Was the fourth plane shot down during an attack on 9/11?

A woman talking to her husband on the plane via cell phone said that he told her that he and some of the other passengers were going to try and retake the airplane. He let the phone dangle with the connection unbroken... an explosion is heard and then silence.
When we see the shot of the "crash" site on CNN there is nothing but a hole in the ground, a little smoke here and there and some folks wandering around in white protective suits. This is like no wreck site anyone has ever seen. No wreckage. No bodies. Not much of a hole.
The police officer securing the scene says that the wreckage is spread over nine miles. When asked he suggests that "maybe the wind blew it." The trees in the background show no wind movement. Not a leaf stirs, He says that "there is no piece bigger then a cigarette package."
A witness says that there was a small plane following the jetliner.
Either the black box isn't recovered or its contents are being kept secret, although the boxes from the WTC survived the 600 mph crash, a 1000 degree centigrade fireball and the subsequent collapse of the buildings on them - and are still readable.
Cheney announces that Bush ordered any planes remaining in the air to be shot down after the two impact the WTC. Later, after being informed of the attempt of the passengers to retake the plane, he says that they didn't have to do it... that it crashed as a result of the struggle.
Rumsfeld quotes Churchill: "Truth is so precious that it must be accompanied by a bodyguard of lies."
The Governor of Pennsylvania, the state where the plane terminated and a man not known for his expertise on terrorism, nor anything much else, is appointed 'terrorism czar' for the whole of the US. The Governor of Pennsylvania? Gimme a break.
After initial reports from two vague witnesses... silence. We don't hear anything more of this aircraft. No more winesses are questioned and we see no more shots of the crash site.

Summary

The hole in the ground could be a hole in the ground anywhere. Actually, the TV footage looks like an out take from a cheap science fiction movie shot in a landfill.
We never see any bodies.
Much larger pieces of wreckage are recovered from the WTC site, along with parts of tied up stewardesses and the black boxes. Neither I, nor anybody I've queried, have ever seen an aircraft crash site where there was no wreckage. No seats. No luggage. No pieces of wing nor fuselage. "No piece bigger than a cigarette package." And spread over nine miles.

Conclusion

It would seem that this plane was taken out by a hell of a missile. Perhaps one designed to destroy a nuclear armed bomber and cook the payload. This was the last plane to go down and was a long way from its assumed target, so the US military had plenty of time to scramble a fighter and blow it out of the sky. Initial reports put a fighter on the scene. Further, Cheney announced that the President ordered it shot down... but then the PR disaster reared its ugly head. The Passengers were trying to retake the aircraft and given a few more minutes might have succeeded. They decide to circle the wagons and lie but the Governor of Pennsylvania has either been informed or has found out on his own so they appoint him to the position of 'Terrorist Czar' and sign him to the 'Official Secrets Act.' He is effectively silenced. The Administration quickly praises the brave passengers and claims that the struggle caused the plane to crash.

And if you believe all that, then I recently received an email from Nigeria soliciting my help in endeavouring to move some abandoned funds there, to my account here in Canada, that you might be interested in.

The question that bothers me is... Why haven't the international media been all over this? I can understand the major media in the US dummying up on orders from the US Administration (I wonder if this wasn't what Bob Woodward was alluding to when he admitted on TV to quashing a story a couple of weeks ago "for the good of the country") but why is the international media keeping mum? It seems obvious that the US Administration has lied but nobody jumps on it. Why?
There's something very wrong here...

	Where did you get this? (none / 0) (#6)
	by Anonymous Reader on Sat Oct 27th, 2001 at 07:43:38 PM PST

