Your Favourite Conspiracy Sucks

Written By: - Date published: 10:50 pm, February 1st, 2016 - 198 comments
Categories: inoculation, internet, interweb, Media, rumour, Spying, us politics - Tags: ,

The truth is out there! No, really, it is. We all have access to the truth. And that’s the truth. Happily there’s now a mathematical formula to show just how long a genuine conspiracy can be kept secret. And it’s not good news for chemtrail kooks, 9/11 nutters and NWO/Bildeberg believers.

Last night I watched the first episode of the new X Files. It’s pretty good and it got me thinking. The show naturally had some catching up to do and had to cram references to the previous series along side machine gun fast name dropping of the conspiracies that have flooded the interwebs since the original X Files finished in 2002.

There’s some doozies of course, but the big daddy is still 9/11. 15 years on, there’s still no evidence found that contradicts the facts of that crime. But it doesn’t stop people believing that there must be more to it than a simple and brutally executed plan carried out by people not afraid to die. Personally, I’ve always thought there was more than a hint of racism at the heart of the 9/11 truth rejection movement; how could a bunch of Arabs pull this off? But they did and that’s an end to it.

But why do people believe conspiracy theories? TS readers have probably encountered the concept of confirmation bias. That’s when we interpret information based on what we hope to find. We ‘see’ only stuff that confirms what we already believe. But there’s also a couple of other related tricks of the mind that lead us to confuse fiction for fact.

The intentionality bias is the sense that any event, no matter how random, is planned. There are no accidents, no serendipity allowed. If something happens I don’t like, it was deliberate, dammit!

My favourite misconception is the proportionality bias, in which we are fooled into thinking that big, bad outcomes must have big, bad causes. This is the illogic that drives the 9/11 truth deniers. That was such a stunning, unforgeable event that a small proportion of people cannot accept that it only took a couple of dozen religious ideologues to carry it out.

So, where does maths fit in?

Dr David Grimes of Oxford University has come up with a formula that shows the likelihood of success for different conspiracies. Grimes’ method adds in the total number of conspirators, the length of time, potential leaks and the effects of conspirators dying over time.

Grimes calculated that hoax moon landings (410,000 conspirators) would have been revealed in three years eight months. Climate change fraud (405,000 in the know), the supposed cover up of unsafe vaccinations (22,000 medical staff) and a suppressed cancer cure (714,000 people) would all fall apart in just over three years.

“My results suggest that any conspiracy with over a few hundred people rapidly collapses, and big science conspiracies would not be sustainable,” Grimes said in an interview in the Guardian.

Grimes also reverse engineered conspiracies. He has looked at the maximum number of people who could take part in a conspiracy with the expectation that it would stay secret. For a conspiracy to last five years, the maximum number of baddies is 2,521. To last ten years, fewer than 1,000 people can be in on the scam. To last a century, a plot needs fewer than 125 collaborators.

Grimes also points out the downside to the delusions, saying

“While daft notions on moon landings may be harmless, with climate change it can mean we sleepwalk into damaging inertia.”

Exactly. Instead of working for positive change, we can get sucked into the way easier world of fantasy.

The simple truth is that humans are rubbish at keeping secrets. There are whistleblowers everywhere, and disgruntled ex-employees only too happy to shop the boss and even ex partners with a point to prove. The US government, often the focus of modern conspiracy theories, is completely hopeless at stopping employees and contractors from releasing their secrets.

Mind you, it’s odd that with all the data at their disposal, Snowden, Manning and the dozens of others who have turned over Government info haven’t turned up anything incriminating about 9/11. Or perhaps they’re in on it?

So what’s the point of this post? Well, in a sense, it’s a plea for tolerance. It’s understandable that people get confused about the complexities of our increasingly globalised world. And the speed and depth of the internet allows any old tosh to propagate rapidly. It’s literally minutes after a news report of a bomb going off before the first mad claims about false flags hit the net. That’s sad for the believers and disrespectful to the victims, but that’s the world we live in now.

And if you want to know how the world really works, read some Marx. Or some Owen Jones if you prefer.

At least now you know the truth. That’ll help. And keep reading the Standard; we’ll never lie to you.

And one more thing: the red pill and the blue pill are exactly the same. Fact!

 

 

 

198 comments on “Your Favourite Conspiracy Sucks ”

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  2. Gristle 2
    1 February 2016 at 11:24 pm

    Conspiracy theories have a negative implication attached to them and the phrase is used to dismiss information or theories out of hand and once labelled as such considerable effort is required to displace the discriptor.

    At some point Deep Throat and Watergate was a conspiracy theory. The “nutter left-wing, long-haired, commie reporters” got entirely wrapped up in this conspiracy and it became all consuming. The same is true for the Contras. However, eventually the truth behind these, and other, conspiracy was accepted.

    While many conspiracy theories contain more fantasy than truth, there is the chance that this is not always the case. People do conspire together to undertake actions and conspire to hide the truth….it is even part of the Crimes Act.

    The internet adds new dimension in that access to information increases without the quality increasing, and further individuals ability to understand and position lots of technical information is extremely variable: GIGO. Most scientific papers, reports and statistics are too difficult for normal people to understand, yet many (for example) RF sensitive individuals will instruct you on their readings of such papers.

  3. Thinking Right 3
    1 February 2016 at 11:27 pm

    Does this apply to (often) commonly held beliefs by some on The Standard that John Key controls what the msm print – that the Nats have the media under their thumb?

    (Back when Labour were in power the right were eyeing up the ‘sisterhood’ as plants by Helen Clark and ‘H2’ attempting to screw the public sector towards their political leanings.)

    What about the view by many on the right that the media/msm are a bunch of progressive wowsers who spend untold print space bagging the Government unnecessarily?

    What about the fabled ‘old boys club’ that many women have grizzled about for many years?

    People have always looked for conspiracies in various parts of their lives – it helps to justify supporting losing causes.
    The funny thing is that there are just enough real conspiracies which which come to light that you can never 100% dismiss most of them.

    • Draco T Bastard 3.1
      1 February 2016 at 11:37 pm

      Does this apply to (often) commonly held beliefs by some on The Standard that John Key controls what the msm print – that the Nats have the media under their thumb?

      The fact that the MSM fails to hold this government to account about it’s many lies does seem to indicate that somebody is controlling the message.

      • McFlock 3.1.1
        1 February 2016 at 11:41 pm

        not to mention an entire book based on the dirty pr campaigners’ emails

        • Draco T Bastard 3.1.1.1
          1 February 2016 at 11:45 pm

          Yeah, forgot about that. So, we actually have hard evidence that a conspiracy to control the MSM is, as a matter of fact, in existence.

          • alwyn 3.1.1.1.1
            2 February 2016 at 8:23 am

            Poor old Te Reo Putake.
            You tried so very very hard to get your point across.
            Some people can never be persuaded though.

            DTB is going to cling to his belief in the MSM conspiracy for ever.
            Studies have shown of course that the more your political views are shown to be wrong the more you cling to them.
            http://www.care2.com/causes/new-study-says-facts-dont-matter-when-it-comes-to-politics.html
            By now, with all the evidence against him he is stuck faster to his fantasy than superglue can manage.

            • One Anonymous Bloke 3.1.1.1.1.1
              2 February 2016 at 8:30 am

              In the case of the National Party’s ratfucking machine, we have Lusk and Odgers, who couldn’t hold their tongues, and the Slater child, who couldn’t keep his door locked.

              Grimes’ paper considers the Lusk/Odgers scenario, and specifically excludes public services such as those performed by Rawshark and Hager.

              We concern ourselves only with potential intrinsic exposure of the conspiracy and do not consider for now the possibility that external agents may reveal the operation.

              So far Grimes’ work seem to hold water.

            • Draco T Bastard 3.1.1.1.1.2
              2 February 2016 at 9:45 am

              Did you miss the bit about the hard evidence?

              So, it would seem that you’re the one that should be taking lessons from your link as you’re the one who’s wrong.

          • The lost sheep 3.1.1.1.2
            2 February 2016 at 9:47 am

            “The fact that the MSM fails to hold this government to account about it’s many lies does seem to indicate that somebody is controlling the message.
            “not to mention an entire book based on the dirty pr campaigners’ emails”

            Er. No.

            ‘The book’ does not provide any evidence at all that ‘somebody is controlling the MSM message’.
            Nor has any other ‘proof’ ever been produced that this is the case.

            All you are demonstrating here is the classic conspiracy theorists use of inductive fallacy. ‘There is proof that JK sent an email to a blogger, therefore it must follow that he is controlling the MSM’

            It’s simple. If you can’t produce solid evidential proof of a conspiracy, it is a conspiracy theory, and hugely likely to be complete bollocks. As the math shows.

            The whole ‘MSM media being controlled’ meme is merely a classic case of Confirmation bias.
            Use both eyes when looking and you will clearly see that our MSM is healthily full of the whole range of opinion, as I pointed out with the TPPA example the other day.
            http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-27012016/#comment-1124278

            • One Anonymous Bloke 3.1.1.1.2.1
              2 February 2016 at 10:15 am

              Dirty Politics, like The Hollow Men before it, provides plenty of evidence that the National Party goes to lengths that are (at least) borderline illegal to control the message.

              To an extent you’re right: they aren’t all that good at it. On the other hand, they certainly manage to fill column inches beyond measure with false narratives about everything from farming to finance and all points in between.

              You think the false narrative has no effect, but then, you haven’t had your house turned over by cops looking for Rawshark, or had a dead family member given the Slater treatment, or been described as a “hua” in the media.

              It might pay to give it some thought.

              • The lost sheep …
                2 February 2016 at 11:45 am

                We know about all those things because they have been freely and widely reported in the MSM, so that’s just further proof that there is no one ‘controlling’ the MSM.

                And no, I’ve thought about it, and I don’t see how the other stuff you mention provides any evidence at all to support the theory that the MSM are being ‘controlled’.
                You are simply using an inductive fallacy to try and imply a linkage where there is none. These few things are bad, therefore they must have some effect on the way the ‘message’ is delivered / perceived’
                It’s an ‘appeal to prejudice’. People who share an inclination to believe in the conspiracy will think it makes sense because it conforms to their ‘beliefs’. But outside of that subjective bias, it’s meaningless. There is no evidential linkage.

                • One Anonymous Bloke …
                  2 February 2016 at 1:06 pm

                  “Controlled” is DtB’s argument, not mine.

                  Your argument seems to be that National’s borderline illegal behaviour has no effect at all.

                  Personally I think the attempt is bad enough even if your opinion that it can’t influence anything has any substance.

                  • The lost sheep …
                    2 February 2016 at 2:30 pm

                    None. If not a negative effect, as the material in Hagars Dirty Politics actually dominated the MSM in the 2 weeks leading into the election.

                    The point being again, that if you have a free media and all political machinations are reported out there in the open, then the people are free to make their own minds up about where they get their information from, and what they make of it. That’s just democratic politics.

                    Luckily we do have such a free and open media in NZ, and there is absolutely no evidence to the contrary.

                    You listening to TRP – DTB, Paul, ETC? Time to drop the conspiracy meme. It’s only effect is to make the Left look slightly nuts.

