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Date: Sun, 30 Nov 1997 14:04:07 -0800
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: AN INVESTIGATION IMPLODES - TWA800 Probe Loses
  Credibility (fwd)

<snip>
>
> AN INVESTIGATION IMPLODES
> TWA-800 Probe Loses Credibility
>
> by Edward Zehr
>
>Can the mainstream press survive the unraveling  of  any  of  the
>major  coverups  in which they have participated? Journalists are
>already regarded by most Americans as being a cut below  lawyers,
>which is to say they might have a narrow edge over serial killers
>in a closely contested popularity poll.
>
>How did things come to such a pretty pass? A recent letter from a
>reader of Washington Weekly set me thinking about this. I believe
>that the two world wars this country has fought, followed by half
>a century of protracted conflict, had a lot to do with it.
>
>The reader to whom I refer is also a writer with a degree from  a
>well-known  graduate  school  of  journalism.  She told some very
>interesting tales out of school, including  one  about  a  widely
>known  journalist  and  author  of  many books who was a featured
>guest at her graduation luncheon. He entertained the new grads by
>telling  them  of the "enormous power" they were soon to have. In
>particular, he explained how the mainstream press had  sandbagged
>President  Ford  in  retaliation for his pardon of Richard Nixon.
>Remember all those stories about  what  a  clumsy  oaf  Ford  was
>supposed  to  be?  The  journalist  told how they had poured over
>presidential photographs for hours,  looking  for  examples  that
>would  make Ford look a "bumbling fool." To drive the point home,
>they planted a succession of stories that played upon this theme.
>
>Was it effective? You bet. The celebrity journalist boasted  that
>they  had  been  able  to  secure  Ford's defeat, largely through
>ridicule. I saw reverberations of this story even while living in
>Germany.  The  subject came up during a dinner conversation as to
>who would likely run for the presidency in 1980, and when  Ford's
>name  was  mentioned,  one  of the Germans present chimed in, "He
>won't do -- he keeps falling over."
>
>The truth is that Ford was one of the more athletic and  graceful
>persons  to  occupy  the  White  House, but it didn't matter. The
>propagandists who control the press  in  this  country  have  the
>power  to  invent their own "truth." But what has this to do with
>world wars and such? Well, I just happened to recall a film  clip
>that  some  newsreel journalists made of Adolf Hitler, "dancing a
>jig," following the fall of France in 1940. Years later,  one  of
>the  journalists proudly recounted how they had doctored the film
>in an effort to make der Fuehrer appear  ridiculous.  We  weren't
>supposed  to  care,  you  see,  because  almost  everybody  today
>considers Hitler to have been a terrible person.
>
>But  surely  this  misses  the  point.  It  wasn't  Hitler  these
>journalists  lied  to  --  it  was us. Well, what's the harm, you
>might ask? As the Germans say, "Ende gut, alles gut." The problem
>is,  it  didn't  end with Hitler who, after all, understood these
>things. At about the same time, his own propaganda  minister  was
>portraying  Churchill  as  a  drunken buffoon. Years later we see
>journalists using the same sort of sleazy propaganda trick on  an
>American  president,  to  punish him for an official act of which
>they, in the godlike majesty of their  omniscience,  disapproved.
>This  sort  of  propaganda  is  designed to trick and mislead the
>public, depriving them of  the  opportunity  to  draw  their  own
>conclusions about the real substance of the issues.
>
>Thus we have the example of Dan Quayle, reduced to the status  of
>a  sort  of  world-class  village  idiot by a series of viciously
>tendentious stories, many of them totally false and  many  others
>grossly  distorted.  Or  Newt  Gingrich,  who  many Americans are
>firmly convinced has done something truly  awful,  although  they
>aren't  quite  certain  just what it might have been. Christopher
>Ruddy recently noted, in a talk carried by  C-SPAN,  that  Newt's
>trouble  with  the press started soon after he suggested that the
>House might want to investigate the death of Vincent Foster.
>
>The mainstream press have arrogated unto themselves the power  to
>turn  thumbs  up or thumbs down on almost anybody in public life.