	<<A woman talking to her husband on the plane via cell phone said that he told her that he and some of the other passengers were going to try and retake the airplane. He let the phone dangle with the connection unbroken... an explosion is heard and then silence.>> Dangle? He was calling her from a cell phone. He told her he loved her and hung up. The ONLY person that possibly could have heard anything was a 911 dispatcher when someone had called 911. Once again, ON A CELL PHONE. <<When we see the shot of the "crash" site on CNN there is nothing but a hole in the ground, a little smoke here and there and some folks wandering around in white protective suits. This is like no wreck site anyone has ever seen. No wreckage. No bodies. Not much of a hole.>> I don't know what you were watching but I saw it. <<A witness says that there was a small plane following the jetliner.>> Yet it didn't show up on radar. <<Either the black box isn't recovered or its contents are being kept secret, although the boxes from the WTC survived the 600 mph crash, a 1000 degree centigrade fireball and the subsequent collapse of the buildings on them - and are still readable.>> They found the box and the flight recorder in Pensylvannia. They found the box at the Pentagon. The black boxes at Ground Zero? <<Cheney announces that Bush ordered any planes remaining in the air to be shot down after the two impact the WTC. Later, after being informed of the attempt of the passengers to retake the plane, he says that they didn't have to do it... that it crashed as a result of the struggle.>> He ordered them to be BROUGHT down. In other words he wanted all non military planes on the ground.

	Evidence (none / 0) (#8)
	by Anonymous Reader on Sat Oct 27th, 2001 at 08:07:42 PM PST

	You may have been shown a picture of a crash site. How can you tell it was the crash site in question? Networks used ten year old file footage to go with their stories of celebrations in palestine. They could just as easily have used file footage to provide visuals for a plane wreck, where the government was preventing first hand shots. The cell-phone calls could easily have been edited to eliminate the incriminating explosion. I suspect that many more calls were being made, but only those that offered the best PR spin were released. In fact, the cell phone calls we heard were most likely a complete fabrication, invented by PR wizards to add a human face to a tragedy marked by the complete lack of a human element to attach to it. As for the plane not showing up on radar, who's radar are we talking about here? Yours? In any case, the USAF has at least four radar transparent fighter planes capable of eliminating a jetliner. The black box could also have been fabricated. It's highly likely that the US government simulated a plane wreck to cover up their mishandling of the pennsylvania plane. They probably recovered the flight recorder from a plane wrecked by remote control, for PR purposes. Finally, when the president orders all planes grounded, it goes almost without saying that any planes defying this order will be subject to military action. In this case it did not. It just didn't get reported on CNN, since the president looks bad when he directs the armed forces to sacrifice innocent lives. Try and read between the lines in the future. The government doesn't come right out and parade its corruption right in front of you, you know.

	it was obvious that it was shot down (none / 0) (#17)
	by philipm on Sun Oct 28th, 2001 at 06:35:55 AM PST

	I don't know why we even need to have an argument about it. They grounded all the planes, got bush in the air for a couple of days and then shot down everything that was in the air. Then the media made sure to portray the people on the plane as "heroes" to make sure that if any news of the planes being shot down got out into the mainstream it would not look too bad for the administration. Bush is way more of a liar the Clinton ever was. Look at how he treates the press and the kind of legislative garbage he demands and then signs. Again, I don't want to talk about this. There is nothing to talk about. I wish the editors didn't post this story. --philipm

	Don't read the story, moron (none / 0) (#65)
	by Anonymous Reader on Mon Oct 29th, 2001 at 07:27:42 PM PST

	If you aren't interested in having an argument about this issue, what the hell are you doing posting on a weblog frequented by cantankerous opinionated hotheads? If you don't want to talk about it, leave. If you don't want people forming their own opinions about it, you're SOL. I personally find the story to be outside the realm of credibility. Classic conspiracy theory construction is almost the reverse of a deductive argument. With a deductive argument, you eliminate all possible explanations until only one remains. With a conspiracy theory, you accept all evidence that appears to be sinister and doesn't directly contradict your own premise, and you reject any and all evidence that could possibly lead to a conclusion other than the sinister one you wish to achieve. Anyone not with you is against you, or part of the conspiracy. Really, without going into the details of why I don't believe this explanation its hysterical pitch of paranoia ought to speak for itself as a warning to take each and every "fact" presented in the litany with a large grain of salt. The real world doesn't work that way. In the real world, the entire nation reacted to the terrorist attacks with disjointed confusion. I find it hard to believe that the government could have mounted so swift a response and covered it up without so much as an innuendo remaining. But if you look at the "evidence" which we're supposed to buy here you don't see a lot that isn't purely circumstantial or simply beyond our ability to examine. No one here has come forward with an authoritative dissection of the crash. No one has come forward with a testable hypothesis. It's just a lot of very vivid speculation going on between the lines. Not a lot is known about the last crash, and the media hasn't talked it up, leaving plenty of room for the maniacs to speculate. The day of the attacks I remember seeing a Mojo discussion board speculating that the Bush administration had orchestrated the attacks to shore up public opinion by starting a war. Now, that's quite hysterical and of the tenor I would expect after an event of this kind. Just go read snopes if you want to see how many zany myths have sprung up in the wake of this attack alone. They're going to have to make a whole website devoted to them before long. That in and of itself is yet another reason to take everything said about this event with tremendous incredulity.

