9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes

Vanity Fair's website has published "United 93" producer Michael Bronner's article, "9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes," including audio excerpts. Bronner was given three CDs containing the Northeast Air Defense Sector audio files for September 11, which he summarizes in his very interesting article.

It turns out that there was some inaccurate and misleading testimony to the 9/11 Commission:

In the chronology presented to the 9/11 commission, Colonel Scott put the time NORAD was first notified about United 93 at 9:16 a.m., from which time, he said, commanders tracked the flight closely. (It crashed at 10:03 a.m.) If it had indeed been necessary to "take lives in the air" with United 93, or any incoming flight to Washington, the two armed fighters from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia would have been the ones called upon to carry out the shootdown. In Colonel Scott's account, those jets were given the order to launch at 9:24, within seconds of NEADS's receiving the F.A.A.'s report of the possible hijacking of American 77, the plane that would ultimately hit the Pentagon. This time line suggests the system was starting to work: the F.A.A. reports a hijacking, and the military reacts instantaneously. Launching after the report of American 77 would, in theory, have put the fighters in the air and in position over Washington in plenty of time to react to United 93.

In testimony a few minutes later, however, General Arnold added an unexpected twist: "We launched the aircraft out of Langley to put them over top of Washington, D.C., not in response to American Airlines 77, but really to put them in position in case United 93 were to head that way."

How strange, John Azzarello, a former prosecutor and one of the commission's staff members, thought. "I remember being at the hearing in '03 and wondering why they didn't seem to have their stories straight. That struck me as odd."

But the facts are not supportive of conspiracy theories--rather, the facts indicate that the misleading testimony was an attempt to make a simpler story out of what actually happened:

As the tapes reveal in stark detail, parts of Scott's and Arnold's testimony were misleading, and others simply false. At 9:16 a.m., when Arnold and Marr had supposedly begun their tracking of United 93, the plane had not yet been hijacked. In fact, NEADS wouldn't get word about United 93 for another 51 minutes. And while NORAD commanders did, indeed, order the Langley fighters to scramble at 9:24, as Scott and Arnold testified, it was not in response to the hijacking of American 77 or United 93. Rather, they were chasing a ghost. NEADS was entering the most chaotic period of the morning.

There was a lot of confusion about which planes had gone where due to lack of radar or electronic transponder data--although American 11 had already hit the World Trade Center, it was that plane that they thought they were tracking.

The release of this information presents a wealth of data that is inconsistent with the popular 9/11 conspiracy theories. If history is any guide, conspiracy theorists will scour it for any data points that they can fit into a conspiracy theory while ignoring the rest. Rather than collecting all of the best data and using it to construct the big picture and best explanation, they collect lots of individual data points that strike them as somehow salient, and build fanciful theories that are at odds with most of the actual data.

Flock of starlings land on tree that can barely support their weight

This nice video from Scott Fraser via Rocketboom shows a large number of starlings landing on a tree that can barely support their weight. One viewer comments:

• it is a sign in the form of a angel.

  08-01-2006by bpsolka@verizon.net

the family who filmed this show were meant to see this and show us.if you notice the branches bent into angel shape wings. I don,t know what sign it is.but it must be gods way of showing himself through the birds.and have the birds done this again after this video was shot.

Some screwed housing speculators in Phoenix

The Arizona Republic prints a story on some housing speculators now being burned:

Two houses on the same north Valley street, similar in size and age, are for sale. One lists for $749,000 and the other for $775,000. A third house came on the market on the same street a few doors from the other two. The new listing was similar to the others in size and age but priced at $659,000.

Reaction: outrage.

"The neighbors were really mad," said Thomas Stornelli, principal of Global Network of Homes in Scottsdale. "They knocked on the door and asked, 'What are you thinking?' For a lot of people, their home equity is their bank. It's like taking money out of someone's bank, their retirement account. People (future buyers) are going to use that house as a comp, even if it doesn't have the same upgrades. It's going to leave a mark."

