The strange case of the 9/11 cell phone calls

Last month, Qualcomm Corporation issued a press release stating that they had developed a new technology that would finally make it possible to make cellular phone calls from commercial airliners. Using a technology called "Pico Cells", the system will work as a link between the airliner and ground towers. According to the press release, it is currently impossible to connect by cell phone in a plane that is above 4,000 feet.

During the Republican National Convention in New York City last month, Deena Burnett, widow of Flight 93 victim Tom Burnett, spoke of the four telephone calls she received from her husband aboard the doomed airliner on September 11th, all of which were received from his cell phone, one of which lasted 13 minutes.

With the FAA statement that Flight 93 never went below 29,000 feet until its' sudden fatal plunge, these two stories seem to be mutually exclusive. Either it is possible to make cell phone calls from a commercial jetliner in flight at cruising altitude - or it isn't.

If it is already possible to use a cell phone on a plane, why is Qualcomm so excited about their Pico chip? If it is not possible to do so, there's an even bigger problem.

Because there are no survivors of any of the 911 planes, the only "eyewitness" testimony we have is the paraphrased transcripts of phone calls made to family members. This is where we get the descriptions of "Arab looking men" with knives and box cutters, talking about "Allah". It is from these calls we hear the immortal and heroic "Let's roll!".

I decided to investigate as thoroughly as possible whether or not the phone calls from Flight 93 and other hijacked aircraft were possible. First I looked into whether the calls could have been made using the "air phone" service aboard the planes. Burnett's wife reported the calls came from her husband's cell phone. Two calls by other passengers were made from locked lavatories, which would have been impossible to make by airphone. Jeremy Glick spoke with his wife for 20 minutes from his cell phone, according to the 911 Commission. These calls occurred while the plane was cruising at over 30,000 feet according to news reports and the 911 Commission.

Although there were calls made from airphones by Todd Beamer and other passengers, there were also undoubtedly some calls that are claimed to have originated from cell phones. In some cases witnesses said they recognized the family member's number on their caller ID.
So the critical question becomes this: Is it possible to make a cell phone call from cruising altitudes in a jetliner? The answer is disturbing, disquieting, and emphatic.

Alexa Graf, a spokesman of AT&T, commenting in the immediate wake of the 9/11 attacks, said it was "a fluke that the [9/11] calls reached their destinations".
NSA-trained Electronic Warfare specialist Steve Moser goes further, expressing that he has "severe doubt that ordinary cell phone calls were ever made from the aircraft (Flight 93)". Moser explains: "When you make a cell phone call, the first thing that happens is your cell phone needs to contact a transponder and complete a digital handshake. If an aircraft is going five hundred miles an hour, your cell phone will not be able to contact a tower, tell the tower who you are and who your provider is, tell the tower what mode it wants to communicate with, and establish that it is in a roaming area, before it passes out of range. It takes 30-45 seconds to do that. Though it is sometimes possible to connect during takeoff and landing, under the situation that was claimed the calls were impossible."

Independent researcher A. K. Dewdney conducted a series of experiments in February and March of 2003, over Toronto, Ontario. Chartering planes from a local airport, Dewdney's team went aloft with different cell phones licensed by all major providers. The pilots were instructed to fly in a grid that covered the overlapping cellular communication towers of five major carriers in metropolitan Toronto. Team members kept records of calls and results from varying altitudes. At 2000 feet, calls could be made about half the time. At 4,000 feet only an average of one in 4 calls was completed. At 6,000 feet, the average was 1 in 12 calls connected. At 8,000 feet and above there was no connection by any of the phones. Dewdney's report concluded "It may be noted in passing that these experiments were conducted in a radio-transparent aircraft with carbon-fibre construction. Failure to make a call from such an aircraft with any particular brand of cellphone spells automatic failure for the same phone from a metal-clad aircraft flying at the same altitude. A metal skin attenuates all cell phone signals to a significant degree. It may safely be concluded that the operational ceiling for cellular phones in aluminum skin aircraft (passenger liners, for example) would be significantly lower than the ones reported here. It may therefore safely be concluded that cell phone calls from passenger aircraft are physically impossible above 8000 feet, and statistically unlikely below that altitude."
Skytel Wireless, a leading corporate cellular service provider, assures its' customers: "If you're out of range, on an airplane, for example, the system stores incoming messages for up to 72 hours, automatically delivering them when you return to full service."