	Deep conspiracy (none / 0) (#70)
	by Tweeked Dustrabbit on Mon Oct 29th, 2001 at 09:58:15 PM PST

	I was getting bored...they threw out crop circles and i had no conspiracy to folow. Now its the plane, my life is complete again

	Ridiculous (none / 0) (#31)
	by Anonymous Reader on Mon Oct 29th, 2001 at 02:09:13 AM PST

	First of all, the claim that CNN was using decade-old footage of Palestinian celebrations is complete bullshit, just the friend-of-a-friend thing that goes around on the net. Of course, you'll no doubt refuse to verify such a wild claim, altering your perception of the world to fit your tidy little conception of right and wrong. American media, overall, is fairly unbiased. While different sources have biases to the left or to the right, none are the propaganda machines so many of the head-in-the-sand zealots on adequacy think they are. Finally, for all of you armchair FTC investigators, what the fuck do any of you know about plane crashes? "Oh, well, I heard some guy say the wreckage covered over 500 square miles, therefore it was obviously shot down." Do any of you know the first thing about plane crashes?

	Ad hominem attack (none / 0) (#35)
	by error27 on Mon Oct 29th, 2001 at 03:44:18 AM PST

	Finally, for all of you armchair FTC investigators, what the fuck do any of you know about plane crashes? "Oh, well, I heard some guy say the wreckage covered over 500 square miles, therefore it was obviously shot down." Do any of you know the first thing about plane crashes? So what your saying is that readers of the famous and controversial website adequacy.org don't work for the FTC you can discount their opinions without using logic and coherent argument to prove a point? First of all, I don't see what the Federal Trade Commission has to do with anything. Secondly that is a logical fallacy called an ad hominem attack. On the controversial website adequacy.org we generally prefer that you stay within the bounds of logic. You say it is ridiculous to think that the government shot down a civilian aircraft but ridiculous things happen all the time. You remind me of the people who said it was ridiculous to think that anyone could learn to fly a comercial jet by using Microsoft Flight Simulator. Three hours later when CNN was reporting that the terrorists practised flying for months using Microsoft Flight Simulator these people they looked pretty darn stupid.

	The point still stands (none / 0) (#39)
	by Anonymous Reader on Mon Oct 29th, 2001 at 06:12:15 AM PST

	FTC, FAA, both three-letter acronyms. I was apopleptic with rage over the simpering, banal, insipid group-think going on here. I'm simply stating the obvious, you know absolutely nothing of plane crashes. Therefore, it's simply ridiculous for you to pontificate on the fact that the wreckage was spread over X many miles, and so on, and so forth, while you have no idea what the hell it means, other than what you make up.

	The point doesn't stand... (5.00 / 1) (#40)
	by error27 on Mon Oct 29th, 2001 at 07:41:44 AM PST

	>>I'm simply stating the obvious, you know absolutely nothing of plane crashes. Except that's not true. Anyone who has watched the news over the last 10 years has seen plane crashes. You don't have to be a super genius to ask yourself, "How does this crash compare with other crashes I have seen?" That's all the author is asking you do to. Personally, I haven't looked at a lot of the footage of the crash site. No one filmed the actual crash and the plane didn't crash into a building so it didn't get as much air time as the other crashes. Also it has been too long since the last time I saw footage of the crash site for me to make conclusive judgements about the matter. The author sugests that the plane was blown to bits before it hit the ground. I actually doubt that this was the case. It seems pretty clear that something caused an explosion in the plane or to the outside. Someone inside the plane had time to tell the 911 operator that the plane was going down and that the explosion caused "white smoke." If the plane had been blown to bits by a missile then the person inside the plane wouldn't have had time to talk about the "white smoke."