The owners of the least- expensive home were equally upset. They were in the midst of a corporate relocation and wanted to sell quickly. Suddenly, angry neighbors were confronting them. One night, someone tore down their for-sale sign.

Stornelli is the listing agent for one of the higher-priced homes. His approach is to try for the higher prices, which he believes are justified in Scottsdale.

"Whenever you mix emotion and finance, there's going to be stress," he said. "As a Realtor, we deal with that every day."

The market has proven everyone wrong. None of the houses had sold as of the third week of this month.

Another account in the same story:

A woman walked into Barry's Realty Executives office about nine weeks ago, sat down and began crying. She said she bought two houses last year, fixed them up and quickly sold them, making a $50,000 profit on each.

She was a novice investor, but it all looked easy. She took her profits, threw in some extra money and bought five more houses. She spent money fixing them up, but when she put the houses on the market, she realized she had bought at the peak, Barry said.

"Her eyes just started to well up, and she just started bawling," Barry said. "She said she couldn't sell them for what she bought them for. She said her monthly payments were about $20,000."

Barry suggested turning them into rentals. She told him she couldn't get enough rent to make it worthwhile.

"She was expecting to flip them," he said. "The market flipped her. She was devastated. People have forgotten that houses are not a liquid asset. They never were meant to be."

There are a few others in the report. I expect we'll see more stories like this over the next couple of years as ARMs reset on people who are unable to sell or refinance.

Also check out the comments on this story at The Housing Bubble Blog.

Mel Gibson DUI arrest update

CNN reports that Mel Gibson has released a statement about his DUI arrest in which he says:

I acted like a person completely out of control when I was arrested, and said things that I do not believe to be true and which are despicable. I am deeply ashamed of everything I said, and I apologize to anyone who I have offended.

But they don't tell us what these things are. TMZ.com, however, has published a very plausible account of the full police report (including images of report pages):

The actor began swearing uncontrollably. Gibson repeatedly said, "My life is f****d." Law enforcement sources say the deputy, worried that Gibson might become violent, told the actor that he was supposed to cuff him but would not, as long as Gibson cooperated. As the two stood next to the hood of the patrol car, the deputy asked Gibson to get inside. Deputy Mee then walked over to the passenger door and opened it. The report says Gibson then said, "I'm not going to get in your car," and bolted to his car. The deputy quickly subdued Gibson, cuffed him and put him inside the patrol car.
...
Once inside the car, a source directly connected with the case says Gibson began banging himself against the seat. The report says Gibson told the deputy, "You mother f****r. I'm going to f*** you." The report also says "Gibson almost continually [sic] threatened me saying he 'owns Malibu' and will spend all of his money to 'get even' with me."

The report says Gibson then launched into a barrage of anti-Semitic statements: "F*****g Jews... The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world." Gibson then asked the deputy, "Are you a Jew?"

...

A law enforcement source says Gibson then noticed another female sergeant and yelled, "What do you think you're looking at, sugar tits?"

We're told Gibson took two blood alcohol tests, which were videotaped, and continued saying how "f****d" he was and how he was going to "f***" Deputy Mee.

Gibson was put in a cell with handcuffs on. He said he needed to urinate, and after a few minutes tried manipulating his hands to unzip his pants. Sources say Deputy Mee thought Gibson was going to urinate on the floor of the booking cell and asked someone to take Gibson to the bathroom.

And there's plenty more at TMZ.com, which claims that L.A. County Sheriff's Deputy James Mee was forced to rewrite his report to make it less "inflammatory" given the current situation in Israel.

Again, this all seems quite consistent with Mel Gibson's prior behavior and attitudes about women and other subjects.

Hat tip to Talking Points Memo.

UPDATE July 30, 2006: The L.A. Times also has coverage of this which confirms the TMZ.com account.

