come from, and you know not to be offended by this opus to stupid people. You worked just as hard as me to get where you are, and I commend you wholeheartedly for it. That goes for anyone else out there who’s burned your neck in the sun to get your kids through school, never expecting Uncle Sam to hand it to you or them. You know racism only exists in the minds of the stupid, who either use it as a crutch, or use it gain leverage over people they don’t like. To you, the real racists, I say “shut up, stupid!”