	Plane crash expertise (none / 0) (#67)
	by Anonymous Reader on Mon Oct 29th, 2001 at 07:36:08 PM PST

	Anyone who has watched the news over the last 10 years has seen plane crashes. However, no one who has watched the news over the last 10 years has seen the site of a deliberately crashed plane. Only four examples exist in the world of planes deliberately used as suicide bombs, and the three preceding this event were driven into buildings. The debris from the WTC crash were strewn for miles around. And those planes were driven into something relatively porous (a building). The penn. crash was straight into the unyielding, non-porous ground (if you accept the official version) at several hundred miles per hour. It's not surprising that few contiguous pieces of debris remain. No missile is required to explain that. The plane was a missile. All other plane crashes that anyone has seen or examined were the result of an unintended plunge to the ground, where presumably at least the controls were set to level, not to point at the ground, and most of the time someone on board was actively attempting to avoid collision. It would be far more revealing to hear the testimony of someone who is both experienced at examining air disasters, and was on site at the time. I seriously doubt that such a person's testimony is represented here . . .

	Biohazardous shit? (5.00 / 1) (#10)
	by Anonymous Reader on Sat Oct 27th, 2001 at 09:23:52 PM PST

	Like vietnamese children? Yeah, thanks USA. Good thing you burned up those women, children and extremely toxic vietnamese monks!

	wrong. wrong. wrong. (5.00 / 1) (#61)
	by Anonymous Reader on Mon Oct 29th, 2001 at 10:45:45 PM PST

	> >It would seem that this plane was taken out by a hell > >of a missile. Perhaps one designed to destroy a nuclear > >armed bomber and cook the payload. > > A nuclear armed bomber? There are no such missles. Ignorancy alert. A quick search reveals... First test of air-to-air nuclear tip missiles precedes the successful launch of Sputnik. Note that both sources can be assumed to have reasonable knowledge of these events (US Dept of Energy & US Air Force): "An Air Force F-89 (Scorpion) prepares to fire the first air-to-air nuclear missile on July 19, 1957. The 'John' experiment over the Nevada Test Site was a two-kiloton missile fired at 15,000 feet." [http://www.nv.doe.gov/news&pubs/publications/historyreports/news&views/airsupp.htm] "The AIR-2A Genie is an air-to-air rocket with a nuclear warhead designed for use against formations of enemy bombers. It has no guidance system and is powered by a solid-propellant rocket motor. The Air-2 (formerly known as the MB-1) was first test launched in 1956 and became operational in January 1957. On July 19, 1957, a Genie was launched at 18,000 from an F-89J interceptor and detonated over Yucca Flats, Nevada. It was the first and only test detonation of a U.S. nuclear-tipped air-to-air rocket. [http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/arm/arm16.htm] Subsequent to the AIR-2A, Hughes Aerospace developed a line of higher fidelity air-to-air nuclear missiles that are still in service today: AIM-4A SAR Falcon, ex-GAR-1, anti-bomber AIM-4C IR Falcon, anti-bomber AIM-4D IR Falcon, anti-fighter. Super Falcon seeker AIM-4E SAR Super Falcon AIM-4F SAR Super Falcon proximity fuze (previous contact only) AIM-4G IR Super Falcon proximity fuze AIM-26A SAR Falcon, nuclear AIM-26B SAR Falcon, high-explosive AIM-47A SAR/IR ex-GAR-9, 35 kg W-42 nuclear warhead [http://www.canit.se/~griffon/aviation/text/missiles/aam.html] The described yield of the AIM-26A (a currently fielded ait-to-air nuclear weapon) is "250 T". That's not megatons or kilotons -- it's tons. [http://www.designation-systems.net/usmilav/nuke.html] A scientific formula for nuclear yields can be found at the Federation of American Scientists: 1 psi Window glass shatters Light injuries from fragments occur. 3 psi Residential structures collapse. Serious injuries are common, fatalities may occur. 5 psi Most buildings collapse. Injuries are universal, fatalities are widespread. 10 psi Reinforced concrete buildings are severely damaged or demolished. Most people are killed. 20 psi Heavily built concrete buildings are severely damaged or demolished. Fatalities approach 100%. Suitable scaling constants for the equation: [r_blast = Y^0.33 * constant_bl] are: constant_bl_1_psi = 2.2 constant_bl_3_psi = 1.0 constant_bl_5_psi = 0.71 constant_bl_10_psi = 0.45 constant_bl_20_psi = 0.28 where Y is in kilotons and range is in km. [http://www.fas.org/nuke/hew/Nwfaq/Nfaq5.html] Given that formula, and a yield for the AIM-26A (250 Tons), the various blast radii would be: 1 psi = 0.25^0.33 * 2.20 = 1.39km = 0.86mi = 4540 feet 3 psi = 0.25^0.33 * 1.00 = 0.63km = 0.39mi = 2059 feet 5 psi = 0.25^0.33 * 0.71 = 0.45km = 0.28mi = 1478 feet 10 psi = 0.25^0.33 * 0.45 = 0.28km = 0.17mi = 897 feet 20 psi = 0.25^0.33 * 0.28 = 0.18km = 0.11mi = 581 feet > You blow up a nuke it sends shit all over the place. Blow > up a plane kill every person within a 100 mile radius. WRONG. See above and: Given that the 1 psi radius is the "window shattering" range, beyond which effects are minimal to non-existant, and given a 250T yield on an AIM-26A air-to-air nuclear missile, with a resultant 4540 foot radius at the 1 psi effect, and given that commercial aircraft cruise at about 30,000 feet, it is unlikely, aside from a big colorful cloud in the sky followed by very very small pieces of aircraft, that anyone would even notice if the Pennsylvania airliner had been hit with an atomic air-to-air weapon. > They best thing we got is napalm and thats for taking a > biohazardous shit. I won't even bother debunking this one.