Dogs and the Bible

Odyssey Truett, a Springer Spaniel, comments on the Bible's negativity about dogs.

(Hat tip to Ed Babinski.)

Mel Gibson arrested for DUI

Mel Gibson, whose idiotic views on evolution and the role of women resulted in more hits to this blog than any other post, was arrested in Malibu on suspicion of driving under the influence.

Luskin vs. Judge Jones on peer-reviewed publications supporting ID

Casey Luskin, responding to a point in a book review by John Derbyshire, argues that Judge Jones was incorrect in his decision in Kitzmiller v. Dover when he wrote that Intelligent Design is not supported by any peer-reviewed publications.

As Wesley Elsberry shows, Luskin's argument is not with Jones but with the defense in the Dover case, and in particular with the testimony of Michael Behe, who agreed in cross-examination that "there are no peer reviewed articles by anyone advocating for intelligent design supported by pertinent experiments or calculations which provide detailed rigorous accounts of how intelligent design of any biological system occurred."

Q. [Rothschild] Now you have never argued for intelligent design in a peer reviewed scientific journal, correct?

A. [Behe] No, I argued for it in my book.

Q. Not in a peer reviewed scientific journal?

A. That’s correct.

Q. And, in fact, there are no peer reviewed articles by anyone advocating for intelligent design supported by pertinent experiments or calculations which provide detailed rigorous accounts of how intelligent design of any biological system occurred, is that correct?

A. That is correct, yes.

Jones had to make his decision on the basis of the evidence presented in his court, not on the basis of Luskin's list of publications. Of the documents Luskin lists in refutation of Jones' statements, one of them, a paper by Behe and Snoke, was addressed specifically in the case, and it did not support intelligent design. As Ed Brayton and others have pointed out, in cross-examination in the Dover trial it came out that the Behe and Snoke paper actually is strong evidence against the existence of irreducible complexity. (The Ed Brayton post may also now be found at scienceblogs.com.)

Luskin's list of alleged peer-reviewed publications supporting intelligent design hasn't undergone cross-examination in court (except for Behe and Snoke, the treatment of which in the trial Luskin fails to address). Were the publications introduced into the trial, there is little doubt that they would similarly have been torn apart due to lack of proper peer review, lack of original research, and lack of support for intelligent design, as has already occurred at the TalkOrigins site which Luskin links to (but fails to engage with).

9th Circuit approves random warrantless searches and seizures of laptops

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that border police have the right to conduct random warrantless searches and seizures of laptops--including full forensic disk examination.

I recommend using full-disk encryption.

Hat tip to The Agitator.

VoIP quality degradation shows need for prioritization

A study by Brix Networks, which runs TestYourVoip.com, shows that the quality of VoIP calls has degraded over the last 18 months. Their tests of VoIP connections show that 20 percent of calls have unacceptable quality, up from 15% 18 months ago. Brix's CTO says that the cause is competition for network resources--i.e., congestion.

The solution is, of course, prioritization--putting voice and other latency and jitter-sensitive traffic in a higher class of service with QoS (quality of service).

Thanks to Matt Sherman for the link.

Further comments on the subject may be found at Richard Bennett's Original Blog and by James Gattuso at the Technology Liberation Front.

Tucson #7 most overpriced city on Forbes list

Tucson made Forbes' list of the top 10 most overpriced cities in the United States for 2006 at #7. The list is based on the largest 112 metro areas in Forbes' 2006 list of best places for business and careers, ranking them based on job growth, cost of living, housing affordability, and salaries. The ten most overpriced locations have the highest costs of living, lowest housing affordability, least job growth, and lowest salaries.

1. Essex County, Massachusetts
2. San Francisco, California
3. San Jose, California
4. Honolulu, Hawaii
5. Cambridge, Massachusetts
6. New York City, New York
7. Tucson, Arizona
8. Oakland, California
9. Boston, Massachusetts
10. Los Angeles, California