                    • One Anonymous Bloke …
                      3 February 2016 at 8:34 am

                      *whoosh*

                      I suggest you go and read what I actually said again, and then respond to that.

                      Hint: I’m talking about the impacts of National’s behaviour, not the impact of Dirty Politics on media coverage of National’s behaviour.

  4. One Two 4
    1 February 2016 at 11:27 pm

    The maths formula as the truth identifier

    Any old tosh can propagate via the internet

    Snap

  5. Draco T Bastard 5
    1 February 2016 at 11:31 pm

    My favourite misconception is the proportionality bias, in which we are fooled into thinking that big, bad outcomes must have big, bad causes. This is the illogic that drives the 9/11 truth deniers. That was such a stunning, unforgeable event that a small proportion of people cannot accept that it only took a couple of dozen religious ideologues to carry it out.

    9/11 was pathetic, tiny and not worth the effort put into it to bring it about. A few thousand people out 10+ million? A bit of disruption in the markets? Meh.

    The big thing about 9/11 wasn’t that some cave dwellers pulled it off – anybody could have done that and if terrorists were really the problem that the politicians keep telling us it’d be happening on a daily basis.

    No, the big thing about 9/11 was that it allowed PNAC (who were pretty much the people running the US Administration at the time) to carry out the plans that they’d drawn up to invade the Middle East, especially Iraq, as they had been openly writing about for several years. It was that coincidence that led people to think that it was all a big bad cover-up.

    EDIT:

    To last a century, a plot needs fewer than 125 collaborators.

    Now consider the idea that a few key people in the US Admin at the time prevented the US military from acting effectively by giving wrong/delayed orders.

    • McFlock 5.1
      1 February 2016 at 11:57 pm

      Even that’s pretty thin – there’d have to be a pattern of delays that didn’t get connected by anyone internal, any journalist on the planet, or anyone involved in any of the 911 investigations.

      Whereas all AQ had to do was get a couple of dozen people to try to enter the country and get on the same 4 flights with little knives. Required secrecy: a few months. And even in that time period they raised a few eyebrows.

      • Draco T Bastard 5.1.1
        2 February 2016 at 2:15 am

        Even that’s pretty thin – there’d have to be a pattern of delays that didn’t get connected by anyone internal, any journalist on the planet, or anyone involved in any of the 911 investigations.

        Why?

        IIRC, there actually were mistakes made in orders on the day. These were put down to the fact there was an exercise happening that mirrored the actual attack. But it was also known that such an attack was planned.

        The point I’m making here is that a few people in the right places could carry out such a conspiracy and it, apparently, wouldn’t be detected for about a century.

        • McFlock 5.1.1.1
          2 February 2016 at 12:12 pm

          There would be mutliple documented orders regarding visa decisions, investigation interference, deployment decisions, readiness, and situation analyses.

          The fewer the people making those orders, the more demonstrable the line between “bad luck” and “criminal incompetence/treason”. The more people making those orders, the greater the likelihood of exposure.

          • Draco T Bastard 5.1.1.1.1
            2 February 2016 at 2:14 pm

            You’re assuming that the conspiracy would have to take place over months with meticulous planning and timing.

            I’m arguing that if such an attack occurred then the small number of people in the right place have agreed to emplace a particular action that will look like mistakes in the heat of the moment but actually allow the attack to happen. After all, they want the attack that they’ve been warned may happen to succeed rather than be thwarted. So, air-defence planes stay grounded or are scrambled too late.

            • McFlock 5.1.1.1.1.1
              2 February 2016 at 2:28 pm

              “In the right place”. For what? An attack in NY? An aircraft-based attack, or a bus hijacking? A bomb on a ferry? Another truck bomb in the basement? All of those involve a different mix of decision makers in a variety of positions and levels.

              Basically, your suggestion is that either a very narrow number of people were coordinated to deal with an exceptionally narrow possible attack (a very specific evolution in tactics while not altering the target list at all) on the contingency that it might happen, or hundreds of people were briefed on how to act should they be required. Or direct orders were issued to tactical decision makers as the events unfolded, and nobody took exception when their country was under attack and they ordered to do nothing about it – not then, and not in the decade and a half afterwards.

      • alwyn 5.1.2
        2 February 2016 at 8:27 am

        @McFlock
        The impossible has happened. We appear to be in total agreement on something.
        9/11 conspirators are nuts.

      • Don't worry. Be happy 5.1.3
        2 February 2016 at 2:50 pm

        ….and evade the most sophisticated Air Defence system in the history of the World. Clever old them eh?

        • McFlock 5.1.3.1
          2 February 2016 at 3:11 pm

          Shit, a dude landed a cessna into Red Square in the height of the cold war.

          Not to mention at least one other cessna that flew into the white house in the 1990s.

          What, you think all civilian airliners in the US are being targetted by a system with a hair trigger? They’d be dropping out of the sky like flies.

  6. Colonial Viper 6
    2 February 2016 at 12:16 am

    There’s this conspiracy theory which says the NSA convinced, coerced or otherwise paid major information technology corporations to compromise the security of their systems and plant back doors for the American Government to use in everything from the Windows operating system and other Microsoft software and services, to CISCO routers to the products and services provided by corporates like YAHOO and GOOGLE, and much much more.

    Surely not credible right, TRP?

    • Mike S 6.1
      2 February 2016 at 3:53 am

      Yeah, and what about all those conspiracy theory nut jobs who used to go round saying that the US government was illegally spying and collecting massive amounts of data on it’s own citizens through the NSA and project Prism for over 10 years.

      Or all those MK Ultra loonies, who used to prattle on about government mind control experiments. I hear President Clinton even issued a fake apology, on behalf of the US Government, just to shut those conspiracy nuts up..

      Go back to sleep TRP, everything is ok. Your government never lies to you. Go back to sleep…

      • miravox 6.1.1
        2 February 2016 at 4:25 am

        “Yeah, and what about all those conspiracy theory nut jobs who used to go round saying that the US government was illegally spying and collecting massive amounts of data on it’s own citizens through the NSA and project Prism for over 10 years.

        That pretty much proves the point of the post. Illegal spying and data dumps have been confirmed – unlike fake moon landings etc.

        • Colonial Viper 6.1.1.1
          2 February 2016 at 9:39 am

          you make the assumption that what we have managed to find out about today is all there is to know about.

          • miravox 6.1.1.1.1
            2 February 2016 at 9:50 am

            No. I don’t.

            • Colonial Viper 6.1.1.1.1.1
              2 February 2016 at 10:58 am

              I start with the principle that Power understands that to exercise its Power as freely as possible, it has to do it as invisibly (or discretely) as possible.

              For many years, the likes of Chris Hedges, the ACLU and other civil rights activists in the USA tried to take the US Gov to court over suspected illegal spying and wiretapping of ordinary US citizens and political activists.

              Each time, the US Gov would tell the court that the complainants had no standing to bring such action against the US Gov.

              That there was absolutely no credible evidence that the Gov was spying on US citizens or that there were any mass surveillance programmes in place, and anyway if there was, they would be illegal or at the least, Congress and others would have to be notified of such programmes and that had not been the case.

              Therefore, it was pure speculation (“conspiracy theory”) that any such programmes existed and that consequently the complaints were baseless.

              The courts would then throw out the lawsuits as being totally unfounded and the US Gov would walk away happy, a job well done.

              Another conspiracy theory debunked, and the complainants would be presented as loopy or misguided conspiracy theorists.

              This was the “evidence based” status quo for years and years.

              Until Edward Snowden revealed with his documents that it was all lies, and always had been.

              • McFlock …
                2 February 2016 at 12:07 pm

                Until Edward Snowden revealed with his documents that it was all lies, and always had been.

                Which demonstrates the point that the more people who have access to a conspiracy, the greater increase in the likelihood of it coming to light.

                • Colonial Viper …
                  2 February 2016 at 12:26 pm

                  Just making the point that for years and years, the US gov lied and lied, positioning people who claimed that there was mass government surveillance as non-evidence based kooks and crazy conspiracy theorists who were speculating without foundation.

                  More than half a million people have top secret clearances in the US intelligence community. These people know how to keep secrets – even from each other. Most just went with the flow.

                  Edward Snowden was the only guy who after years, came forward with actual documentary evidence.

                  • McFlock …
                    2 February 2016 at 12:36 pm

                    How many years before conclusive evidence came to light? Bearing in mind that five eyes came to light in at least the 1990s (I think when wishart was a journalist rather than a doofus), and the internet really didn’t get started even vaguely globally until the 1980s. Hell, even wiretaps had to be manually placed in the 80s.

                    And the majority of that half million wouldn’t have been party to those particular secrets for most of that time.

              • miravox …
                2 February 2016 at 9:55 pm

                Pleased to see that we agree that 1. the powerful tried to hid its spying and that 2. these actions eventually came out in the open (via whistleblowers).

        • Mike S 6.1.1.2
          2 February 2016 at 11:54 pm

          Yes and before they were confirmed, it was a conspiracy theory.

    • te reo putake 6.2
      2 February 2016 at 5:21 am

      That the sort of thing that proves Grimes’ point CV. You can’t keep anything real secret. At some point, usually pretty quickly, the truth gets out.

      • One Anonymous Bloke 6.2.1
        2 February 2016 at 6:41 am

        It gets out, f’sure.

        It just doesn’t get in.

      • vto 6.2.2
        2 February 2016 at 6:54 am

        Well yes the truth gets out trp, that’s the whole point. The truth is out there about JFK, it is just that people continue to believe the “official” story.

        You are looking at the wrong truth fulla, wakey wakey

        • One Anonymous Bloke 6.2.2.1
          2 February 2016 at 7:33 am

          I note that Dr. Grimes does not use the Kennedy murder as an example. However, it would be possible to apply his methodology to discover whether “the truth is out there”: for each plausible theory, how many people would have to have been involved, from crime to cover-up?

          How many have died in the interim?

          You might not like the result: perhaps too many of those potentially involved have died for the truth to be out there any more.

          I’m not even sure what the “official” version is, given that there are at least four of those: the justice dept and the Warren commission on the one hand, with the USHCA on the other. The FBI contradicts all of them, and so does the Church committee.

          It’s a regular smorgasbord 😈

          • vto 6.2.2.1.1
            2 February 2016 at 7:47 am

            Yes, a very handy smorgasbord.

            Grimes is likely the first such study into conspiracy theories (not sure). He has researched a very small component of it (how many people does it take before people blab in sufficient detail) and he raises plenty of second round questions, such as “how many people knew” for example, let alone “how did that bullet go in three different directions”.

            It would seem Grimes has made a minor contribution to conspiracy theory around numbers of people and blabbing, but that is about it.

            Certainly far from enough to hang a big hat on as trp seems to have done.

            • One Anonymous Bloke 6.2.2.1.1.1
              2 February 2016 at 7:55 am

              Um, Grimes makes no mention of the Kennedy murder.

              “How many people knew” is expressed by the variable N in his equations. So no, not a “second round question”.

              You haven’t actually read his paper have you?