Finally, I called a friend who works for Jet Blue in New York City as a flight attendant. I asked her if she had ever used her cell phone aboard a flight. "Sure" she said, "but not in the air". I asked her why not. "Well, first of all, it's against the rules. It interferes with the plane's electronics." So I asked her if she turned her phone off to avoid getting calls during flights. "No, we don't have to do that. The phone loses the signal automatically right after we take off. There's no signal, so it won't ring anyway until we land."

Last of all I got in a friend's boat equipped with GPS, and headed out into the Gulf on a clear afternoon. Less than 3 miles out from Galveston, there was no longer any signal on my Verizon Wireless phone, and none on his Nextel. That's half the distance of the flight 93 calls, and we weren't traveling at 500 mph either. Ask any local mariner and they can confirm this.
So, scientifically and technologically, the cell phone calls of 9-11 were impossible. There were definitely some calls made from airphones, and probably from the WTC planes, which were low enough to connect with a tower for a few minutes before impact. But some of the calls that were reportedly made that day are simply impossible, especially aboard Flight 93.

Of course, all of the people who died on that day were heroes who died in an act of war against the American people, no matter what happened. It requires no myth, no propaganda.
What is the truth about the cell phone calls of 9-11? The significance of this mystery is something historians may puzzle over for years to come.

Government forced to defend climate change advert

The government's chief scientist has been forced to justify controversial claims in the government's latest climate change advertisement, Channel 4 News has learnt.

The "storybook" TV campaign features a father reading his daughter a frightening bedtime story about global warming. This programme understands that Clearcast, the body responsible for vetting TV adverts, has questioned the scientific evidence used in the campaign.

Clearcast's role is to check that adverts touching on issues of public controversy are impartial - in line with broadcasting rules. After learning that questions had been raised, the government's top scientific advisers penned a furious retort to Clearcast.

The letter, seen by Channel 4 News, states: "We are concerned that the basic scientific inferences referred to in the latest...campaign are being brought into question by Clearcast.

"We are both surprised and disturbed that the premise of the television campaign is being questioned, given the incontrovertible nature of the science that underpins the campaign material."

Read the letter from the government to Clearcast in full here.

The government says it hasn't broken the rules because the advert is based on fact. It was eventually cleared for broadcast, but is now being investigating by the advertising watchdog after triggering 785 complaints from members of the public.

The fresh dispute comes after a week of allegations that scientists are manipulating official data. Leaked emails have led to charges the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit has distorted the evidence on global warming.

The chief scientist John Beddington and the energy department's main scientific adviser Robert Watson wrote the letter to Clearcast. It's emerged that Professor Watson is director of strategic development at the UEA's Climatic Research Unit.

A 'mendacious' advert

Lord Lawson, the Conservative former chancellor who has just launched a think tank devoted to challenging conventional wisdom about climate change, told Channel 4 News the advert was "mendacious".

He said: "There are two things wrong with this ad. First, I am sure that if a commercial organisation had tried an ad which is as imaginative, as inventive as this one and as mendacious, it would not be permitted. The second thing is the focus of the ad is to scare young children and I think that's positively immoral."

But the Energy Secretary Ed Miliband told the programme: "The problem is that the sceptics who want to cast doubt on this are the modern equivalent of the Flat Earth Society because the science is very clear about this. Climate change is real. It's happening. It's man-made.

"Frankly it's irresponsible to suggest that it isn't happening and it isn't man-made and it's trying to suggest that there is an easy way out of climate change. Well I'm afraid there isn't an easy way out. We want to make it as financially possible as possible for people to make the transition but the truth is these are hard decisions that we have to make in order to make this transition. It's necessary and the science is very clear."