>Their fair-haired boys are protected,  no  matter  how  egregious
>their  offenses  may  be.  When  an  author such as Seymour Hersh
>points out that the sainted JFK, a media  icon,  stole  the  1960
>presidential election from Richard Nixon, with a little help from
>the Mafia, it is Hersh, not Kennedy who draws  the  wrath  of  an
>enraged press. Not that the story is untrue. It has been known to
>be true for a number of years.  It's  just  that  the  mainstream
>press,  in the supreme arrogance of their greedily hoarded power,
>forbid anybody to mention it publicly. Thus we have  an  arrogant
>caste  of would-be elitists using the enormous power granted them
>by the First Amendment, not to report the truth, but to silence a
>critic of whom they disapprove.
>
>All of this would be bad enough if the media represented any kind
>of  real  elite. In truth they are little more than an untutored,
>emotionally immature rabble who lack both  the  insight  and  the
>life  experience  to  comment  intelligently upon the events they
>presume to cover. Take, for example, the Gulf War.  The  nonsense
>spewed  by the mainstream press just prior to the commencement of
>hostilities  beggars  belief.  The  Iraqi  Army  was  seen  as  a
>formidable military organization capable of inflicting "thousands
>of casualties" upon the U.S. forces and those of its allies.  The
>press   outdid   themselves  demonstrating  their  total,  abject
>ignorance of all things military.  Most of them were boomer-brats
>who  grew  up  loathing  the  military. They seemed to wear their
>ignorance on their sleeve as a badge of honor.
>
>In one memorable piece of  buffoonery,  Ted  Koppell  interviewed
>Edward Lutwach, whom he represented to his viewers as a "military
>expert." Lutwach proceeded to expound upon a very  limited  Iraqi
>reconnaissance  in force, that had been stopped in its tracks and
>pounded to pieces, as an ominous portent of things  to  come.  He
>then  went  on  to characterize it as being comparable to the Tet
>offensive during the Vietnam War. This was a bit  much  even  for
>Koppell,  who  seemed to do a double-take, although his questions
>were hesitant and non-committal. What other enterprise could  get
>away  with  peddling such shoddy goods? Here we have a nationwide
>"news" program, with a "distinguished" host, that is supposed  to
>provide  vital  information  to  the  public on a matter of grave
>concern to all of us,  trafficking  in  the  most  ludicrous  and
>abject  nonsense  --  and  there  is  no  penalty for doing so. A
>legitimate business would go  belly-up  overnight  for  unloading
>such garbage on an unsuspecting public.
>
>
>STILL MORE TWA-800 TWADDLE
>
>Speaking of  garbage,  the  Boston  Globe  ran  an  editorial  on
>November  22  that  extolled the "FBI's commendable report to the
>public on TWA Flight 800's destruction." The editorial quoted the
>star   of  the  CIA's  "commendable"  cartoon  presentation,  FBI
>spokesman James Kallstrom (who hardly seems to know one end of an
>airplane  from  the other, although he appears to be in charge of
>the FBI's "accident"  investigation)  as  saying  that  the  main
>reason   for   "his  detailed  explanation  of  the  researchers'
>findings"  was  to  counteract  the  effect  of  the  "conspiracy
>theorists."  Now  that  is an interesting perspective -- normally
>the purpose of such an investigation is to determine the cause of
>the mishap, not to counter somebody's opinion about it.
>
>Alas, poor Kallstrom was forced to concede that  "no  matter  how
>much  evidence  to  the contrary has been presented to them, some
>people" would just go on believing the evidence of their eyes, or
>their  conclusions  based  on common sense, or technical insight,
>instead of the slickly  packaged  boob  bait  ginned  up  by  CIA
>propagandists. All right, he didn't phrase it quite that way, but
>that's my interpretation.
>
>The editorial did  not  mention  the  nature  of  the  "evidence"
>presented by Kallstrom. No doubt it was way over the heads of the
>writers at the Boston Globe. Nevertheless, they are  prepared  to
>commend the "report" and give it their seal of approval. (See how
>easy it is to be a  mainstream  editorial  writer,  handing  down
>instant evaluations of technical issues that are beyond your ken?
>It isn't as  though  you  really  have  to  know  anything  about
>anything -- an authoritative rumble is usually enough to enable a
>mainstream writer to bluff his way  through  even  the  trickiest
>editorializing these days).