	Holy shit, you're right (none / 0) (#62)
	by localroger on Mon Oct 29th, 2001 at 05:55:00 PM PST

	The described yield of the AIM-26A (a currently fielded ait-to-air nuclear weapon) is "250 T". That's not megatons or kilotons -- it's tons. Interestingly enough about the same as the yield of the Davy Crockett Tactical Warhead, which fits in a bowling ball bag -- just the thing to make SURE an airplane ceases to exist. No wonder they're keeping it secret. They didn't just shoot it down, they NUKED it. That also explains why no sound was heard through the dangling Airfone -- just instant disconnect. The whole plane would have been destroyed in a matter of seconds. I have to pick my eyeballs off the floor now.

	Stretching the membrane of credibility (none / 0) (#64)
	by Anonymous Reader on Mon Oct 29th, 2001 at 07:11:57 PM PST

	They didn't just shoot it down, they NUKED it So, explain why the military would use a nuclear device which would leave a big mess of radiation and obviously be traceable only back to them, when a simple missile would do. Against a completely unarmed (and likely unguided) airliner?

	this thread is getting old (5.00 / 1) (#84)
	by error27 on Tue Oct 30th, 2001 at 07:51:17 PM PST

	As an American I have a very short attention span yet even I seem to be following this story better than you. 1) There was an explosion in or on the outside of the plane. It could have been caused by the passangers trying to crash the plan or it could have be caused by a missile of some sort. 2) The engines failed and restarted and then failed. 3) The plane hit the ground. The plane was not deliberately used as a suicide bomb. What was the target of the suicide bomb? Were they aiming for a cow? Perhaps you mean that the passengers were deliberately suicide bombing the ground? If they even gained control of the plane after the explosion, it doesn't sound to me like they were very deliberate about what they were doing.