  7. Colonial Viper 7
    2 February 2016 at 12:20 am

    As for 9/11: as far as I am concerned, the official narrative to 9/11 is a load of garbage.

    No steel framed skyscrapers have catastrophically collapsed due to fire in the history of construction.

    Except for the three towers on 9/11 (that’s right, 3 skyscrapers collapsed in the World Trade Centre group of buildings, not just the two that most are aware of).

    And none since that date.

    This youtube video was put together by an enterprising engineer who showed how small amounts of thermitic material could be used to cut straight through structural steel beams:

    Draco has already pointed out how the events of 9/11 was used as a false flag to confuse an entire nation and start a series of major wars and destabilisation activities throughout the Middle East.

    • Magisterium 7.1
      2 February 2016 at 1:48 am

      Antivaxxer and 9/11 truther, you must be a hit at parties.

    • Draco T Bastard 7.2
      2 February 2016 at 2:40 am

      how the events of 9/11 was used as a false flag

      It wasn’t a false flag but an actual attack that was then blown up out of all proportion and used as an excuse to attack nations that the US was pissed off with.

    • RedLogix 7.3
      2 February 2016 at 9:08 am

      That’s a helpful video CV. It certainly demonstrates what is possible. As an engineering type I’ve always been reasonably familiar with thermite (and it’s variations) and everything in that video is consistent with what I know about how it can be used.

      Some of the most telling clues leaked out in the first 48 hrs or so, many of which suggested to me that what we were seeing, and what we were being told to believe about it, were not quite the same thing. Far too much material to recap here.

      Also it was clear to me very early on that not very many people had to be involved at all. Possibly less than a few dozens. I know from direct first-hand conversation with a man who used to be a US Navy Submarine Weapons and Reactor Officer, that the US military does have a number of very shady, if not quite dark corners where people are literally born, live and die in the system. Completely off the civilian radar. These people know how to keep secrets, and as the OP demonstrates, fewer than a hundred of them can keep a secret for a very long time indeed.

      Or an alternative example; consider how a large corporate like Exxon-Mobile managed to keep quiet it’s research into global warming, and their subsequent disinformation campaign, for almost 30 years before the documents proving their malfeasance came to light.

      And that is why I came to the conclusion very early on that while all the ‘conspiracy theories’ could point to what is possible … we were never likely to get the smoking gun proof needed to actually change the public discourse.

      So in the end I drew my own conclusions, and never talk about it at parties.

      • One Anonymous Bloke 7.3.1
        2 February 2016 at 9:19 am

        All you need now is a single scrap of credible evidence 🙄

        • vto 7.3.1.1
          2 February 2016 at 9:21 am

          Genuine question oab – what is the credible evidence for the “official” story regarding these steel building collapses?

          • One Anonymous Bloke 7.3.1.1.1
            2 February 2016 at 9:32 am

            Including (but not limited to) eye witness accounts, video footage, engineering reports, OBL’s own words, and as Dr. Grimes points out, the vanishing small possibility of the Illuminatii continuing to maintain their invisibility over time.

            Have you read his paper yet?

            • Colonial Viper 7.3.1.1.1.1
              2 February 2016 at 9:44 am

              when even members of the US Governments own 9/11 commission say publicly that they have been deliberately misled, its might be time for you to wake the fuck up out of your comfy dream world.

              • One Anonymous Bloke …
                2 February 2016 at 10:01 am

                Speaking of misleading, I note that DtB had to set you straight just this morning, and that many many people here complain that you misrepresent their views too.

                Then there’s my personal withering contempt for your behaviour. Have a lovely day.

                • Colonial Viper …
                  2 February 2016 at 10:04 am

                  i think DTB’s clarification is a fair one, from his point of view. It was used as a false pretext for attacking Saddam but he wouldnt consider it a false flag event like i do.

                  Fair enough.

                  As to what you think of me, lol.

                  • McFlock …
                    2 February 2016 at 12:05 pm

                    “False flag” is a specific term for a specific tactic, that of A committing the act while pretending to be B, with the objective of persuading C that it was B that did the very bad thing.

                    In the case of 911, that would be the US govt doing the entire attack and blaming it on a completely innocent AQ.

                    As Paul pointed out, what has actually been documented was the shock of 911 was leveraged into providing justification for a number of unrelated foreign and domestic policy objectives, e.g. Iraq, Patriot Act.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      2 February 2016 at 5:24 pm

                      Hmmm I wonder McFlock if there are various variations and improvisations of the “False Flag” approach? You know, operators taking the basic textbook principle you have outlined and then adjusting the specific tactic to suit their particular needs in specific circumstances?

                      I wonder.

                      It might be just the kind of thing that professional operators are good at doing.

                    • McFlock …
                      2 February 2016 at 5:35 pm

                      It’s actually self explanatory: you use a “flag” not your own to pose as someone else.

                      You wonder what other thing people might do. That’s cool. But if you want to communicate what that might be, using the correct words to describe it helps in that task.

                      And then you might like to have evidence for believing it applies in a particular instance.

          • DoublePlusGood 7.3.1.1.2
            2 February 2016 at 2:48 pm

            The buildings got hit by fucking planes. Lots of momentum, lots of damage – and lots of evidence.

        • RedLogix 7.3.1.2
          2 February 2016 at 9:31 am

          I think that was my point OAB. In your usual rush to sneer at anything your superior mind has rejected, you’ve simply re-stated my own conclusion.

          What this hinges on is the word ‘credible’. In other words ‘who are you going to believe’?

          Do we have conclusive, beyond all reasonable doubt, cast-iron proof that the 911 truthers are right? No. And we likely never will for the reason I discussed.

          But does the official story have a water-tight story that resolves ALL of the evidence? I don’t believe it does either.

          That leaves us in an indeterminate state where we simply do not have a credible explanation that allows us to safely decide either way. In other words I choose to keep an open mind on the topic; although to be honest I think the probabilities lean towards the truthers being more right than wrong.

          • One Anonymous Bloke 7.3.1.2.1
            2 February 2016 at 9:39 am

            I don’t believe it does

            You don’t have to believe when you can do sums and follow engineering reports. Lots of NIST pages to wade through? Far easier to just pretend that since we don’t know everything, therefore we know nothing.

            Dr. Grimes' equations, by the way, can even quantify the vanishingly small possibility that your belief has any foundation.

            • Colonial Viper 7.3.1.2.1.1
              2 February 2016 at 9:49 am

              here’s a fucking joke: you lecturing a veteran experienced ‘in the field’ engineer like RL about engineering, engineering problem solving, forensic engineering and the proper use of engineering reports.

              Fuck off mate. You dont even recognise how far up the ivory tower you are.

              • One Anonymous Bloke …
                2 February 2016 at 9:57 am

                An engineer who hasn’t checked NIST’s calculations has no grounds for contrary opinions. I note that you have no fucking clue what I do for a crust 😆

            • The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 7.3.1.2.1.2
              2 February 2016 at 9:53 am

              So, they blew up WTC to provide a pre-text to invade Iraq. Why not frame Iraqis instead of Saudis, two guys from the UAE, an Egyptian and a Lebanese?

              • Colonial Viper …
                2 February 2016 at 10:00 am

                they actively blew up themselves versus they passively watched as it was blown up by others but then capitalised on the event to launch the wars they wanted, are meaningfully different things.

                • The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell …
                  2 February 2016 at 10:03 am

                  I know I am going to regret this.

                  Who do you say blew up WTC? What do you say was their purpose?

                  • Colonial Viper …
                    2 February 2016 at 10:42 am

                    “Their purpose” requires some kind of mind reading or speculation. What I am confident about is that several of the 9/11 attackers from Saudi Arabia were already known to the US Gov and their intelligence services, and were assisted or facilitated in their attacks (knowingly or unknowingly) by the improper but deliberate issuance of illegal visas for them to enter the USA.

                    This is the kind of thing which makes me nervous:

                    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Springmann

                    “J. Michael Springmann was the former head of the American visa bureau in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in the Reagan and former Bush administrations, from September 1987 through March 1989.[1] While stationed in Saudi Arabia, Springmann was “ordered by high level State Dept officials to issue visas to unqualified applicants”. Springmann states that these applicants were terrorist recruits of Osama Bin Laden, who were being sent to the United States in order to obtain training from the C.I.A..[2] Springmann has issued complaints to “higher authorities at several agencies”, but they’ve been unanswered.[3] The State Department has stated that the consular officer had final authority in issuing the visas, not Springmann.[4] Following Springmann’s complaints, he was fired by the State Department.”

                    also:

                    “As you will note in this review and the video below, recorded at the National Press Club on 10 June 2002 in Washington DC, (Nobody can say the major press was not exposed to this information) this extremely credible eyewitness has been stonewalled by the government and major media for a long time, even as they reported the lax security conditions that allowed those men now associated with the 9/11 attacks to enter the U.S.

                    15 of the 19 did not qualify for a visa, yet they were granted one anyway.

                    10 of the individuals entered through the very agency Mr. Springmann once headed and then spent so much energy trying to expose.”

                    http://www.salem-news.com/articles/september112012/cia-911-visas-tk.php

                    http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2015/04/15/is-the-whole-war-on-terror-a-fraud/

                    • The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell …
                      2 February 2016 at 11:46 am

                      So they could blow up two buildings but could not frame the right country?

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      2 February 2016 at 12:00 pm

                      Well, history now shows that they ‘successfully’ framed the country that they wanted to frame (Iraq), damn the minor facts of where the attackers came from and how they entered the USA.

                      PS they blew up three World Trade Centre buildings, not two.

            • weka 7.3.1.2.1.3
              2 February 2016 at 1:31 pm

              “Far easier to just pretend that since we don’t know everything, therefore we know nothing.”

              Red didn’t say that though, which suggests you are resorting to distortion rather than following his reasoning and refuting that.

              fwiw, I tend to agree with Red’s reasoning but I come down on the other side, that the official version is much more likely to be true than the truthers’ one. What I see is you arguing is from a place of absolute rightness (unjustified IMO), and an unwillingness to accept that sometimes we just don’t know.

              • One Anonymous Bloke …
                2 February 2016 at 9:39 pm

                Sure, you’re absolutely right: unicorns and fairy dust might exist.

                • weka …
                  2 February 2016 at 10:31 pm

                  That completely sidesteps the point I made about distorting Red’s argument rather than following it and responding to it with reason.

                  It also reinforces that point. Looks like you’ve run out of a decent argument.

                  In the context of the thread, arguing that real conspiracies are fairy dust makes you one of the deluded 😉

                  • One Anonymous Bloke …
                    3 February 2016 at 6:37 am

                    Or perhaps I’ve read NIST’s reports, and have come to the conclusion that the notion they are faked (or flawed because they don’t consider the possibility of fairy dust) is preposterous.

                    I’m not distorting R/L’s argument: they freely admit that they have not read NISTs work, so the statement “does the official story have a water-tight story that resolves ALL of the evidence? I don’t believe it does”, has no grounds.

                    If you think that fatuous wittering about non-existent thermite leaves us in an “indeterminate state” that’s up to you. Personally I don’t like to keep my mind so open that my brain falls out.

