Yeah this reminds me of all the coverage fox gave the Vice President (not just some podunk congressman) when he told a senator to go FUCK HIMSELF (not just stick it up his ass).

oh yeah that's right - they ignored it.

typical right wing hypocrisy in action

Wow. At least she didn't get elected Vice President.


Oh, wait.

Some things to consider:

The towers had asbestos issues.

The insurance companies were held not liable in a prior to 911 court case for the asbestos removal, people don't realize sections of those towers were to become uninhabitable very shortly for being uninsurable.

Can you imagine the symbol of power to the world in NYC being a uninhabitable empty building?

The office that got hit in the Pentagon was the same office where they were conducting the investigation into the 2.3 trillion missing from the defense department that Rumsfeld announced on Sept 10... no more investigation.

Cheney had bought Dresser Industries in 1998 and that made Halliburton responsible for their asbestos abatement.

Halliburton Pays Dearly but Finally Escapes Cheney's Asbestos Mess

The World Trade Center was also a huge asbestos liability and realistically held very little value due to the overwhelming costs associated with the removal of said asbestos. It's funny how it all ties together, isn't it? http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/003500.php

It was well-known by the city of New York that the WTC was an asbestos bombshell. For years, the Port Authority treated the building like an aging dinosaur, attempting on several occasions to get permits to demolish the building for liability reasons, but being turned down due the known asbestos problem. Further, it was well-known the only reason the building was still standing until 9/11 was because it was too costly to disassemble the twin towers floor by floor since the Port Authority was prohibited legally from demolishing the buildings.

The projected cost to disassemble the towers: $15 Billion. Just the scaffolding for the operation was estimated at $2.4 Billion!

In other words, the Twin Towers were condemned structures. How convenient that an unexpected “terrorist” attack demolished the buildings completely.

WTC Building 7 was a part of the WTC complex, and covered under the same insurance policy. This 47-storey steel-framed structure, which was NOT struck by an aircraft, mysteriously collapsed 8 hours later that same day into its own footprint at freefall speed — exactly in the manner of the Twin Towers.

Halliburton was legally responsible for the WTC's asbestos problems. It would have been fought out in court but Halliburton might lose. They couldn't do a controlled demolition because of the asbestos. Of all the buildings in NYC, this one was the one whose demolition would be most advantageous for the vice president of the United States. And the first responders paid the price, on 911 and later.

To add to the convenience, Silverstein had the towers insured against terrorist attacks so that not only would he get to stop paying for the lease, he would even get most of his down payment back.

He also claimed entitlement to be paid the 3.6 billion insurance sum twice, arguing that the towers were destroyed in two separate attacks. This resulted in a long court battle and resulted in him eventually collecting his billions.

In short, privatizing the lease of the property and making sure all physical evidence was quickly destroyed by recycling the steel allowed Silverstein to collect on the insurance policy instead of having to go through lengthy forensic analysis over who or what really knocked down the towers.

It doesn't prove a conspiracy but is again one of those important coincidences to take place for the whole thing to play out plausibly.

As for building 7, lets keep in mind that all paperwork for SEC investigation of ENRON and WorldCom were destroyed in its collapse, and the cases had to be abandoned. How much that was worth personally or in cold hard cash is up to anyone's guess.

http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/wtc_payment.html http://www.freewebs.com/inside-man/

I didn't say I believe it. I said I would entertain it. There is a major difference.

If you honestly believe that Dick Cheney, as vice-president, was completely innocent of all wrong doing, I can't have a conversation with you.

The man's actions for the last eight years need to be carefully scrutinized. He ought to be investigated for all sorts of things. No, I don't think you could ever pin something like "he knew about flight 77 in advance" on him. I think you could get him for having assassination squads (i.e. Blackwater/Xe services), I think you can get him for authorizing illegal torture, I think you can get him for lying to the american people about justification for war (and the manufacturing of evidence to support his case), I think you might even be able to get him for profiteering if you look closely enough.

The man is a criminal, and has been since he was riding Tricky's Dick. This is, of course, not to mention the other people I think should be investigated carefully, i.e. Richard Perle, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and of course the baby Bush.

The real danger of conspiracy theories is the bias their prevalence puts against skepticism of official stories. Fear of association with crazies prevents the rational questioning of our public servants' activities. Therein lies the real danger.

I think this site provides a good debunking of this video. What I like about it specifically is that it's from a known figure within the "truther" movement. What he's insinuating is that the "magic show" theorists such as CIT are likely paid to discredit any call for more information, and provide a distraction from more pressing questions about more plausible scenarios.