>
>The celebrated 14-minute video tape was concocted by the  CIA  to
>convince  us that eyewitnesses who "thought they saw" a streak of
>light ascend into the sky and "mistook" it for a missile,  really
>must have seen something else.
>
>James Hall, Chairman of the National Transportation Safety  Board
>points out that the closest eyewitness was 10 miles away from the
>aircraft when  the  explosion  occurred.  Referring  to  the  244
>witnesses  whose sightings were mentioned on the tape, Hall said,
>"Most of these witnesses reported that the sound of an  explosion
>or  a flash of light drew their attention to the direction of the
>airplane."
>
>Kallstrom was even more explicit at his news conference. "All the
>witnesses  saw  events  that  happened after the center tank blew
>up," he told the assembled reporters.
>
>James Sanders, author of a book titled "The Downing of TWA Flight
>800," characterized the assertion in the CIA tape that all of the
>eyewitnesses first heard a noise as  "a  lie,"  during  a  recent
>radio  interview  with  Michael  Reagan.  He claims that at least
>twenty people saw a missile before it hit Flight 800.   According
>to  Sanders,  "They saw it rise either from the ocean or over the
>horizon slowly and burst and then  saw  it  accelerate  and  then
>Flight  800  came  down."  He  said that the FBI and the CIA have
>access to these people.
>
>David Hendrix wrote in the November 23 Riversides-Enterprise that
>Sanders   has  accused  the  CIA  of  selectively  choosing  "244
>eyewitnesses from among more than 400 interviewed," in  order  to
>discredit the missile theory.
>
>A  retired  naval  officer  who  has  been  conducting  his   own
>investigation   into   the  TWA-800  incident,  Cdr.  William  S.
>Donaldson, noted in a letter to Hall last summer that  while  the
>NTSB  had  "accepted eye witness statements attributing lightning
>as the  ignition  source  of  the  Iranian  Air  Force  747  tank
>explosion  21  years  ago"  which  statements  were  cited in the
>board's  1996 Safety Recommendation, they have ignored more  than
>30  "extremely credible TWA FL800 eyewitnesses, some of whom were
>combat veteran military pilots  who  actually  saw  the  ignition
>source of TWA FL800."
>
>Donaldson cites several eyewitnesses like Mr. Roland Penney and a
>group  of  eight  other  people  who "not only saw a missile-like
>object rise up from the haze at sea leaving  a  thin  gray  smoke
>trail,  but  distinctly  describe  a  bright white flash, 'like a
>flashbulb' when it hit TWA FL800." He notes  that  all  of  these
>observations "preceded aircraft breakup and subsequent explosions
>and fuel ignitions."
>
>Describing  Mr  Penny's  statement   as   "a   perfect   layman's
>description  of  a  successful  missile  engagement  with warhead
>detonation," Donaldson goes on to describe a bright, white  flash
>of  light  that  could not be caused by a kerosene air explosion,
>especially  under  atmospheric  conditions  at  13,700  ft,   the
>altitude  of  the  aircraft when it exploded. Donaldson mentioned
>that nobody from the  NTSB  had  interviewed  Mr.  Penny  or  his
>friends.
>
>The CIA videotape entered the  twilight  zone  however,  when  it
>asserted  that  witnesses who thought the flash of light they saw
>ascend into the sky, and believed  was  a  missile,  were  really
>seeing  the  aircraft  climb 3200 feet just after the center fuel
>tank exploded, and the nose fell off.
>
>
>A REALITY CHECK
>
>Apparently they are unaware that engineers  have  ways  of  doing
>"reality  checks"  upon  such  brash statements. Some of the news
>accounts have suggested that the CIA cartoon video was based on a
>"simulation"  although  it is not clear that the CIA or Kallstrom
>have made any such claim. The simulation of an aircraft  that  is
>in  the  process  of  disintegrating is problematical at best. It
>would be necessary to know which parts fell off  and  when.  This
>necessarily  involves  a certain amount of guesswork when all one
>really knows is the distribution  of  the  debris  on  the  ocean
>floor.    Nevertheless,   it   is   possible   to   make  certain
>determinations on the basis of the debris field. For example, the
>NTSB  "Sequencing Report" tells us that Fuselage pieces recovered
>from the "red zone" were originally located at  fuselage  station
>1000.  The  "red  zone"  is  the  recovery area where most of the
>cockpit debris was found, thus it seems that the forward  section
>of  the  fuselage,  all  the  way  to  the front of the wing root
>separated shortly after the explosion in the  center  fuel  tank.