                    • One Anonymous Bloke …
                      3 February 2016 at 8:21 am

                      *correction: R/L claims to have read NIST’s reports, but then goes on to say “the logic they applied to the three WTC buildings could be equally applied to all tall steel framed buildings “.

                      Which is fine: apply the logic: hit the buildings (of specific designs) with airliners and or/debris and see what you get. It’s a spurious argument.

                      The reports don’t use some sort of generic “tall steel framed buildings”, they model the actual designs involved.

      • Colonial Viper 7.3.2
        2 February 2016 at 9:56 am

        RL: I have had brief chats to very serious current and former serving members of the elite special forces, and the shit that the public and general officialdom does not know, and usually does not need to know (or more pointedly, want to know), seems voluminous.

        • marty mars 7.3.2.1
          2 February 2016 at 10:00 am

          to give me an idea of what you mean, is there any TV show or movie which gives some insight into this – serious question

          • Colonial Viper 7.3.2.1.1
            2 February 2016 at 10:31 am

            Hey MM.

            The Gatekeepers

            You may already be aware of this.

            This documentary gives you a sense of the kind of people who do these things, are in charge of these things, how secrets are kept in very small circles, how things can be kept secret for decades while the public or political spin machine runs its own stories for the MSM.

            It’s not that the public aren’t aware of the outward, apparent events – it’s that they have no idea of the details, the background, the thinking, the true motivations and the inner activities.

    • Paul 7.4
      3 February 2016 at 4:23 am

      Only recently we saw a massive fire in a Dubai skyscraper.
      No collapse.

      • Andre 7.4.1
        3 February 2016 at 7:49 am

        That fire was apparently entirely in the cladding on the outside of the building, and as far as I know never got near any of the core structure. Nor had it suffered impact damage prior to the fire.

  8. Colonial Viper 8
    2 February 2016 at 1:04 am

    A Guardian article on the highly secretive 2015 Bilderberg summit “Forget the G7 summit – Bilderberg is where the big guns go”

    The luminaries of the world of elites: a select group of billionaires, major CEOs, top level politicians, bankers, etc. attend.

    The likes of John Key net worth probably $50M to $100M and PM of an unimportant country, do not make the cut.

    Although the name list of official attendees is published, what is discussed within the actual sessions themselves never is.

    I guess they must be looking out for the interests of ordinary folk in there, not discussing more ways to fuck us over. I guess we can blindly hope that they’re not conspiring with each other against the 99.9%, right?

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/08/bilderberg-summit-forget-the-g7

  9. Mike S 9
    2 February 2016 at 3:22 am

    “Grimes calculated that hoax moon landings (410,000 conspirators) …”

    Whether you believe the landings were faked or not, this guy obviously doesn’t do much thinking when he’s busy “mathing”. Why on earth would there be 410,000 conspirators FFS ??? If you were planning such a huge deception as faking the moon landings then I very much doubt you would let 410,000 people in on it now would you?

    Would far more likely be a very small number of conspirators, probably less than 100, which would mean the plot could be kept secret for over a century; according to Grimes that is. (As stated in your article). Further to that, I would imagine that if a plot was kept secret for over a century then it would possibly stay secret for ever due to the conspirators all being dead?

    Is this guy Grimes for real?? For a Doctor from Oxford University, he sure does display a remarkable lack of thought.

    Or maybe he’s suffering from your favorite misconception, the “proportionality bias”, thinking that because it’s such a huge hoax, then there must be hundreds of thousands of people in on it.

    • One Anonymous Bloke 9.2
      2 February 2016 at 8:10 am

      Grimes uses the number of NASA employees. Of course, he could also include anyone who’s ever participated in a lunar laser ranging experiment.

    • Draco T Bastard 9.3
      2 February 2016 at 10:14 am

      Why on earth would there be 410,000 conspirators FFS ??

      Because that’s approximately how many people worked on the US space program at the time.

      Would far more likely be a very small number of conspirators, probably less than 100, which would mean the plot could be kept secret for over a century; according to Grimes that is.

      To fake a moon landing would require several thousand people. People to build the set for the astronauts to walk on, people to man all the radar and telescope installations (and that’s not including all the amateurs watching with their own telescopes) around the world that were watching, and all the scientists around the world for the last half century that have been studying the moon rocks that were brought back.

      • RedLogix 9.3.1
        2 February 2016 at 11:26 am

        Exactly. Not all ‘conspiracy theories’ are the same.

        There are many that are wildly improbable … like the faked moon landings. So much so that you really could label them crazy. DtB explains why above.

        Others, like the idea that fossil fuel corporates spent hundreds of millions of dollars funding disinformation campaigns to protect their profits … were always a lot more feasible, but for a long time lacked concrete proof. And in the end it turned out that it wasn’t a crazy idea at all.

        In general I allocate them a sort of ‘probability’ that is a composite of known information, the number of people needed to keep the secret, the possible motives, the physical plausibility and intuition.

        (And before anyone rushes to scoff at the last of these, I have to say I’ve lost count of the number of times listening to my gut has quite literally saved my arse many times. So while I would never ask someone else to believe my instincts; personally they DO matter to me.)

        I did read all the NIST reports years ago and found them very interesting. My principle concern was that the logic they applied to the three WTC buildings could be equally applied to all tall steel framed buildings anywhere, and invalidated the design basis for all of them. I’m not a civil engineer and claim no working expertise in the area, but there are some fundamentals which are obvious to anyone with a degree background. It seemed to me that the reports raised more concerns than they answered. Certainly people far more qualified and experienced than me have read them and found them lacking.

        I don’t want to be drawn into that debate about the buildings themselves. It’s been thoroughly done to death elsewhere and as I said above, I really don’t expect we will see conclusive evidence to resolve it in my lifetime. If ever.

        And the consequence of evidence proving the 911 truthers argument would deal such a devastating blow to the moral authority of the US global hegemony, I expect strenuous efforts were made long ago to ensure no loose ends were left hanging about.

        But as CV notes elsewhere, when you lift your eyes from the magic show that was the building collapses, you start to see a wider picture of events, dots and strings which create the most extraordinary collage of mysteries. And the more I read the more I realised how little I would ever know.

        As I said above, I reached the conclusion that I will never likely know for certain what happened that day and why. The real story is probably both more extraordinary and more banal that we could ever imagine. But in the end I freely accept that I don’t know, won’t ever know and for that reason I’m not about to force an opinion on anyone.

        • One Anonymous Bloke 9.3.1.1
          2 February 2016 at 11:37 am

          the logic they applied to the three WTC buildings could be equally applied to all tall steel framed buildings anywhere, and invalidated the design basis for all of them.

          Apart from the fact that wtc7, for example, was a quite unusual design (eg: the load bearing requirements of the lower floor columns), subject to quite extraordinary circumstances, as were the towers.

          I do have a little bit of civil engineering experience and the notion that NIST’s reports are somehow faked is preposterous.

          • Colonial Viper 9.3.1.1.1
            2 February 2016 at 11:46 am

            It’s not that the report was “faked”.

            It’s that the reports were inconsistent and did not explain many eyewitness reports eg of extremely high temperatures which existed at the collapse sites for weeks, evidence from multiple sources of thermitic material residues in the collapse dust, etc.

            Plenty of good solid work can go into a report but if it doesn’t explain certain unusual observations, then there are problems with it.

  10. Paul 10
    2 February 2016 at 5:33 am

    conspiracy
    noun
    a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful.
    “a conspiracy to destroy the government”
    synonyms: plot, scheme, stratagem, plan, machination, cabal;
    the action of plotting or conspiring.
    “they were cleared of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice”
    synonyms: plotting, collusion, intrigue, connivance, machination, collaboration; treason
    “he was due to stand trial for conspiracy to murder”

    Clearly therefore the Paris bombing was a conspiracy as was 9/11.
    Some people believe that Osama Bin Laden hatched a conspiracy to make 9/11 happen.
    Some people believe that the US government used the shock of this event to force through the Project for a new American Century.
    Some people believe that a few key operatives in the US allowed the conspiracy of Osama Bin Laden to happen.
    Some people believe that a few key operatives in the US worked made the conspiracy of Osama Bin Laden to happen.
    They are all ‘conspiracy theorists.’ They just believe in different theories.

    Watergate was a conspiracy theory.

    My issue with the term ‘conspiracy theory’ is that it is used to close down debate.
    According to John Ayoto’s 20th century words, the phrase “conspiracy theory” was originally a neutral term and only acquired a pejorative connotation in the mid 1960s. According to Florida State University professor Lance deHaven-Smith’s 2013 book Conspiracy Theory in America, the phrase “conspiracy theory” was invented in the 1960s by the CIA to discredit people questioning the official account about JFK’s murder…you know the lone gunman, the magic bullet etc.

    Like cv, I do not believe what we have been told about 9/11.

  11. One Anonymous Bloke 11
    2 February 2016 at 6:25 am

    “A plea for tolerance.”

    Looks like you’ll need it. And sympathy. Lots and lots of sympathy 🙄

  12. vto 12
    2 February 2016 at 6:51 am

    Bull

    Incomplete

    JFK was shot by a lone gunman

    Grimes was paid

    As One Two states above – snap

    Next

  13. Nic the NZer 13
    2 February 2016 at 7:57 am

    In order to avoid slipping into ‘Scientism’ a proper understanding of statistics is however relevant here. Unless the underlying mechanisms driving these probabilities can be identified and scientifically tested (which they can’t) then a mathematical formula supposedly describing the frequency of events adds nothing to the supposition that underlie the mathematical model (in this case that large conspiracies have a tendency to be revealed). That applies no matter how good a fit the model produces statistically, and data for conspiracy theories will be extremely sparse at best.

    Which bits of Marx you read might be relevant because Marx was a well known conspiracy theorist.
    http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.co.nz/2015/12/karl-marx-conspiracy-theorist.html

  14. marty mars 14
    2 February 2016 at 8:00 am

    lol I’m not sure if the attractant is honey or poo, but it will work – nice one.

    anyway those videos of various world leaders changing into their true reptilian shapes is out there so at least that one is true and if they have been taken down and suppressed and unable to be found well there you go, the bastards have started cleaning and thus MORE proof – oh no can’t be true – ask yourself this – dinosaurs ruled the world for 200 MILLION years or so (standy-up-monkeys 200 thousand years or so they say) – you really think they didn’t get up to shit other than the ‘pictures’ we see of them standing around eating leaves – yeah nah

  15. esoteric pineapples 15
    2 February 2016 at 8:22 am

    Every conspiracy theorist I’ve come across is white, male and over 30. It’s interesting that there is such a clear demographic for conspiracy theorists.

    Other than that, I like to point out to conspiracy theorists that Hitler murdered six million Jews based on a conspiracy theory.

    I find that most conspiracy theorists actually become quite rude and aggressive when you point out the inconsistencies of their arguments like in the area of man-made climate change that these people who think they are saving humanity actually share the same ground as the far right Republicans in the United States.

  16. Molly 16
    2 February 2016 at 9:44 am

    Re: numbers of secret keepers as indication of truth vs theory.

    I’d be thinking that instead of requiring everyone involved to keep secrets, you just have to be adept enough to make them believe a lie. In their ignorance, they will perpetuate and defend that lie – as that is the truth as they know it.