Climate change survey

Private research commissioned by the energy department - and seen by Channel 4 News - shows the scale of the challenge facing the government as it attempts to persuade people to combat the threat from global warming. Those surveyed didn't see climate change "having a serious impact in the UK". And they wanted the government to do more about the problem before they individually would do their bit.

Worryingly for the government, the research also found "a lack of understanding...of what climate change actually is, how it is caused, what the impact will be, what that might mean to human life and when the consequences might happen".

Not only do ministers have to convince a sceptical public about the effects of global warming, but they also have to persuade people to pay for measures to fight it.

The government estimates that by 2020 the average household energy bill will increase by £92 a year as energy companies pass on to consumers the cost of tackling climate change.

On top of that, many householders will have to dig into their own pockets for energy saving devices around the home.

The government is to encourage householders to pay for loft lagging, cavity wall insulation and other green initiatives by applying for long-term loans from supermarkets, banks, local authorities and energy companies.

ClimateGate Dance

Click this link ...... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6lPvMDJNVM

From Their Own Mouths: Global Warming is a Fraud

"We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public's imagination... So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts... Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." - Stephen Schneider, Stanford Professor of Climatology, lead author of many IPCC reports

"Unless we announce disasters no one will listen." - Sir John Houghton, first chairman of IPCC

"It doesn't matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true." - Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace

"We've got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy." - Timothy Wirth, President of the UN Foundation

"No matter if the science of global warming is all phony... climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world." - Christine Stewart, fmr Canadian Minister of the Environment

"The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe." - emeritus professor Daniel Botkin

"We require a central organizing principle - one agreed to voluntarily. Minor shifts in policy, moderate improvement in laws and regulations, rhetoric offered in lieu of genuine change - these are all forms of appeasement, designed to satisfy the public’s desire to believe that sacrifice, struggle and a wrenching transformation of society will not be necessary." - Al Gore, Earth in the Balance

"Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsiblity to bring that about?" - Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme

"A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States. De-development means bringing our economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation." - Paul Ehrlich, Professor of Population Studies

"The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States. We can't let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the US. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are." - Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund

"Global Sustainability requires the deliberate quest of poverty, reduced resource consumption and set levels of mortality control." - Professor Maurice King

"Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class - involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing - are not sustainable." - Maurice Strong, Rio Earth Summit

"Complex technology of any sort is an assault on human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it." - Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute

"The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet." - Jeremy Rifkin, Greenhouse Crisis Foundation

"Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun." - Prof Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University

"The big threat to the planet is people: there are too many, doing too well economically and burning too much oil." – Sir James Lovelock, BBC Interview

"My three main goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness, with it’s full complement of species, returning throughout the world." -Dave Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!

"A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal." - Ted Turner, founder of CNN and major UN donor

"... the resultant ideal sustainable population is hence more than 500 million but less than one billion." - Club of Rome, Goals for Mankind

"If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels." - Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, patron of the World Wildlife Fund

"I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems." - John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal

"The extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable but a good thing." - Christopher Manes, Earth First!

"Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license. All potential parents should be required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing." - David Brower, first Executive Director of the Sierra Club

The Skeleton in Arne Duncan's Closet

Gerald W. Bracey has something you should read. Here's a report from WLS-TV Chicago.

Take back Al Gore's Oscar, 2 Academy members demand in light of Climategate

No, it wouldn't do anything for the environment.

But two Hollywood conservatives (yes, there are some) have called upon the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to rescind the prestigious, profitable gold Oscar statuette that it gave ex-Vice President Al Gore et al two years ago for the environmental movie "An Inconvenient Truth."

Roger L. Simon and Lionel Chetwynd, both Academy members, are among a small, meandering pack of known political conservatives still believed to be on the loose in the liberal bastion of movie-making.