>This  is  confirmed  by statements made by Donaldson, Sanders and
>others.
>
>Now fuselage station 1000 would be located 83  feet  aft  of  the
>aircraft's  nose.  That is a pretty big chunk of an airplane that
>is 220 feet long. There can be no doubt that such a  catastrophic
>event  as  the  separation of almost 40 percent of the aircraft's
>fuselage would utterly destroy its longitudinal static stability.
>
>I was able to locate a data base of aircraft coefficients for the
>Boeing  747  comprising  three flight conditions in the following
>reference:  Airplane  Flight  Dynamics   and   Automatic   Flight
>Controls,   published   by   the   University  of  Kansas.  These
>coefficients would be suitable for use in an aircraft simulation,
>unfortunately, most of them would have to be radically altered to
>reflect the "structural modifications."
>
>I was, however, able to make use of them to determine the "static
>margin" of the undamaged aircraft. That, in effect, is the moment
>arm through which the lift vector acts  to  rotate  the  aircraft
>about  its  center  of  gravity.  If you will recall the "seesaw"
>analogy from last week's  column,  when  an  aircraft  loses  its
>static  stability,  the  lift  vector  is  located forward of the
>center of gravity (which acts as the pivot  of  the  seesaw).  If
>this  moment  arm can be determined for the "truncated" aircraft,
>it should be possible to make a rough  estimate  of  the  angular
>acceleration  of the aircraft about its pitch axis after the nose
>fell off. The relationship is simply:
>
>     Pitching Moment = Moment of Inertia X Pitch Acceleration
>
>In level flight the lift force  will  equal  the  weight  of  the
>aircraft. The pitching moment will be equal to the lift times the
>moment arm through which it acts, which will depend upon how  far
>aft the center of gravity has shifted.
>
>Now suppose we had a 220 foot long seesaw and we decided  to  saw
>83  feet off one end. In order to get the thing back into balance
>it would be necessary to move the pivot back  half  the  distance
>that  was removed from the end, or 41.5 feet. But the fuselage of
>an aircraft is not uniform throughout, and the aircraft's  weight
>is  not  uniformly  distributed.  So,  just to be conservative, I
>moved the center of gravity back only 21 feet. From the  aircraft
>data  I  was  able to estimate the static margin at about 7 feet,
>thus the moment arm I used was 7 - 21 = -14 feet. That gave me  a
>pitching  moment  of 7 million foot pounds. The moment of inertia
>obtained from the reference previously cited is 33  million  slug
>ft  sq.  (Actually, it would be a good deal less, since the front
>of the aircraft has fallen off, but it  is  conservative  to  use
>that number). Thus the pitch acceleration can be estimated as:
>
>    7,000,000 ft lb / 33,000,000 slug ft sq. = 0.212 rad/sec sq.
>
>                                             = 12.15 deg/sec sq.
>
>As we shall see, that is a pretty brisk acceleration.  To  obtain
>the  pitch  rate at a given time it is only necessary to multiply
>the (constant) acceleration by the time elapsed  since  the  nose
>fell  off. The pitch angle can be obtained by averaging the pitch
>rate over time and multiplying the  average  pitch  rate  by  the
>elapsed  time. (For those familiar with calculus, the same result
>will be obtained by integrating the pitch acceleration twice with
>respect  to  time).   The bottom line is that we can now estimate
>the pitch angle  of  the  aircraft  at  a  given  time  from  the
>relationship:
>
>      pitch angle = pitch acceleration X (time squared) / 2
>
>Plugging in the numbers, we find that the aircraft has pitched  6
>degrees  in  1  second,  24 degrees in 2 seconds, 55 degrees in 3
>seconds and 97 degrees in 4 seconds. This  is  somewhat  academic
>since  the  aircraft  will  most  likely  have  stalled somewhere
>between 2 and 3 seconds. At the time the stall condition  occurs,
>the  lift  force  will  dissipate. However, there is a large drag
>force, acting upon the gaping hole in  the  fuselage,  that  will
>continue to push the remnant of the airplane "over the top."