	plane (none / 0) (#87)
	by Anonymous Reader on Wed Oct 31st, 2001 at 09:20:17 AM PST

	yet even I seem to be following this story better than you. What story? This is rampant speculation by a bunch of people who have no evidence one way or another. However, as to your three facts, let's review: 1) There was an explosion in or on the outside of the plane. It could have been caused by the passangers trying to crash the plan or it could have be caused by a missile of some sort. Or, it could have been caused by whatever hijackers remained after being attacked by the passengers. They may well have had a remote-controlled bomb of some sort in the luggage, or, judging from how shitty security was prior to 9/11, right on board. It wouldn't have needed to be a very big bomb. 2) The engines failed and restarted and then failed. Again, it's not outside the realm of possibility that the hijackers who were aboard the plane were responsible for this. If they were losing control of the plane they may have tried to ensure that no one could get it back. 3) The plane hit the ground. The plane was not deliberately used as a suicide bomb. Well, let's see the other three were. It's likely their contingency plan, in the event that their target was unattainable, was to simply crash the plane and at least kill the passengers onboard and themselves. They were prepared to die, after all. They certainly would not have wanted the shame of failing compounded by the risk of being interrogated by the authorities. You see, the reason I'm so incredibly skeptical of this story is that there is a much simpler, more reasonable explanation available that already fits the facts and doesn't require me to make too many fitful leaps of fancy to figure out.

	Exercize for the reader (none / 0) (#88)
	by Anonymous Reader on Wed Oct 31st, 2001 at 10:02:24 AM PST

	<p> Take the average force yeild of your missile of choice. How much energy is this? <p> Now, take the energy of a plane being driven directly into the ground. Lets say, for the purpose of this exercize, the plane was stopped almost instantly. So, you have a jetliner, weighing 300,000 lbs, going 700 miles per hour. Convert that into the appropriate units, then use your good old friend e = m * v^2. <p> For added credit, figure out how much fuel was left in the plane and how much energy the burning of that would release. <p> I'm guessing a missile is the weaker force here.

	Re: Exercize for the reader (none / 0) (#90)
	by Anonymous Reader on Wed Oct 31st, 2001 at 04:51:39 PM PST

	Yeah, nice assumption: the plane was stopped almost instantly. But what if we make the assumption that the missile is nuclear and the plane crashes into a large bed of fluffy pillows?

	Huh? (none / 0) (#9)
	by Anonymous Reader on Sat Oct 27th, 2001 at 08:09:57 PM PST

	<<It would seem that this plane was taken out by a hell of a missile. Perhaps one designed to destroy a nuclear armed bomber and cook the payload.>> A nuclear armed bomber? There are no such missles. You blow up a nuke it sends shit all over the place. Blow up a plane kill every person within a 100 mile radius. They best thing we got is napalm and thats for taking a biohazardous shit.

	You are both morons (none / 0) (#59)
	by Anonymous Reader on Mon Oct 29th, 2001 at 09:22:04 PM PST

	No there is no missle specifically designed to shoot down nuclear armed bombers (as opposed to simply shooting down bombers) but on the other hand an unarmed nuclear weapon is unlikely to disintigrate after the plane carrying it is shot down. Those H-Bombs require some serious shielding of the reaction masses, far more heavily armored than any airplane. It might well crack open, but it's very unlikely such an event would disperse the radiation very far. Without the carefull detonation by the very precise mechanism a modern sub-critical bomb is not going to explode. And just what the fuck would napalm do to a nuke? Not a god damned thing except take radioactive particles up into the atmosphere with the smoke. Any standard heat seeking air to air missle is going to blow the shit out of an airliner loaded with fuel. The missle hits the engine which explodes igniting the fuel lines and then the tanks. Big budhaboom!

	A couple things... (5.00 / 1) (#34)
	by error27 on Mon Oct 29th, 2001 at 03:09:25 AM PST

	I responded already to your phone call problems in another post. >>I don't know what you were watching but I saw it. It is unclear what you mean by "it." You saw the plane crash? You saw the wreckage? You saw a hole in the ground? I can't respond to this because I don't know what you are talking about. >>Yet it didn't show up on radar. The airforce wouldn't tell you about their own plane if they wanted to keep it a secret... Actually, I'm not sure I have heard anyone except you deny that there was a plane in the area. >>They found the box and the flight recorder in Pensylvannia. They found the box at the Pentagon. The black boxes at Ground Zero? Black boxes (they are actually bright orange) are designed to withstand plane crashes. The black boxes from the Pentagon and Pennsylvania have been recoverred but apparently they are both "unreadable". That's never happenned before. Funny it should happen twice on the same day. (Once there was a case in the Netherlands where nobody ever found the black box but there has never been a case where the black box was recoverred but was unreadable).