In 2007, Hollywood's Academy sanctified Gore's cinematic message of global warming with its famous statue, enriched his earnings by $100,000 per 85-minute appearance and helped elevate the Tennesseean's profile to win the Nobel Peace Prize despite losing the election battle of 2000 to a Texan and living in a large house with lots of energy-driven appliances.

Chetwynd and Simon were prompted to make their hopeless demand this week by the....

...leak two weeks ago of a blizzard of British academic e-mails purporting to show that scientists at the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit systematically falsified data to document the appearance of global warming in recent years.

The university is reportedly investigating the claims, which added dry fuel to the never-ending political debate over whether the Earth really is warming as a result of human activity or if it's just normal natural cycles and the debate is what's heated. The demand to withdraw Gore's award provides yet another opportunity to argue.

The startling leak comes at an inconvenient time just before next week's United Nations' climate change meeting that will cause an immense carbon footprint with thousands of people flying up or over to Denmark to talk about saving the environment.

These airplanes will include Air Force One with its primary passenger President Obama, who's returning to the Copenhagen scene where he didn't help win the 2016 Summer Olympics for Chicago, which could do with a little global warming at this time of year.

Simon, a screenwriter who is also chief executive officer of Pajamas Media, a network of conservative online blogs, conceded he knew of no precedent for the Academy withdrawing a previously-awarded Oscar, despite decades of Hollywood hijinks and worse. But, he added, "I think they should rescind this one."

The controversial leaked documents have been assembled here by Pajamas Media and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. The joint demand by Simon and filmmaker Chetwynd is available on video here.

The television news-watching world in America has not learned much about the so-called Climategate scandal because it has not really been mentioned on the air except for a notorious cable news channel named for a three-lettered, wily, wild animal that often seems to revel in debunking liberal shibboleths.

Network news programs have been far more concerned with the obviously more important White House party-crasher story involving a couple of formally-dressed phonies.

The falsified documents do not come up in Gore interview excerpts published late last night here by Politico's John F. Harris and Mike Allen.

This week White House Press Secy. Robert Gibbs claimed that global warming was no longer in dispute by most people. But a subsequent Rasmussen Reports poll of Americans finds only one in four adults believe most scientists agree on the topic.

And while only 20% claim to have followed the leaked e-mail story Very Closely, nearly 60% believe it is at least somewhat likely that scientists have falsified environmental data to support their own global warming beliefs and theories.

-- Andrew Malcolm

How a Three Digit Credit Score Reflects Consumerism and not Financial Independence.

Americans carry $900 billion in credit card debt. Approximately 75 percent of all those eligible for credit, those that are 18 years or older, have a credit rating score at any given time. This mysterious three digit score named a FICO Score is the basis for loans, interest rates, and should reflect your ability to manage debt. Yet this is one of those confusing public relation developed ideas that tries to water down the fact that going into debt is somehow good for average Americans. Not only is going into debt good, you now have a credit score that is supposed to be some kind of financial report card.

Like the rating agencies labeling crap mortgage backed securities as “AAA” and turning out to be more like “FFF” people need to examine the entire system from the ground up. The credit card industry is gouging the living daylights out of consumers as the unemployment and underemployment rate hits 17.5 percent. You would think that the banking sector that owes its life to the American taxpayer for bailing it out would have some sympathy. Instead, the new Wall Street oligarchy is running the show and we have new feudal lords running this country. The credit card is merely your key into the kingdom of serfdom.

The credit card industry with the mysterious FICO score would like you to believe that there is some enormous world of credit cards out in the market. In reality, it is simply rebranding. 5 issuers make up over 60 percent of all credit card debt:

FICO stands for Fair Isaac Corporation and provides services to the world’s 10 largest banks. No shocker there. The FICO score is based on multiple factors and ranges from 300 to 850:

Source: PBS

Fair Isaac Corporation doesn’t store the credit scores but provides the big three credit reporting agencies with the algorithm to compute the score. It is a very tiny and selective world. You would think that something as important as a credit score would be open to the public but it isn’t. In our current market with bail outs and hidden agendas on Wall Street, transparency is of paramount importance. But of course why would they give up the algorithm since so much money is based on this score?