    We see examples every day (including on this website) where those who have a strong belief system, spend many hours trying to convince others to believe the same. That some of them believe in nonsensical worlds doesn’t stop them – yes, everyone knows who they are, but they will think I’m writing about their opponents.

    I would also think that those who seek power and control, don’t often invite others to share it, they use others to attain and keep it. Master chessplayers most likely.

    • One Anonymous Bloke 16.1
      2 February 2016 at 10:23 am

      …instead of requiring everyone involved to keep secrets, you just have to be adept enough to make them believe a lie…

      Who are these superhero demigods? Oh, that’s right: Donald Rumsfeld. George Bush. Dick Cheney. Buzz Aldrin. James Hansen. Mike Mann.

      SNAFU seems far more likely.

      • Molly 16.1.1
        2 February 2016 at 10:37 am

        “Who are these superhero demigods?”
        Superhero demigods? No.

        Good liars. Yes.

        Your example of George Bush/Blair et al is appropriate. Many in the West believed that lie of MWD. And you will find many who still support that invasion, because they have invested in that belief that the West in on the side of the “good”.

        SNAFU is also relevant. It contributes to group-think and a failure to question any immoral or inadequate decision making.

        “Conspiracy theorist” can be used by both sides of an issue. To my mind, it is a lazy way of engaging with others, and these articles all seem to contain an element of “good” vs “bad” in them that stops engagement.

        • One Anonymous Bloke 16.1.1.1
          2 February 2016 at 10:46 am

          “Good liars”.

          In your example, they have to be considerably more than that: there is a big difference between convincing people of the things they already want to believe, and deceiving groups of people as disparate as engineers and politicians, some of whom are your political adversaries.

          It’s easy to tell lies: any debate on vaccination demonstrates that: eventually, however, the Mr. Andrew Wakefields of this world get found out. This is one of Grimes’ points: in the end, however slowly, the truth straps its boots on.

          • Colonial Viper 16.1.1.1.1
            2 February 2016 at 10:50 am

            Motivations and interests of seemingly disparate groups are funny things though. For instance no one would expect Saudi Arabia and Israel to come together on many issues in the Middle East…yet it turns out that they have many joint and unexpected interests in common when you look into it.

            • One Anonymous Bloke 16.1.1.1.1.1
              2 February 2016 at 10:58 am

              …and some others that are entirely divergent.

              “Looking into it” can be a bit of a trap, since we’re apt to see patterns that aren’t there. Look to falsify rather than confirm: if you can’t falsify there might be a useful conclusion around somewhere. It’s a right bore, frankly.

  17. Magisterium 17
    2 February 2016 at 12:51 pm

    Key was appointed to run NZ from within his prior role at the the US Fed.

    REDLOGIX at The Standard, 23 January

  18. tinfoilhat 18
    2 February 2016 at 1:11 pm

    This thread is a fine example of why I seldom lists this blog anymore, a nice p by TRP followed by …….

    Perhaps I should just pop in to read the articles and avoid the commenters.

    • pete 18.1
      2 February 2016 at 2:15 pm

      Nah, the comments are good for a laugh. But seriously, TRP is always worth a read, always I find interesting and well thought out. Even when I disagree.

      • alwyn 18.1.1
        2 February 2016 at 2:42 pm

        You just have to remember to put your tin-foil hat on before you start looking at the comments. If you really believe the stuff in the X files TV programs you should probably avoid the sort of comments this post attracts though.
        Bear in mind “The truth is out there” wasn’t talking about a documentary.

    • te reo putake 18.2
      2 February 2016 at 5:02 pm

      Cheers, y’all. It’s not just me, the Standard has a superb roster of writers. Even though, like Pete, I don’t always agree the opinions, I know I’m lucky to be part of such a diverse, dedicated bunch. And then you’ve got the commenters! TS may not be the biggest blog (yet) but we have with doubt the most interesting and the most lucid commenters of any political site in NZ. Give yourselves a big pat on the back people, you deserve it!

  19. McFlock 19
    2 February 2016 at 2:45 pm

    If I were a mono-spiracist theorist, I’d think that TRP’s bait well and truly hooked some fish 🙂

  20. travellerev 20
    2 February 2016 at 2:46 pm

    Buildings do not collapse into their own footprint into the path of most resistance in free fall speed. WTC 7 collapsed exactly that way. If you agree with the fact that steel framed buildings do not break the laws of physics and have never collapsed as the result of fire except on 9/11 when they did it three times you have to accept there is a problem with the official Conspiracy theory (And it is just a theory)

    Here is a link to the collpase of WTC7 for those of you who didn’t know a third building collapsed on that day in New York.

    And here is a link to Architects and Engineers for 9/11 truth

    Te Reo Putake is free to rehash any MSM CT hit pieces he sees fit but science does not lie. I challenge the Standard to allow me to bring to the fore some of the issues which have been researched by a large group of reputable architects and engineers and scientists in an article. I won’t hold my breath because apart from several Standardistas whom I hugely respect for their courage, the Standard as a collective has never seen fit to allow that information to be disseminated and investigated in a proper article.

    • McFlock 20.1
      2 February 2016 at 2:54 pm

      not freefall speed.
      Not within its own footprint.
      Not just fire – debris from two other much larger buildings that also did not fall at freefall speed within their own footprints helped.

      100% of buildings constructed like WTC1/2 collapsed after being hit by large passenger aircraft.
      100% of buildings constructed and positioned like WTC7 collapsed after being in proximity to the above.
      100% of all buildings mentioned above collapsed in the predominant direction of force: gravity, so downwards.

      • travellerev 20.1.1
        2 February 2016 at 3:12 pm

        For those of you interested in the actual collapse of WTC 7

        Here is an analysis of David Chandler for Architects and Engineers for 911 truth:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVCDpL4Ax7I

        And here is some footage proving explosions at the base of the building were loud and clear. What is more it proves foreknowledge of the event even as no steel framed building had never before collapsed like this unless prepared with explosives for controlled demolition.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvJGFz_mWzs

        Here is the BBC announcing the collapse 20 minutes before it actually collapsed:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=677i43QfYpQ

        And here is Danny Jowenko, a controlled demolition expert, when he is confronted with the images of the collapse. Danny died in an unexplained car accident.

        • vto 20.1.1.1
          2 February 2016 at 3:17 pm

          Go get ’em ‘rev. Stick to your guns. Been waiting for you to show up – good stuff…

        • McFlock 20.1.1.2
          2 February 2016 at 3:21 pm

          you have fun with that.

          • vto 20.1.1.2.1
            2 February 2016 at 3:39 pm

            Hey McFlock, did you look at the one where the collapse is announced by BBC before it collapsed?

            Do you, or does anybody else, have an explanation for that alone?

            Curious to know the “official” response to this aspect.

            genuinely

            • travellerev 20.1.1.2.1.1
              2 February 2016 at 4:06 pm

              Oh here are another few great videos!

              Here is a dumbass trying to convince us that weakened steel as a result of Kerosene fires is enough to pulverize two massive buildings in an explosive fashion in freefall speed.

              https://youtu.be/FzF1KySHmUA

              Here is the video response of Architects and Engineers

              https://youtu.be/FvuKUmK9eB0

              And in case you are wondering what cognitive dissonance means here is a video explaining that too!

            • McFlock 20.1.1.2.1.2
              2 February 2016 at 4:36 pm

              What, do I have an explanation for a newsdesk 4,000 miles away bouncing back to a reporter a few miles away (who probably had even less information than the newsroom and might not have even known the “Salomon Bros Building) from any other office block) who was probably winging along with whatever the newsdesk said?

              Given that the building collapsed only 20 minutes later, my guess is that someone on site told the newsdesk it was expected to collapse soon, this got garbled into “has collapsed”, and the reporter was simply following the information handed to her by the newsdesk.

              That isn’t the “official” explanation though. It just seems to me to be more likely than global news organisations being given a schedule of events to announce when they can be perfectly well relied upon to hype up something like that without any prompting whatsoever.

              • travellerev …
                2 February 2016 at 5:10 pm

                They received a schedule of events before they happened. Collapses of buildings due to fires that had never happened before and never happened after that day? How did the “news organizers” know this was going to happen”. Don’t make me laugh!

                Also the building was evacuated early in the morning already and explosions were recorded around that time in the basement and lower floors. In fact the first 8 floors were blown out for some strange reason.

                Giuliani the mayor of New York claims he left his bunker to run around the debris of the Twin towers. Does that make sense to you?

                • McFlock …
                  2 February 2016 at 5:19 pm

                  Why would you evacuate a building if there’s no danger of collapse? Wouldn’t you just evacuate the bits in danger of fire and let everyone else get on with their job, especially if the incident management centre is in there?

                  Would the collapse of an adjacent hundred story building break a few windows and maybe cause serious structural damage?

                  If the floors were “blown out”, then doesn’t that mean they fell outside their footprint?

                  Would ongoing damage cause some structural failures that prompt the evacuation? What do bolts and steel beams snapping within a structure sound like?

                  If everyone involved got a schedule of events, why hasn’t a single one of them distributed it? Perfect vetting by the lizard overlords?

                  So many youtube activists, so little evidence…

                • Blue Sky …
                  3 February 2016 at 7:04 am

                  “Collapses of buildings due to fires that had never happened before and never happened after that day? ”

                  Have large aluminium jet fuelled filled planes travelling at high speed ever crashed into a steel framed skyscrapper before or since?

                  • travellerev …
                    3 February 2016 at 9:00 am

                    No but plenty of buildings burned way hotter and longer without any pulverization!

                    • McFlock …
                      3 February 2016 at 10:12 am

                      and yet other buildings have totally collapsed without even a single little fire or biplane in them.

                      Amazing.

                      It’s almost as if the building’s architecture and the mechanism of damage has a direct bearing on whether a buiding succumbs to gravity.

        • Grindlebottom 20.1.1.3
          2 February 2016 at 3:58 pm

          “100% of buildings constructed like WTC1/2 collapsed after being hit by large passenger aircraft.
          100% of buildings constructed and positioned like WTC7 collapsed after being in proximity to the above.
          100% of all buildings mentioned above collapsed in the predominant direction of force: gravity, so downwards.”

          Exactly, McFlock. Plus, 100% of those 3 buildings burned out of control over several floors for several hours, further compromising the load-bearing capacity of their structural steel, that had already suffered aircraft impact damage in the case of the twin towers, and falling heavy debris from the collapsing North Tower in the case of WTC. When the exact same conditions are next replicated somewhere in the world and a building of the same height and design fails to collapse, the conspiracy theorists will be proven correct and we can all feel foolish. Until then, I don’t believe the conspiracists.

          Rev – all of that stuff is analysed, logically explained & debunked in various places on the net, and poor Danny Jowenko might’ve died in an unexplained car accident, but there are numerous other vocal 911 truthers who continue to enjoy a happy healthy life yelling their heads off about the whole conspiracy. Why haven’t they had unexplained car accidents?

          vto – how the BBC ended up announcing the collapse of WTC before it actually collapsed is explained here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2008/07/controversy_conspiracies_iii.html. Anyway, why would anyone expect the BBC to get advance info of the collapse and not US media companies?