>
>But that is neither here nor there. The object of  this  "reality
>check"  was to determine whether it is reasonable to suppose that
>a 747 will "continue to climb" 3200 feet after losing 83 feet  of
>fuselage  in  front of the wings.  According to the CIA/Kallstrom
>cartoon, the aircraft climbed for 20 seconds  in  it's  truncated
>condition.  Basic  stability considerations suggest that it would
>stall in about one-tenth that time, at the outside.
>
>I realize that this is a very quick and  dirty  calculation,  and
>that  there  are many other things to be considered. Nevertheless
>one cannot simply ignore basic principles. It is just a  fact  of
>life  that  an  aircraft  will rotate much faster about its pitch
>axis than it will change directions through the air. That is  why
>aircraft  stall.  In  order  for  the  aircraft to pull up for 20
>seconds  it  would  be  necessary  that  the  pilot  maintain   a
>reasonable angle of attack by controlling the elevators, but that
>would not have been possible since the pilot  departed  with  the
>nose.  In  any  event,  he  would have been unable to control the
>effects of such radical instability.
>
>
>FUEL STREAKS
>
>Perhaps the most  foolish  theory  to  emanate  from  the  public
>relations  flacks  who  appear to be controlling the direction of
>this investigation was the suggestion that people  who  claim  to
>have  seen  a  missile approach TWA-800 were actually seeing fuel
>streaming from the  ruptured  tanks  ignite.  The  flacks  didn't
>actually  have  the  guts  to take responsibility for this bit of
>fantasy, but it seems  clear  that  they  put  the  media  up  to
>spreading this story, knowing full well what a load of rubbish it
>is. The basic scenario was described by Bob Riordan in an article
>that appeared in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:
>
>  "...if a stream of jet fuel is ignited as it falls  from  the
>  plane,  flames  will  shoot  UP.  The  stream  of flame could
>  resemble a missile trail ending in the fireball of the plane.
>  Observers  could  have a problem realizing that the fuel came
>  from the plane."
>
>What's wrong with this notion? In the first place, fuel would not
>fall  from  an  aircraft  traveling  at 400 mph in a "stream." It
>would be aspirated into  a  cloud  of  tiny  droplets  which,  if
>ignited,  would  resemble  a  fireball, not a bright streak. Most
>likely, unless ignited at the  source,  the  fuel  would  quickly
>become  dispersed  in the atmosphere and nothing would happen. In
>the second place, what would ignite the "stream" of fuel from the
>"bottom  up"?   Nobody  has  suggested an answer to that one, but
>then nobody who had passed high school physics would consider  it
>anyway.
>
>Mr. Riordan  devotes the rest of his column to speculating  about
>the  possibility that metal fatigue was responsible for the crash
>of TWA-800. I hate to be such a wet blanket, but that is  one  of
>the  first  things checked in an aircraft accident investigation.
>In fact, aircraft structures are checked for fatigue cracks on  a
>regular basis.
>
>
>THE FUEL TANK EXPLOSION
>
>Everybody seems to agree that  there  was  an  explosion  in  the
>center  fuel tank.  The point of contention would seem to be what
>caused the fuel to explode.  Cdr. Donaldson points  out  the  two
>ways  an  explosive atmosphere could be produced in the fuel tank
>of a Boeing 747:
>
>  A highly volatile fuel such as  JP4  or  JetB,  subjected  to
>  elevated  temperatures for a time could produce a potentially
>  explosive mixture of fuel vapor and air.  That,  essentially,
>  is  the  assumption  made  by the official investigation. The
>  problem with this assumption is that the Jet A-1 fuel used by
>  TWA-800 is of low volatility.
>
>  An explosive mixture of fuel droplets and air can  be  formed
>  when  a  low  volatility  fuel such as Jet A-1, JP5 or JP8 is
>  used, but only if there has been extreme agitation  or  shock
>  to the tank.