Looking at the chart above, there are flaws in the way the system is based. This is what we are told on the surface regarding the credit scoring model. I’ll give you a personal experience where my score dropped a few points for an otherwise financially wise move. The bottom feeders of the credit card industry have taken it upon their shoulders to now put clamps around good paying customers. Since they can’t squeeze any more blood out of 27 million unemployed or underemployed Americans, many who were recruited from companies like Providian, credit card companies are now going after “good FICO score” customers. On one card I had a line of $7,000. I rarely used the card but it had a “fixed” rate of 8.99%. Not bad for emergencies. But during this crisis as they were sucking the taxpayer dry and uncle Ben has opened up the Fed for banks to borrow at practically zero percent, these kind criminals decided to hike my rate up to 19.99 percent. No late payments. A few years of history. Since they were experiencing “unusual” changes in the economy (like screwing it up to being with) they had to raise my rate. So I called them up and canceled the card. What use is it raging against someone in India (I did ask my representative his location) when the true criminals are sitting on Wall Street? He stated that the only option was accepting the 19.99 percent rate or closing my account. I wonder if bailed out banks got ultimatums like that?

A few months later I noticed my overall FICO had dropped by 15 points. Not a big deal but what kind of logic is this? Is this the algorithm that is super top secret? This is like penalizing a gymnast for landing too many perfect dismounts. According to the system, the overall debt ratio increased because that $7,000 line is now vanished in thin air. Yet any person heading on the path of financial independence realizes that less credit card debt is good. The financial industry is fleecing the American public in so many ways they don’t even bother being careful about it anymore.

The Department of Justice did an interesting report a few years ago looking at Chapter 7 bankruptcy cases. As you would expect, as people got older the debt simply spiraled out of control:

The chart above simply shows the damage being done over years. Credit card debt is merely one factor in many bankruptcy cases. So you might say “well stay away from any form of credit then!” The problem is, even if you are looking to rent a home many people will simply run your credit score. Looking for a decent mortgage? Getting a good rate is largely based on your credit worthiness (at least now it is). Even some employers (the two that are hiring) will run your credit report. To function in our society the financial sector has largely forced people to comply like sheep. Think of overdraft fees. Why doesn’t the banking sector simply setup an opt-in policy instead of having everyone by default taking overdraft charges of $39 for a $5 cup of coffee? Because they make billions from this:

“Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) — U.S. limits on overdraft fees may cost banks more than $15 billion in revenue and prompt lenders to impose charges to close the gap, said the head of consulting firm Oliver Wyman’s North American financial-services business.

“We’re talking about $15 billion of revenue that basically falls right to the bottom line, so to take that out of the banking system then that’s $15 billion of capital that is not being created,” Michael Poulos said in an interview yesterday. “For some of our clients, this is a very big deal and it’s not clear that regulators have thought everything through.”

You notice how they call this revenue? PBS had a special on Frontline showing a banking industry lobby front man saying that the public wants overdraft access. Really? Show us the data. I wonder how much the public can take from this industry. It is literally bank robbery. They hide behind phony data and a structure that traps many Americans. Now that they can’t trap the poor, they are going after middle class Americans that are merely trying to make ends meet.

Of course, recent legislation is merely a token gesture. It has been gutted and practically written by the industry. The system is flawed. Wall Street and the banking industry have become invalid just like the FICO credit score. In California, we are seeing thousands of people default on mortgages strategically that had “excellent” credit scores. Why? Many don’t want to be paying for decades on an asset that has collapsed by 30, 40, or even 50 percent.

Until we reign in the financial sector, the average American is going to see their financial future sucked into the Wall Street vortex. Wall Street wags their finger and says, “keep up your credit score you little consumer” while they gamble like ADHD maniacs funded by the U.S. taxpayer on the most speculative products on the planet. Do as I say, not as I do.