          • Colonial Viper 20.1.1.3.1
            2 February 2016 at 4:05 pm

            The Twin Towers were specifically designed to withstand direct Boeing 707 strikes.

            And the record shows that fires do not take down steel structured skyscrapers.

            The fires in WTC7 were mild to moderate office fires, and largely self limiting.

            You can make the argument that being struck by airliners means that makes 9/11 a unique case in terms of why those buildings failed.

            But that’s simply jumping to the most obvious ‘in your face’ factor of what made that day unique.

            In my view the eye witness accounts of high temperatures, molten steel as well thermitic material found throughout the WTC debris…those are the truly unique aspects of this event.

            • Grindlebottom 20.1.1.3.1.1
              2 February 2016 at 4:32 pm

              The thermitic residue material is highly speculative CV. The paper analysing it and the samples used haven’t been provided to anybody else for analysis and could have come from various components in the buildings including fire resistant paint.

              The fires were hardly mild to moderate, and they wouldn’t have been just kerosine-based. There was other flammable material in all 3 buildings.

              There’s debate over whether there really was molten steel. I noticed this comment on a website debating the issue, for example: Conspiracy sites like to bring up molten metal found 6 weeks after the buildings fell to suggest a bomb must have created the effect. The explanation doesn’t go into the amount of explosive material needed because it would be an absurd amount. There is another explanation which is more plausible.

              Oxidation of iron by air is not the only EXOTHERMIC reaction of iron (= structural steel which is about 98 % Fe, 1 % Mn, 0.2 % C, 0.2 % Si…..). There is at least one additional reaction of iron with the capability of keeping the rubble pile hot and cooking!

              The reaction between IRON AND STEAM is also very EXOTHERMIC and fast at temperatures above 400 deg C. This reaction produces Fe3O4 AND HYDROGEN. It is the classic example of a REVERSIBLE REACTION studied in Chemistry labs at high school. But believe it or not, back at the turn of the century, the reaction of iron and steam was used as an industrial process for the manufacture of hydrogen.
              http://www.debunking911.com/moltensteel.htm

              • Colonial Viper …
                2 February 2016 at 5:03 pm

                For the sake of clarity, do you accept that multiple witnesses saw what they believed was molten steel, both during and after the collapse of the Twin Towers.

                And that there is also significant physical evidence of melted structural steel from the site.

                (Even though most of the physical evidence from the site was taken away and destroyed).

              • travellerev …
                2 February 2016 at 5:16 pm

                Grindlebottom, No actually the paper was peer reviewed and published in the The Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009.

                • MaxFletcher …
                  2 February 2016 at 5:34 pm

                  The Open Chemical Physics Journal is not a valid source for anything and has no legitimacy.

                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bentham_Science_Publishers

                • Grindlebottom …
                  2 February 2016 at 5:35 pm

                  Yes, so I’ve read, rev:

                  In April 2009, Jones, along with Niels H. Harrit and 7 other authors published a paper in The Open Chemical Physics Journal, titled, ‘Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe’. The editor of the journal, Professor Marie-Paule Pileni, an expert in explosives and nano-technology, resigned. She received an e-mail from the Danish science journal Videnskab asking for her professional assessment of the article’s content. According to Pileni, the article was published without her authorization. Subsequently, numerous concerns arose regarding the reliability of the publisher, Bentham Science Publishing.
                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_E._Jones

                  Of course it could all just be more conspiracy. But I don’t think so.

            • McFlock 20.1.1.3.1.2
              2 February 2016 at 4:52 pm

              The Twin Towers were specifically designed to withstand direct Boeing 707 strikes.

              Boeing 767s aren’t Boeing 707s. They’re significantly bigger. And maybe the fuel load wasn’t accurately incorporated into the model anyway.

              • Colonial Viper …
                2 February 2016 at 5:04 pm

                yeah, maybe. But the engineering effort was done.

                • McFlock …
                  2 February 2016 at 5:08 pm

                  Indeed. And if a bullet proof vest is designed to withstand a pistol round and gets hit by a rifle bullet, that’s not a sign of a conspiracy. It’s a sign that the wearer significantly underestimated the changing threat level.

          • travellerev 20.1.1.3.2
            2 February 2016 at 4:22 pm

            Here is a great link chronicling the foreknowledge of the unprecedented collapse of WTC 7 which was reinforced TWICE in its history to withstand a direct nuclear impact and which housed the emergency bunker of Giuliani.

            CNN for example announced the collapse an HOUR before the collapse!

          • vto 20.1.1.3.3
            2 February 2016 at 4:31 pm

            That’s a good one. It was filed in the wrong place. Human error in reporting a third building collapsing, at 47 stories, and clearly visible behind her….

            I guess these buildings can collapse and nobody notice – especially not a reporter on top of a tall building looking straight at the scene and reporting on collapsing buildings… ffs

            I would suggest that rather than human error in the reporting, there was human error in the background programming.

            I just don’t believe it.

            • Grindlebottom 20.1.1.3.3.1
              2 February 2016 at 4:40 pm

              I’m not sure what you’re saying vto. She’s reporting the collapse of building everyone can see still standing behind her. So obviously the report is wrong. Where’s the mystery? Occam’s razor. Why would she be saying a building has collapsed when it hasn’t? Why would conspirators be misleadingly telling news agencies who are showing live coverage of the event that a building has collapsed when it actually hasn’t yet? What possible gain would there be in that for them?

              • vto …
                2 February 2016 at 4:45 pm

                It is as equally possible for conspirators to make human errors as it is non-conspirators.

                Also, see post below, meant to be in response to you ……….

                • Grindlebottom …
                  2 February 2016 at 5:02 pm

                  Lol. Yeah, but what WTF would they be announcing it in error for? Why would they be saying anything at all? Why aren’t the evil bastards just sitting back somewhere safe and comfy with their lattes and cigs watching it all go down and enjoying looking at all the lemmings running around with no idea it’s all a big organised event? Nah, sorry, just don’t buy it.

                  • Colonial Viper …
                    2 February 2016 at 5:05 pm

                    You don’t need to “buy it.”

                    You can keep buying the mainstream narrative just fine.

            • Andre 20.1.1.3.3.2
              2 February 2016 at 4:46 pm

              I’m curious, vto, CV, travellerev. Any of you got any engineering expertise? Quick, off the top of your heads, what’s likely to be the critical property of steel in the design of these buildings, modulus or strength? Is the p-delta effect relevant?

              • Colonial Viper …
                2 February 2016 at 5:07 pm

                Yes I have an engineering background, but not in structural or civil engineering.

                You seem to have expertise in that field.

                Tell me, to you did those vertical building collapses look similar to those of controlled demolitions?

                Would you expect structures which had been damaged in a highly assymetric way to also not fail in a highly assymetric way?

                • Andre …
                  2 February 2016 at 5:54 pm

                  I don’t have direct expertise in building engineering or demolition. I do have expertise in the design and structural response of highly compressively loaded structures, and the behaviour of materials in varying environmental conditions. So my comments are well-informed speculation, several steps down from direct expertise.

                  Personally, I would expect any building that tall to fall almost directly downwards regardless of any asymmetry in the initial failure. So yes, I would expect those building collapses to look similar whether it was initiated by controlled demolition or an asymmetric failure in support columns.

                  With multiple load-bearing columns, as soon as one fails, the adjacent columns will very quickly overload and fail, due to both the extra load, and that some load is now sideways rather than directly aligned with the column. I would expect that chain reaction to happen very quickly, not allowing enough time for any significant torque to transfer into the main structure to topple it over sideways. In one of the plane-struck towers, it can be seen the top floors above the impact go a little bit sideways initially, but then basically crumbles and then what’s now rubble falls directly down into the building, collapsing the rest of the building from the top down.

                  That the collapse somehow “appears wrong” appears to be a case of where we develop expectations of how things should behave based on our experience of things at human-scale, but actually things can behave very differently when the scale gets much much bigger (or smaller).

                  Being a compressively loaded steel structure, I would expect it’s modulus (stiffness) to be the much more important property than strength. And stiffness decreases quite quickly with increasing temperature. So the columns and beams would start bowing and buckling quite early due to the fire, well before they get even a dull cherry-red glow.

                  • Colonial Viper …
                    2 February 2016 at 7:40 pm

                    Being a compressively loaded steel structure, I would expect it’s modulus (stiffness) to be the much more important property than strength. And stiffness decreases quite quickly with increasing temperature. So the columns and beams would start bowing and buckling quite early due to the fire, well before they get even a dull cherry-red glow.

                    I know I said I was out of this discussion, but just two points:

                    1) My understanding is that these steel superstructures are typically engineered with safety factors of two to five. For the Youngs Modulus to decrease to half or one third or one fifth of normal so that the beams would start failing in bending, the fire would need to be very intense.

                    2) If routine fires were sufficient to soften structural steel which is under load to deformation and eventual failure, why have we not seen that occur in the major skyscraper fires which occurred in the years before and after 9/11.

                    Anyways I appreciated your detailed answer before and the logic and thought that you put into it.

                    • Andre …
                      2 February 2016 at 8:07 pm

                      Steel modulus drops to about half at about 500 degreesC, partly depending on the grade. Just visible glowing red is around 600.

                      The horizontal beams need bending stiffness so they don’t bend (too much) under the applied weight loads. The vertical members need bending stiffness so they don’t buckle under the end-to-end column compressive load. I don’t know why I-sections are commonly preferred over closed hollow sections for columns when closed hollow sections should be more structurally efficient. Maybe it’s cost, or there’s other ways I-beams are easier to work with for columns.

                      In the case of the WTC buildings, all 3 had suffered impact damage prior to the fire (even #7). So they already had compromised structural integrity and reduced safety factor before the fire, quite likely with some structural elements carrying far more than their design load due to the damage. I’m not aware of any other major building collapses with both impact damage and fire in play (but since that’s not my expertise, don’t put any weight on that statement).

              • RedLogix …
                2 February 2016 at 6:12 pm

                Umm .. yes. I’m curious Andre then as to exactly where this lateral ground displacement might have come from? I presume that’s not what you have in mind because there is no suggestion there was an earthquake that day.

                Maybe what you mean is Euler buckling? In which case you would have to imagine either the Towers were originally designed with way too little stability margin in the first place, or they were incredibly unlucky. Three times in one day.

                The planes only severed some columns on one of the three sides of the buildings and perhaps there was other impact damage as the engines passed through, but surely the majority of the columns remained intact immediately after. We know the buildings remained standing at this point, so by itself the impact damage did not cause buckling or structural failure.

                The crucial question always was … how much did the fires contribute?

                And that was where I always struggled to imagine exactly what might have caused a sustained fire that was hot enough, for long enough to soften the remaining columns and allow buckling to occur.

                The collisions were totally chaotic, the fuel tanks were grossly ruptured and much of the fuel immediately vaporised and exploded into a very short-lived fireball. That was not enough to compromise the steel.