>
>It is Donaldson's contention that the  overpressure  produced  by
>the  explosion  points to "mechanical misting of residual fuel as
>the internal primordial event."
>
>In his letter to Hall, Donaldson pressed his point:
>
>  "Your agency has been depicting the volatility of the fuel as
>  if  it were nitro benzene however, the chemical properties of
>  the Jet A-1 turbine fuel TWA  FL800  was  using  had  a  huge
>  margin  of  safety. It could not have been made to explode in
>  the centerline tank except as a secondary  event  to  another
>  explosion."
>
>Donaldson says that under ordinary conditions the fuel would  not
>ignite  unless  "the  fuel and container (tons of aluminum)" were
>heated to a temperature above 127 degrees F.  However,  "the  one
>other  way  Jet  A-1 could be made to explode is through physical
>misting of the fuel as accomplished by a fuel injector or through
>the kinetic shock provided by a high explosive 'booster.'"
>
>The point, according to Donaldson, is that the residual  fuel  in
>the tank would have to be heated to between 130 and 160 degree F.
>But if a shock were applied to the tank the same effect would  be
>produced at only 72 degrees F.
>
>The one other fuel tank explosion known to  have  occurred  in  a
>Boeing 747 while in flight was an Iranian mishap mentioned by the
>NTSB in its Safety Recommendation of 13 December 1996. The report
>failed to mention, however, that the aircraft was not fueled with
>Jet A-1. Donaldson speculates that if it had been,  the  aircraft
>"would probably have landed safely because explosive vapors would
>not have been present to ignite."
>
>In his criticism of an NTSB test of temperature increase in a 747
>center  wing  tank, Donaldson pointed out that they had used only
>one temperature probe to record a 40 deg F temperature  increase,
>citing the slow heat transfer in jet fuel due to its poor thermal
>conductivity. Furthermore, he points out, the test was  performed
>in   the   desert,  whereas  the  "TWA  FL800  had  just  made  a
>Transatlantic crossing prior to the two hour  turnaround  at  New
>York,  the  tank  and  fuel  were  exposed  to minus 67 degrees F
>stratospheric temperatures throughout that  time."  The  aircraft
>used in the NTSB test had not been subjected to a comparable cold
>soak -- it had been sitting on a ramp in the desert.
>
>At the time TWA-890 took off from New  York  ambient  temperature
>was  77  degree  F  and falling and 29 degrees F at the explosion
>altitude.
>
>On the day of the NTSB test in the desert, the  temperature  rose
>from  69.8  degree F to 95.0 degree F. Even so, the test aircraft
>fuel temperature did not  get  anywhere  near  127  degrees.  The
>moderate  77  degree  F  temperature  at  New York would not have
>caused  TWA-800's air-conditioning packs  to  generate  excessive
>heat.
>
>In summarizing his points, Donaldson asserts  that  "no  aircraft
>loaded  with Jet A-1 has ever had or will ever have an internally
>ignited fuel tank explosion due  to  latent  fuel  vapor  in  the
>ullage."
>
>
>A FEW ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS
>
>Sanders said last week that the  FBI's  assertion  that  the  red
>residue found on some of the seats "came from a patented adhesive
>and  not  solid  fuel  for  missiles"  is  contradicted  by   the
>manufacturer  of the seats used on TWA-800. The manufacturer told
>Sanders that his adhesive did not contain the  same  elements  as
>those  found in the independent testing performed by a laboratory
>to whom Sanders supplied a sample of the residue.
>
>Fabric samples impregnated with the red residue were  taken  from
>three  adjacent  rows  of  seats  and given to Sanders by a crash
>investigator who was working  at  the  time  on  the  Flight  800
>mishap.  The elements found in the test are said to be consistent
>with the  ingredients found in solid rocket fuel, according to  a
>missile  specialist  consulted by Sanders, who theorizes that the
>residue was deposited  by  a  missile  that  passed  through  the
>fuselage.
>
>Richard  Russell,  a  retired  747  pilot  and  aviation   safety
>specialist,  said  that  a  radar  tape  left in his mailbox last
>February shows an object approaching Flight 800 at a steady  rate
>from  the  front while another is visible for a few brief seconds
>approaching from behind the 747.