Specifically he asks:
* How was it possible that the Pentagon was hit 1 hour and 20 minutes after the attacks began?

* Why was there no response from Andrews Air Force Base, just over 10 miles away and home to Air National Guard units charged with defending the skies above the nation’s capital?

* Why did F-16s fail to protect Washington on 9/11? Was the Langley emergency response sabotaged?

* Why did Flight 77 hit a part of the building opposite from the high command and mostly empty and under renovation, with majority of victims being civilian accountants?

* Why were Pentagon workers not evacuated or warned that Flight 77 was approaching, despite those in the bunker tracking the attack plane as it closed the final 50 miles to the Pentagon?

* How could Flight 77 have been piloted through its extreme aerobatic final maneuvers by Hani Hanjour, a failed Cessna pilot who had never flown a jet?

* Why did the flight instructor who certified Hani Hanjour, a former Israeli paratrooper, disappear a few days after his 9/11 Commission interview?

* Why was a war game drill used to vacate the National Reconnaissance Office for the duration of the attack?

* How was a C-130 pilot able to intercept the plane incoming to the Pentagon while NORAD was not?

* Did the Pentagon, the nerve center of the US military, really have no missile or anti-aircraft defenses?

* What were Vice-president Cheney’s orders when Norman Mineta described him speaking to a young man in the presidential bunker as the plane approached, saying, “Of course the orders still stand, have you heard anything to the contrary?“

For a conspiracy moderate like myself, these questions deserve addressing. Particularly questions about how a plane was allowed to reach the pentagon in the first place. Any politician claiming to be "tough on security" ought to be able to answer for how, on his watch, a commercial airliner piloted by an untrained pilot was able to strike the nerve center of the US military almost an hour after we had already been attacked.

If nothing more nefarious, Dick Cheney should have been indicted for gross negligence on that day.

Why? To go to war.

To prepare the ground for the PNAC-like ideas that were circulating in the HardRight, various wealthy individuals and corporations helped set up far-right think-tanks, and bought up various media outlets -- newspapers, magazines, TV networks, radio talk shows, cable channels, etc. -- in support of that day when all the political tumblers would click into place and the PNAC cabal and their supporters could assume control.

This happened with the Supreme Court's selection of George W. Bush in 2000. The "outsiders" from PNAC were now powerful "insiders," placed in important positions from which they could exert maximum pressure on U.S. policy: Cheney is Vice President, Rumsfeld is Defense Secretary, Wolfowitz is Deputy Defense Secretary, I. Lewis Libby is Cheney's Chief of Staff, Elliot Abrams is in charge of Middle East policy at the National Security Council, Dov Zakheim is comptroller for the Defense Department, John Bolton is Undersecretary of State, Richard Perle is chair of the Defense Policy advisory board at the Pentagon, former CIA director James Woolsey is on that panel as well, etc. etc. (PNAC's chairman, Bill Kristol, is the editor of The Weekly Standard.) In short, PNAC had a lock on military policy-creation in the Bush Administration.

But, in order to unleash their foreign/military campaigns without taking all sorts of flak from the traditional wing of the conservative GOP -- which was more isolationist, more opposed to expanding the role of the federal government, more opposed to military adventurism abroad -- they needed a context that would permit them free rein. The events of 9/11 rode to their rescue. (In one of their major reports, written in 2000, they noted that "the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor.")

Okay, just in case you're not American, or are American and forgot your civics lessons, it takes a bare majority to pass bills. That means 51 votes, or 50 votes plus the Vice President casting a tie-breaker vote.

Why all the talk about 60 votes? Because the GOP is using Senate parliamentary procedure to obstruct the passage of all Democratic legislation.

*news

>> ^westy:
Where did I say that if your not religious you don't have the potential to still be racist ?


You didn't, but neither did I ever say that you did. Please make an effort to respond only to the things I actually say. It's funny that you insult my logic abilities and yet you failed to use basic logic to see this point.


>> ^westy:
If you are folowing a racist / idoitic religouse TXT then you are going to be racist and idotic to some existent and unable to change this view point because that would be arguing with god.
if you are not you could still be racist and idiotic however there is allso the posablity that you wont be, this is because You have chosen not to base your morality on some dogmatic txt that cannot change.
so person basing life on racist idiot txt = Always racist idiot
person not basing morality on racist idoitc txt = non racist / could be racist

the point is if you are following a religion that is fundamental racist / iratoinal/ bult of ideas from 5000 years ago . then you will be racist , ethor that or you are not following the religion or you are picking and choosing what you believe which in alot of religoins is against the fundimental rules of that religoin and in the end if you belive it to be gods word why would you pick and choose? unless your compleatly incapable of basic logic and consistency.