                Then came the office fires that were almost certainly the result of the fireball heat and some remaining fuel. The pictures showed a deep, dark cloud that is characteristic of a burn that does not have enough oxygen. And without the right fuel ratio, nothing burns very hot.

                And indeed there have been a number of similar fires in towers over the years, both before and since, and in no case did the structure even come close to collapsing. Fires that in some cases were MUCH more severe.

                So then you have to conclude that it was the combination of both the impact damage and the office fire … neither by itself capable of causing a collapse … which triggered the failures. Which on the face of it was either very bad luck, three times over, or a fundamental design weakness. And while there has been a great deal of work done to fit the observed events of the day onto a standard engineering mechanism, the problem is that if this explanation is true for all three WTC buildings … then it raises questions about a lot of other steel framed towers as well.

                Yet no-one seems all that anxious about this. Certainly aircraft don’t crash into buildings all that often …but keep in mind that the WTC designers didn’t dismiss the possibility either. After all they did consider what would happen if a 707 impacted them, so where does the leave the many thousands of other towers around the world? What’s the story with them? Because planes haven’t been getting any smaller over the years.

                As I said above, the NIST reports were good work as far as they went, but to my mind they created more questions than answers.

                • Andre …
                  2 February 2016 at 6:46 pm

                  Failures are difficult things to precisely predict, as I’m sure you’re very well aware. Sometimes even in lab specimens.

                  In this case we have complex structures that have suffered initial impact damage, and then a fire. It just doesn’t seem that mysterious to me that it took time for enough heat to soak into the remaining most critical structural elements for them to lose enough stiffness and cause the final collapse. After all, there were tens of tonnes of fuel dumped into two of the buildings, so it seems plausible that some was left after the initial fireball, plus all the burnables that were already in the building.

                  That p-delta thing was tossed out to see what response it got. But when a structure is compressively pre-loaded, there’s a lot of effects beyond simple Euler buckling. Which weren’t covered in my BE coursework and I learned later. Sometimes to my embarrassment. Almost all of those compressive pre-load effects act to reduce the strength of the structure.

                  As for other towers around the world…umm…well…ahh… Just recently we saw that tower in Dubai put on a pretty light show, apparently through dumbfuckery in choosing a flammable cladding. But I really don’t have the expertise to comment on current practises.

                  • RedLogix …
                    2 February 2016 at 7:06 pm

                    Well all vertical structures are ” compressively pre-loaded” more or less by definition, so I’m not sure that adds anything new. The designers of all steel towers must already understand this very exactly.

                    I agree that it is impossible to be dogmatic about the precise cause and nature of the collapse. But here is the thing, three buildings, two planes, three fires and THREE collapses. That’s a 100% hit rate for a phenomenon that everyone agrees is hard to analyse exactly, hard to predict and hard to explain in every observed detail.

                    I agree with you, that often structures on a large scale will behave in ways the human mind does not intuitively expect. I have always been open to a sound engineering mechanism for the WTC collapses.

                    But if this mechanism exists, then on the observed frequency data, when a large jet aircraft does impact a steel tower, there must be a very high chance it will subsequently collapse catastrophically.

                    I would have imagined civil engineering professionals the world over would have been quite worried about this. Maybe they are?

              • travellerev …
                2 February 2016 at 6:18 pm

                I don’t, which is why I rely on the calculations and expert research of Architects and Engineers, the founder of which has a distinguished career spanning several decades in the design and building of steel framed and reinforced buildings.

      • Colonial Viper 20.1.2
        2 February 2016 at 3:58 pm

        not freefall speed.
        Not within its own footprint.

        WTC7 fell at free fall speeds for 2.5s

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVCDpL4Ax7I

        Also anyone can see from the video footage that all 3 World Trade Centre building collapses were largely on to their own foot print.

        Certainly the buildings did not fall mostly sideways, but mostly vertically downwards.

        • Grindlebottom 20.1.2.1
          2 February 2016 at 4:53 pm

          Yes, but why shouldn’t they largely do so? And you can see the North Tower start to buckle but then due to its weight just fall straight down. (If you view some images of the debris from above you’ll see they didn’t all collapse exactly & directly into their own footprints either.)

          The North Tower tilting prior to collapse was noticed and emergency services people got out of the way expecting it to collapse:

          • Colonial Viper 20.1.2.1.1
            2 February 2016 at 5:12 pm

            Yes, but why shouldn’t they largely do so?

            Did physics go on holiday?

            Straight down through the steel superstructure of the building is the course of most resistance for the failure. Off to the side into thin air is the course of least resistance for the failure.

            Especially since the damage to the Twin Towers was highly assymetric and focussed on one side of the buildings far more than the opposite side.

            Highly assymetric damage to a highly symmetric structure should result in highly assymetric failure.

            It did not, in this case.

            • Grindlebottom 20.1.2.1.1.1
              2 February 2016 at 5:41 pm

              No, it didn’t. I’m not a physicist or an engineer, but there are plenty of both who aren’t convinced by the truthers’ arguments. What we really need is for someone to do it again and see what happens. That should end the debate. In fact it’s probably the only thing that will end the debate, which shows every sign of continuing to rage well into the future until one or more of the conspirators involved make dreadful slip-ups or irrefutable deathbed confessions.

              • McFlock …
                2 February 2016 at 5:47 pm

                lol
                not a chance of that ending the debate: it would either be “flawed” or “part of the conspiracy”, depending on how it goes 🙂

    • te reo putake 20.2
      2 February 2016 at 4:44 pm

      Hi, Travellerev. Thanks for your input. I suspect you haven’t read the post. The whole point of Dr Grime’s work is that human factor disproves conspiracy theories. 15 years on, there still isn’t a scrap of evidence for your belief. That’s a fact. But more importantly, in that time, it is inevitable that someone would have fessed up. According to the paper, that is most likely to have happened within a few short years.

      Yet here we are, a decade and a half later, and none of the cast of thousands have let out a peep. That makes no sense, and finally someone has come up with a realistic explanation as to why.

      So, please don’t litter the post with pointless links to meaningless rubbish. If you have something to say about the post and/or Dr Grime’s work, I’m all ears. I really do want to hear your views, because it’s folk like you that have the most to gain from his research.

      As for doing a post here, it’s theoretically possible. But bear in mind this is a left wing site with more than a bit of credibility. If you just want to post evidence free right wing crap you have your own place for that. If readers are keen to have a look, it’s here: https://aotearoaawiderperspective.wordpress.com/

      It’s not a bad site, imo. At least as far as these things go.

      Btw, did you know Alex Jones is really the former comedian Bill Hicks? He faked his own death apparently. I didn’t know that till it came up when I was researching this post. Fascinating, eh?

      • travellerev 20.2.1
        2 February 2016 at 6:25 pm

        CV, Redlogic (one of your colleagues here at the Standard), VTO, in fact everybody pro and con is talking about the events of 9/11 and not the stupid hitpiece you refer too. But I’m the one you single out for ignoring your post and going where you apparently want us to got as it is you who mentions 9/11 after all!? What’s up with that?

        • te reo putake 20.2.1.1
          2 February 2016 at 6:35 pm

          Yours was the first comment in this thread, I’m replying to it. That’s what’s up with that. Paranoid, much?

          • travellerev 20.2.1.1.1
            2 February 2016 at 6:50 pm

            No, actually several discussions on the threat you started with your post were already referring to 9/11 just fine. I jumped on this threat fairly late in the game, after I checked and found others had already made plenty of comments and put links in to 9/11 material making sure I wasn’t trespassing. So you are singling me out.

            • te reo putake 20.2.1.1.1.1
              2 February 2016 at 9:21 pm

              No, not at all. But seeing as you’re here, I’m obviously interested in what you think about the post. How come, 15 years on, there’s no evidence? Does Dr Grimes’ thesis that the ‘real’ conspiracy should have come to light by now have any resonance with you?

              The post isn’t really about conspiracy theories, it’s about how us humans think. What do you think about the likelihood that this particular conspiracy theory should have been proved by now?

              • travellerev …
                2 February 2016 at 10:55 pm

                TRP, I love the way you give me the opportunity to link to information other people might be interested in.

                For those of you interested in the large body of “no proof” please go to the architects and engineers site for information and research.

                For more “no proof” please research the information you can find on this site.

                You will not be alone because rather than a few isolated nut cases you will
                find that 86% of the American people no longer believe the official Conspiracy theory!

                Here is the official 9/11 conspiracy in 5 minutes. If you can keep a straight face while watching and listening to the complete and utter bullshit the official Conspiracy Theory is you are either not paying attention or somebody is paying you to ignore the evidence.

        • travellerev 20.2.1.2
          2 February 2016 at 6:41 pm

          And yes, I read the original appearing in that rag called the Daily Mail 6 days ago. Funny how he did not investigate the 9/11 official conspiracy whereas you mention it loud and clear!

    • Paul 20.3
      2 February 2016 at 6:25 pm

      Thank you, trv.
      The official story does not make sense and, like you, I refuse to stop questions, because people say ‘conspiract theorist.’!

  21. Don't worry. Be happy 21
    2 February 2016 at 3:07 pm

    Man i wish i could comment whenever I want to…instead of sometimes it works and most times it does not.

  22. Don't worry. Be happy 22
    2 February 2016 at 3:08 pm

    Comment after comment…vanish into the ether. Works every once in a while. Just not usually. Ideas?

    • te reo putake 22.1
      2 February 2016 at 4:46 pm

      I’ll check the spam trap, see what I can find.

      OK, had a look. Found one comment and released it. But there’s nothing else. LPrent may have an answer, but when I have issues like this, I usually try another browser. If that doesn’t work, I go for the computer restart option and see if that clears it at my end. Do you wand try a couple of test comments and see what happens?

    • lprent 22.2
      2 February 2016 at 7:35 pm

      You have to get a ‘first’ comment past a moderator. The first comment automatically goes into moderation for a moderator to look at, and they tend to spam the idiotic, moron troll level, and comments that translate to (paraphrased) ‘I can wank in public too’.

      Mods have three choices – approve, approve with probation, and spam. By the sounds of your complaint in getting a few through you could be only just making the probation level and that means that we moderators just keep looking for signs of intelligence before giving you an approved ‘first’ comment.

      But it could be that you are useless at making your handle and email standard enough. That combination has to be exact and consistent. Otherwise you are treated as being a a new commenter.

      Assuming you are completely capable of consistency, then I’d suggest that you lose the single quote character. That often does funny things to parsers. They treat it as if you are trying to quote something often with indeterminate results.

      Of course it could be that you have received a ban from this site under some handle and a selection of your favoured IPs have been banned as well as your ’email’. In which case, if it isn’t a permanent ban, it will eventually be lifted.

      Similarly if you have been a pest on other sites, then the probability of you being viewed as a pest here goes up geometrically and automatically.

      It could be whatever browser and system you are using with its associated spam tools. This site is very particular about the browser you use. If it looks like spambot that doesn’t obey rules about how humans should do things, it will just dump your comment – even I don’t see it.

      And you wouldn’t be the first to have your browsers anti tools kill the particular bits of client code that allow your posted comment to be viewed as being done by a human rather than a bot. So try a clean browser untrammelled with a plugin veneer that looks to our security systems like a syphilitic skull is trying to wedge itself into our database and infect the database.