>
>It was later determined that the first blip was a Navy P-3 Orion.
>Last  Tuesday  Kallstrom  identified  the  blip  approaching from
>behind as Jet Express Flight 18.  Russell's response was that  if
>the  second  blip  had been an aircraft it would have shown up on
>other tapes  --  but  it  didn't.  "I  think  that  the   coverup
>continues  and that now what they are attempting to do is sell it
>to the American public," Russell commented.
>
>Frederick Meyer, an attorney and former Air National Guard pilot,
>who  witnessed  the  explosion  of  TWA-800 while piloting an Air
>National Guard rescue helicopter  on  the  night  of  the  crash,
>commented,  "I  saw  the (CIA video) scenario. It just isn't what
>happened. They've changed the sequence of events."  According  to
>reporter  David Hendrix, Meyer, a combat veteran who had missiles
>fired at his helicopter in Vietnam, "saw a  streak  approach  the
>jetliner   in   a  slight  downward  arc,  two  small  but  sharp
>explosions, and then the huge fireball that fell to the ocean."
>
>Meanwhile, back at the Boston Globe, the editorial  writers  were
>beating  up  on  easy  targets  such  as  Ian  Goddard and Pierre
>Salinger.
>
>  "Salinger's gullibility may be taken as  a  telling  paradigm
>  for those weak spirits who feed on the conspiratorial garbage
>  dumped on the Internet.  Unfettered by the standards and peer
>  review required of scholarship or the transparent sourcing of
>  journalism, anonymous communicators on the Internet  post  up
>  the most preposterous theories . . ."
>
>As though they knew or understood anything about it. Peer  review
>indeed.    When   is  the  last  time  any  of  these  mainstream
>microcephalics took the trouble to consult an  authority  with  a
>background  in  flight dynamics regarding the preposterous claims
>made by official sources with respect  to  unstable  (pieces  of)
>aircraft that are supposed to climb for 20 seconds while pitching
>up and disintegrating? The pomposity of these swaggering airheads
>is  beyond  comprehension. They are too busy licking the boots of
>the bureaucrats who hand  feed  them  propaganda  based  on  junk
>science  to get a second opinion. And why not? They might have to
>do an honest day's work if the handouts stopped coming down  from
>on high.
>
>Underlying the Boston Globe's irrational outburst  is  a  gnawing
>fear  of  the  Internet  in their future. People are beginning to
>understand what a bunch of  blow-hards  and  know-nothings  staff
>their  daily newspaper and the newsies just can't figure out what
>to do about it, beyond resorting to the smear tactics  that  have
>served them so well in the past. The Globe concluded its diatribe
>on a petulant note:
>
>  "Unlike radio, which made possible the communication  between
>  a  Fuehrer  and his Volk, or the telephone, with its dialogue
>  between individuals, the Internet  realizes  the  anarchist's
>  dream  of  an  unmediated  conversation between each and all.
>  Government must not censor that conversation, but  a  society
>  that  fails  to  teach  citizens  the  necessity  of critical
>  thinking risks being submerged in gullible Salingers."
>
>Do you see where they are going with this? The nasty little swipe
>at  talk radio? They are scared to death that citizens will start
>comparing notes on them and begin to grasp what they have been up
>to  for  the  past  few decades.  Unmediated conversation between
>each and all? Quel horreur! We cannot allow the lower  orders  to
>converse with each other without the wise "mediation" of a higher
>authority. Egad sir!  Why  --  splut,  splut  --  that  would  be
>anarchy!
>
>
>      [ Edward Zehr can be reached at ezehr@capaccess.org ]

>
>  Published in the Dec.  1, 1997 issue of The Washington Weekly
>  Copyright 1997 The Washington Weekly (http://www.federal.com)
>          Reposting permitted with this message intact
>
<snip>

===========================================================================
Paul Andrew Mitchell, Sui Juris      : Counselor at Law, federal witness 01
B.A.: Political Science, UCLA;   M.S.: Public Administration, U.C.Irvine 02
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_____________________________________: Law is authority in written words 09
As agents of the Most High, we came here to establish justice.  We shall 10
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