You seem to have a fundamental lack of understanding about religion. Either that or a much over-simplified concept of it. This combines with a knowledge shortage of human psychology leaves you in an awkward position. Really, all you've done is add substance to my feeling that you are acting like an irrational teenager focusing on the subject they love to insult.

I'll try to explain for you. My explanation will be based from a Christian / Roman Catholic viewpoint because that is the one I'm most familiar with.

Most Christians don't believe the bible is the literal truth. A minority does and I think that we might be able to find some common ground in thinking those people are mainly illogical and fearful. Honestly, I don't have a problem with fundamentalists in principle as long as they don't try to push their ideas upon other people or run for vice-president. But that is a small minority. For the Roman Catholic Church, there are a small set of core beliefs and the rest are up to personal exploration. You try to create this picture of a very rigid religion that doesn't bend at all and you completely miss the reality of the people that follow the religions. You've missed the forest because you are focusing so intently on the trees.

And again, you try to draw false choices. If people do A => B. Life isn't binary or so simple. You are looking at one set of circumstances (looks like a personal grudge) and focus on that while ignoring a whole host of other environmental variables. I'm sorry, but you can't explain life with two to four variables and then lump everyone into that equation.

Two-thirds of the way there... *beg

let me ask this question again.
what credentials does liz cheney have to even be considered a political pundit?
oh thats right...her daddy was vice president.
my daddy was an electrician,guess that means im qualified to work on electronics.
the stupid factor is off the charts.....

From: http://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/ricetalk.htm

Transcript:

President Pitzer, Mr. Vice President, Governor, Congressman Thomas, Senator Wiley, and Congressman Miller, Mr. Webb, Mr. Bell, scientists, distinguished guests, and ladies and gentlemen:

I appreciate your president having made me an honorary visiting professor, and I will assure you that my first lecture will be very brief.

I am delighted to be here, and I'm particularly delighted to be here on this occasion.

We meet at a college noted for knowledge, in a city noted for progress, in a State noted for strength, and we stand in need of all three, for we meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds.

Despite the striking fact that most of the scientists that the world has ever known are alive and working today, despite the fact that this Nation¹s own scientific manpower is doubling every 12 years in a rate of growth more than three times that of our population as a whole, despite that, the vast stretches of the unknown and the unanswered and the unfinished still far outstrip our collective comprehension.

No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but condense, if you will, the 50,000 years of man¹s recorded history in a time span of but a half-century. Stated in these terms, we know very little about the first 40 years, except at the end of them advanced man had learned to use the skins of animals to cover them. Then about 10 years ago, under this standard, man emerged from his caves to construct other kinds of shelter. Only five years ago man learned to write and use a cart with wheels. Christianity began less than two years ago. The printing press came this year, and then less than two months ago, during this whole 50-year span of human history, the steam engine provided a new source of power.

Newton explored the meaning of gravity. Last month electric lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes became available. Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power, and now if America's new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight.

This is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old, new ignorance, new problems, new dangers. Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward.

So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of Houston, this State of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward--and so will space.

William Bradford, speaking in 1630 of the founding of the Plymouth Bay Colony, said that all great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage.

If this capsule history of our progress teaches us anything, it is that man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred. The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in the race for space.

Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolutions, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be a part of it--we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding.

Yet the vows of this Nation can only be fulfilled if we in this Nation are first, and, therefore, we intend to be first. In short, our leadership in science and in industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become the world's leading space-faring nation.

We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say the we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours.

There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will be made during my incumbency in the office of the Presidency.

In the last 24 hours we have seen facilities now being created for the greatest and most complex exploration in man's history. We have felt the ground shake and the air shattered by the testing of a Saturn C-1 booster rocket, many times as powerful as the Atlas which launched John Glenn, generating power equivalent to 10,000 automobiles with their accelerators on the floor. We have seen the site where the F-1 rocket engines, each one as powerful as all eight engines of the Saturn combined, will be clustered together to make the advanced Saturn missile, assembled in a new building to be built at Cape Canaveral as tall as a 48 story structure, as wide as a city block, and as long as two lengths of this field.

Within these last 19 months at least 45 satellites have circled the earth. Some 40 of them were "made in the United States of America" and they were far more sophisticated and supplied far more knowledge to the people of the world than those of the Soviet Union.

The Mariner spacecraft now on its way to Venus is the most intricate instrument in the history of space science. The accuracy of that shot is comparable to firing a missile from Cape Canaveral and dropping it in this stadium between the the 40-yard lines.