      We don’t have lots of moderator work, logins, captchas, comment release delays or spam in the comment stream. That is because our security systems, machine and human, are pretty good at letting humans post comments and damn good at making sure that spambots and idiot trolls can’t post comments.

      The question really is; which one are you?

  23. vto 23
    2 February 2016 at 4:43 pm

    https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=buildings+that+survived+hiroshima&biw=1301&bih=620&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwivmIGxlNjKAhXlIaYKHQapDwMQ_AUIBigB

    And these were built before nuclear strikes even existed.

    In 1945.

    You do know there are nuclear-capable places on the planet, yes?

    • Grindlebottom 23.1
      2 February 2016 at 5:09 pm

      It was an airburst A-bomb in Hiroshima. That famous ground zero building doesn’t look in good shape. Who do you reckon would’ve survived in that? Haven’t seen any reports someone did – and it’s so iconic if someone had you’d think it would’ve been widely known. WTC 7 shows no sign of being nuclear-hardened, not sure where you got that from. As far as I know the best nuclear-hardened shelters seem to be great bunkers with metres thick concrete walls and roofs and huge thick steel blast doors all underground or inside mountains. I don’t buy this either vto. Probably enough about 911 now. It never ends.

  24. crossbow sniper 24
    2 February 2016 at 10:27 pm

    [r0b: deleted, you could try again without the cheap racism if you like.]

  26. Rich 26
    3 February 2016 at 1:33 pm

    Thinking of things that *did* happen:

    The Manhattan Project lasted it’s full 3 years without becoming public knowledge – with 130,000 people working on it and a few thousand who knew the full story.

    “Ultra” lasted over 20 years – maybe 12,000 people would have known something about it, but only <1000 would have known the full details.

    I guess compartmentalisation is an important part of keeping things quiet.

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    TL;DR: In news breaking this morning:The Ministry of Education is cutting $2 billion from its school building programme so the National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government has enough money to deliver tax cuts; The Government has quietly lowered its child poverty reduction targets to make them easier to achieve;Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ’s ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 day ago
  • Weekly Roundup 26-July-2024

    Kia ora. These are some stories that caught our eye this week – as always, feel free to share yours in the comments. Our header image this week (via Eke Panuku) shows the planned upgrade for the Karanga Plaza Tidal Swimming Steps. The week in Greater Auckland On ...
    Greater AucklandBy Greater Auckland
    1 day ago
  • God what a relief

    1. What's not to love about the way the Harris campaign is turning things around?a. Nothingb. Love all of itc. God what a reliefd. Not that it will be by any means easye. All of the above 2. Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Associate Health Minister Casey ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    1 day ago
  • Trust In Me

    Trust in me in all you doHave the faith I have in youLove will see us through, if only you trust in meWhy don't you, you trust me?In a week that saw the release of the 3,000 page Abuse in Care report Christopher Luxon was being asked about Boot Camps. ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    1 day ago
  • The Hoon around the week to July 26

    TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Care report released this week, and with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 day ago
  • The Kākā’s Journal of Record for Friday, July 26

    TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 26, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Transport: Simeon Brown announced $802.9 million in funding for 18 new trains on the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines, which ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 day ago
  • Radical law changes needed to build road

    The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    1 day ago
  • Skeptical Science New Research for Week #30 2024

    Open access notables Could an extremely cold central European winter such as 1963 happen again despite climate change?, Sippel et al., Weather and Climate Dynamics: Here, we first show based on multiple attribution methods that a winter of similar circulation conditions to 1963 would still lead to an extreme seasonal ...
    Skeptical Science
    2 days ago
  • First they came for the Māori

    Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
    Mountain TuiBy Mountain Tui
    2 days ago
  • Join us for the weekly Hoon on YouTube Live

    Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    2 days ago
  • Will the real PM Luxon please stand up?

    Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
    Mountain TuiBy Mountain Tui
    2 days ago
  • Will debt reduction trump abuse in care redress?

    Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Care report in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    2 days ago
  • Olywhites and Time Bandits

    About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    2 days ago
  • Why were the 1930s so hot in North America?

    This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters and Bob Henson Those who’ve trawled social media during heat waves have likely encountered a tidbit frequently used to brush aside human-caused climate change: Many U.S. states and cities had their single hottest temperature on record during the 1930s, setting incredible heat marks ...
    Skeptical Science
    2 days ago
  • Throwback Thursday – Thinking about Expressways

    Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
    Greater AucklandBy Greater Auckland
    2 days ago
  • The Kākā’s Pick 'n' Mix for Thursday, July 25

    TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    2 days ago
  • The Possum: Demon or Friend?

    Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
    David FarrierBy David Farrier
    2 days ago
  • Not a story

    Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    2 days ago
  • The Kākā’s Journal of Record for Thursday, July 25

    TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry published its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    2 days ago
  • A tougher line on “proactive release”?

    The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    3 days ago
  • 'Let's build a motorway costing $100 million per km, before emissions costs'

    TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    3 days ago
  • Lester's Prescription – Positive Bleeding.

    I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    3 days ago
  • Casey Costello gaslights Labour in the House

    Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone icon on the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
    Mountain TuiBy Mountain Tui
    3 days ago
  • Why is the Texas grid in such bad shape?

    This is a re-post from the Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler Headline from 2021 The Texas grid, run by ERCOT, has had a rough few years. In 2021, winter storm Uri blacked out much of the state for several days. About a week ago, Hurricane Beryl knocked out ...
    Skeptical Science
    3 days ago
  • Gordon Campbell on a textbook case of spending waste by the Luxon government

    Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
    WerewolfBy lyndon
    3 days ago
  • The Kākā’s Pick 'n' Mix for Wednesday, July 24

    TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    3 days ago
  • LXR Takaanini

    As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
    Greater AucklandBy Patrick Reynolds
    3 days ago
  • Four kilograms of pain

    Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    3 days ago
  • The Kākā’s Journal of Record for Wednesday, July 24

    TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive: Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    3 days ago
  • Luxon gets caught out

    NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    3 days ago
  • A worrying sign

    Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    4 days ago
  • Are we fine with 47.9% home-ownership by 2048?

    Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloitte report for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    4 days ago
  • Let's Win This

    You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    4 days ago
  • Waimahara: The Singing Spirit of Water

    There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
    Greater AucklandBy Connor Sharp
    4 days ago
  • A major milestone: Global climate pollution may have just peaked

    This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
    Skeptical Science
    4 days ago
  • The Kākā’s Pick 'n' Mix for Tuesday, July 23

    TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’s Oliver LewisScoop: Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    4 days ago
  • The Kākā’s Journal of Record for Tuesday, July 23

    TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announced the Board of Te Whatu Ora- Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    4 days ago
  • HealthNZ and Luxon at cross purposes over budget blowout

    Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    4 days ago
  • 2500-3000 more healthcare staff expected to be fired, as Shane Reti blames Labour for a budget defic...

    Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
    Mountain TuiBy Mountain Tui
    4 days ago
  • Might Kamala Harris be about to get a 'stardust' moment like Jacinda Ardern?

    As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
    PunditBy Tim Watkin
    5 days ago
  • Solutions Interview: Steven Hail on MMT & ecological economics

    TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
    The KakaBy Steven Hail
    5 days ago
  • Reported back

    The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    5 days ago
  • Vandrad the Viking, Christopher Coombes, and Literary Archaeology

    Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
    A Phuulish FellowBy strda221
    5 days ago
  • Gordon Campbell On The Biden Withdrawal

    History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
    WerewolfBy lyndon
    5 days ago
  • Joe Biden's withdrawal puts the spotlight back on Kamala and the USA's complicated relatio...

    This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
    Mountain TuiBy Mountain Tui
    5 days ago
  • Why we have to challenge our national fiscal assumptions

    A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    5 days ago
  • Existential Crisis and Damaged Brains

    What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    5 days ago
  • A speed limit is not a target, and yet…

    This is a guest post from longtime supporter Mr Plod, whose previous contributions include a proposal that Hamilton become New Zealand’s capital city, and that we should switch which side of the road we drive on. A recent Newsroom article, “Back to school for the Govt’s new speed limit policy“, ...
    Greater AucklandBy Guest Post
    5 days ago
  • The Kākā’s Pick 'n' Mix for Monday, July 22

    TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    5 days ago
  • The Kākā’s Journal of Record for Monday, July 22

    TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    5 days ago
  • 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29

    A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
    Skeptical Science
    6 days ago
  • I'd like to share what I did this weekend

    This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
    Mountain TuiBy Mountain Tui
    6 days ago
  • For the children – Why mere sentiment can be a misleading force in our lives, and lead to unex...

    National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Order image, ...
    Mountain TuiBy Mountain Tui
    6 days ago
  • A friend in uncertain times

    Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    6 days ago
  • The Chaotic World of Male Diet Influencers

    Hi,We’ll get to the horrific world of male diet influencers (AKA Beefy Boys) shortly, but first you will be glad to know that since I sent out the Webworm explaining why the assassination attempt on Donald Trump was not a false flag operation, I’ve heard from a load of people ...
    David FarrierBy David Farrier
    6 days ago
  • It's Starting To Look A Lot Like… Y2K

    Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    1 week ago
  • Bernard’s Saturday Soliloquy for the week to July 20

    Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 week ago
  • Pharmac Director, Climate Change Commissioner, Health NZ Directors – The latest to quit this m...

    Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
    Mountain TuiBy Mountain Tui
    1 week ago
  • Flooding Housing Policy

    The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
    PunditBy Brian Easton
    1 week ago
  • A Voyage Among the Vandals: Accepted (Again!)

    As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
    A Phuulish FellowBy strda221
    1 week ago
  • The Kākā's Chorus for Friday, July 19

    An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 week ago
  • The Kākā’s Pick 'n' Mix for Friday, July 19

    TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 week ago
  • Weekly Roundup 19-July-2024

    Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
    Greater AucklandBy Greater Auckland
    1 week ago
  • Weekly Climate Wrap: A market-led plan for failure

    TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 week ago
  • Tobacco First

    Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    1 week ago
  • Trump’s Adopted Son.

    Waiting In The Wings: For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
    Bowalley Road
    1 week ago
  • The Kākā’s Journal of Record for Friday, July 19

    TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSA announced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 week ago

  • Joint statement from the Prime Ministers of Canada, Australia and New Zealand

    Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue.  We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    17 hours ago
  • AG reminds institutions of legal obligations

    Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    20 hours ago
  • More young people learning about digital safety

    Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views.  “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    20 hours ago
  • Speech to the Conference for General Practice 2024

    Tēnā tātou katoa,  Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    23 hours ago
  • Employers and payroll providers ready for tax changes

    New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts.  “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 day ago
  • Experimental vineyard futureproofs wine industry

    An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 day ago
  • Funding confirmed for regions affected by North Island Weather Events

    The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 day ago
  • Indonesian Foreign Minister to visit

    Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced.   “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    1 day ago
  • Strengthening partnership with Ngāti Maniapoto

    He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago
  • Transport Minister thanks outgoing CAA Chair

    Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    2 days ago
  • Test for Customary Marine Title being restored

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