	Unreadable Black Boxes (none / 0) (#81)
	by Anonymous Reader on Tue Oct 30th, 2001 at 10:47:35 AM PST

	Actually, neither the Pentagon nor Pennsylvania black boxes were "unreadable". They were unreadable after a certain point, because they were TURNED OFF. There exists in the cockpit a pilot-accessable fuse that can be pulled to shut off the two black boxes. Any amount of training in those aircraft includes fuse diagrams, so its not hard to find out which fuses it'd take.

	Katz Would Be Proud (none / 0) (#7)
	by egg troll on Sat Oct 27th, 2001 at 07:50:10 PM PST

	Ah yes, I can see why this piece of shit was posted by an A/C. I'd be ashamed to have my name associated with it as well. This is the kind of writing I'd expect from a certain bullshit author. Posting for the love of the baby Jesus....

	We tried to get Katz here. (none / 0) (#47)
	by Anonymous Reader on Mon Oct 29th, 2001 at 02:04:07 PM PST

	But for various contractual and fiscal reasons, it was not possible. It is a pity, since Katz writes some of the most challenging stuff on the internet, and he would have brought a lot of controversial ideas with him, that is certain.

	Short Schoolbus (none / 0) (#80)
	by egg troll on Tue Oct 30th, 2001 at 10:45:37 AM PST

	I wonder if Jon Katz's mom lets him go outside without his helmet and drool bib. I bet not. Can anyone confirm this either way? Posting for the love of the baby Jesus....

	missing poll option: (none / 0) (#11)
	by momocrome on Sat Oct 27th, 2001 at 11:23:58 PM PST

	'I could fucking care less' The plane was doomed one way or another. I for one would hope that the gov't would've blasted the sucker in the absence of the heroics. Besides which, this is all speculation that was available as it happened, not some clever conspiracy this AC author has unearthed. Truly a pathetic attempt at controversy, IMHO.

	We're all doomed. (5.00 / 1) (#12)
	by elenchos on Sat Oct 27th, 2001 at 11:57:35 PM PST

	Or did you not know that? Oh yes, let me tell you. Death's icy embrace awaits you. And me. And every single person you have ever known. Everyone they have ever known. Or ever will know. Every single one of us, past, present and future, is without any doubt, doomed. What does death mean? It means and eternity of utter void, silence, total entropy, pure infinite lack. It is the end, and it is an end totally lacking in meaning, purpose or any hint of ultimate sense. It's just over, and you might as well have never lived. No one's life, ever, will mean a single thing. It's really hard to find the words to express the completeness of the vacuum. The finality of it. The purity of the senselessness. Anything like hope or desire or the even the lowest of human virtures is irrelavent. It just doesn't matter when buried by the weight of eterinity. One little air-plane in a vast ocean of time? Nothing, of course. What about one nation? One Earth? One Universe? They are all as nothing compared to the vastness of the emptyness that engulfs it all. Please, give up. At least there is some honesty in that. Not that even that will make the slightest difference. I do, I do, I do --Bikini Kill

	Don't let.. (none / 0) (#22)
	by Mint Waltman on Sun Oct 28th, 2001 at 05:19:39 PM PST

	..the blasphemous philosophies of a few European 'thinkers' flush your eternal soul down the toilet. Repent and even you shall receive salvation.

	I'm not sure what you mean. (none / 0) (#23)
	by elenchos on Sun Oct 28th, 2001 at 05:34:32 PM PST

	I didn't even say anything about God. I will, if you want. I was just pointing out that we all have an eternity of annihiliation awaiting us. So what is there to repent? And why? I do, I do, I do --Bikini Kill

	I wouldn't expect (5.00 / 1) (#33)
	by Mint Waltman on Mon Oct 29th, 2001 at 03:00:29 AM PST

	I didn't even say anything about God. I will, if you want. I was just pointing out that we all have an eternity of annihiliation awaiting us. ... you to mention God. He is obviously not in your heart, why should I expect to find Him in your writings? I've seen far to many young people wander the dark path of denial- denial of His divine plan for you and me. Anyway, if by 'eternity of annihiliation' you mean 'eternity of Hellfire' then I'd have to agree; some of us do have an eternity of annihiliation awaiting us after death. But it doesn't have to be that way... So what is there to repent? And why? You tell me. A person who writes what you wrote is obviously a libertine. "All bets are off! All that awaits us is an infinte void, so if it feels good do it!" If not that, at the very least it indicates that you have not been living according to God's Plan, which is reason enough to repent. So, I can count at least one reason to be penitent, only you know the others...