Transit satellites are helping our ships at sea to steer a safer course. Tiros satellites have given us unprecedented warnings of hurricanes and storms, and will do the same for forest fires and icebergs.

We have had our failures, but so have others, even if they do not admit them. And they may be less public.

To be sure, we are behind, and will be behind for some time in manned flight. But we do not intend to stay behind, and in this decade, we shall make up and move ahead.

The growth of our science and education will be enriched by new knowledge of our universe and environment, by new techniques of learning and mapping and observation, by new tools and computers for industry, medicine, the home as well as the school. Technical institutions, such as Rice, will reap the harvest of these gains.

And finally, the space effort itself, while still in its infancy, has already created a great number of new companies, and tens of thousands of new jobs. Space and related industries are generating new demands in investment and skilled personnel, and this city and this State, and this region, will share greatly in this growth. What was once the furthest outpost on the old frontier of the West will be the furthest outpost on the new frontier of science and space. Houston, your City of Houston, with its Manned Spacecraft Center, will become the heart of a large scientific and engineering community. During the next 5 years the National Aeronautics and Space Administration expects to double the number of scientists and engineers in this area, to increase its outlays for salaries and expenses to $60 million a year; to invest some $200 million in plant and laboratory facilities; and to direct or contract for new space efforts over $1 billion from this Center in this City.

To be sure, all this costs us all a good deal of money. This year¹s space budget is three times what it was in January 1961, and it is greater than the space budget of the previous eight years combined. That budget now stands at $5,400 million a year--a staggering sum, though somewhat less than we pay for cigarettes and cigars every year. Space expenditures will soon rise some more, from 40 cents per person per week to more than 50 cents a week for every man, woman and child in the United Stated, for we have given this program a high national priority--even though I realize that this is in some measure an act of faith and vision, for we do not now know what benefits await us.

But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun--almost as hot as it is here today--and do all this, and do it right, and do it first before this decade is out--then we must be bold.

I'm the one who is doing all the work, so we just want you to stay cool for a minute. [laughter]

However, I think we're going to do it, and I think that we must pay what needs to be paid. I don't think we ought to waste any money, but I think we ought to do the job. And this will be done in the decade of the sixties. It may be done while some of you are still here at school at this college and university. It will be done during the term of office of some of the people who sit here on this platform. But it will be done. And it will be done before the end of this decade.

I am delighted that this university is playing a part in putting a man on the moon as part of a great national effort of the United States of America.

Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, "Because it is there."

Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.

Thank you.

Fixed and thanks.

In reply to this comment by Stingray:
*dead

In reply to this comment by rasch187:
Hey ant, this video: http://www.videosift.com/video/A-harmless-prank-on-the-USC-Student-Body-Vice-President-goes-horribly-wrong is just too good to stay in sifttalk. I know lucky decided to *discuss it, but that guy (Ryan Holt) is too much of a douche imo. Whaddaya say I *return it and you replace the embed with this working one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_PAX6rk04k ?

Done and thanks!

1. Funny coming from that Gluttonous Narcissist.
2. I wonder where Glenn Beck learned to mock Earth Day.
3. So, all those reps claiming White Men are being discriminated now are what?
6. Yea, pretty much. What's your point?
9. Also, if thou descendeth from the Bush or Cheney royal lines.
11. Thou may also hide the real truth about why you went to war.
12. Admitting thy belief that the benevolent zombie imaginary friend is not real shall cause a great fury to descend upon thee from the likes of Rush.
13. Thus, thou may blame the guy who took office after thee for the financial mess you made in your 8 endlessly long years.
14. Including punishment for ex-presidents and ex-vice-presidents.

Based on this cnet article the system is confirmed as an addon for the 360

Microsoft Xbox Senior Vice President Don Mattrick did state that Project Natal would be compatible with every Xbox 360. But he didn't address how much it would cost, or whether it would be backward compatible with older Xbox 360 games. And afterward, Microsoft could not provide any additional details about the technology.

On-stage at E3, Mattrick said that the Project Natal software development kits had just gone out. This means that while most of the video game world is in Los Angeles this week for the show, few people have had a chance to see it.

One who did get a sneak peek at Natal is Epic Games Design Director Cliff Bleszinski, the visionary behind "Gears of War."

"I had a chance to be hands-on with (Natal) a couple weeks ago," Bleszinski told CNET News, "and it was damned fun." But even Bleszinski said he hadn't gotten his hands on a SDK yet, and wasn't able to say anything about the development process.

Things To Do If I Am President:

-Find a Vice President capable of amusing gaffes that rival even Ford and Quayle
-Buzz Jimmy from the Bronx in Air Force One
-Try my best to fix some of this mess