	What kind of reasoning is that? (none / 0) (#37)
	by elenchos on Mon Oct 29th, 2001 at 04:24:06 AM PST

	If we only get one go-around, and then become utterly annihilated -- that is we are gone, not just re-incarnated in hell -- then we should make the best of it. Any thinking person would be forced to decide that being virtuous and decent is the only thing worth doing in our otherwise meaningless life. There is no meaning or purpose other than what we choose to create. Godism, on the other hand, makes it all into just a game. Play by a few cute rules, and you win. Look at how Isolde got away with decieving the court, yet telling the "truth" in the eyes of God. The same trivilzation of life allows Christians to be perfectly evil people (St. Augustine) but then to conveninetly jump on the Godist bandwagon when the time is ripe (i.e., they are too old an sore to fornicate, kill and steal anymore) and are welcomed into the bosom of Jesus as repentant sinners. No harm, no foul. Everyone's a sinner, after all, so who cares what you did? A person could get away with murder that way. I'm just too decent and moral to have a religion. Not that it will make any difference in a thousand years when we are all dust. I do, I do, I do --Bikini Kill

	has anyone stopped to notice? (5.00 / 1) (#42)
	by Anonymous Reader on Mon Oct 29th, 2001 at 11:59:08 AM PST

	Suddenly everyone is screaming that we must repent or fail. Why is it when a little tragedy comes along that everyone is overtaken by this mortal fear of what they don't understand. Everyone always preached to me "When you are on your deathbed, you will be repenting." and you know what? I was laying on my death bed 1 year ago, told that I probably wouldn't wake up in the morning and that the emergency surgery was probably not going to be successful. Not a spark, not a twinge, not a word from God, just me. That's when I realized it, this is all there is, I better hold onto life because this is the last stop. Your gods and creators are the problem here. Religion is to blame. Think of any large destruction of human life and look who is to blame. 8 times out of 10 it is religion. The catholic religion alone is responsible for more death throughout history than just about any other determining factor. Holy wars, Jihads, Crusades, Inquisitions. Killing for religion, something I don't understand. Wake up people. It's time we evolved to the next stage of human existance and leave superstition where it belongs. In the hands of the primitive. But we must police the primitive it seems now, or their superstitions will lead them to try to destroy our advanced society.

	You are... (5.00 / 1) (#45)
	by tkatchev on Mon Oct 29th, 2001 at 01:17:07 PM PST

	You're about 500 years too late with your "original" commentary. Been there, done that, I even have a T-shirt about it. Your reasoning lead us to WWI, communism, fascism, WWII, atomic war, and finally the cold war. Guess what? Our "advanced" society has already been destroyed. What religous folks haven't been able to destroy in millenia, atheist, materialist communists destroyed in under a decade. Very impressive and efficient. Welcome to the post-industrialist world, dude. Consider it the atheist's personal hell. -- Peace and much love...

	Excellent remarks (none / 0) (#102)
	by Anonymous Reader on Wed Nov 7th, 2001 at 09:51:50 AM PST

	It's so true that religion has been used to motivate "peasants" to waste their lives in countless wars in the past. And as whoever replied to your comment said, paganism (communism, etc.) has followed in these same footsteps. Instead of athiests and monothiests pointing fingers at each other, both parties should set aside their unprovable fairy tales and embrace the only logical philosophical/scientific/religious stance, and become agnostics. It's simple. It cannot be proved if a "God" does or does not exist, and only by casting aside these ridiculous notions will humanity evolve to the next level. Agnosticism is the only belief that accepts the possibility of everything, and will allow us to join together through facts to prove the origin of our species without the conflicts and illusions caused by such firm believers in hypothetical suppositions. The only way humanity will continue to exist is through agnosticism - religious freaks and athiests will certainly destroy this world with nuclear weapons because of their unwarranted beliefs.