"The passengers on the flights involved in 9/11 did use their cell phones, right?

I think it's interesting that cell phones can actually work when you're 40K feet up. What tower are they connecting to?"

Unfortunately, Mr. Smith is disinclined to address the many absurdities and impossibilities in the official 9/11 story. It is easier to dismiss all who question the official story as "kooks". Fortunately, their are highly experienced pilots who do question the government version of the events of 9/11. These include, to name a few:

Robert Balsamo

4000TT Commercial, Instrument, Multi, CFI II MEI

Corporate Chief Pilot

135 Capt

121 FO Independence Air/Atlantic Coast Airlines

King Air C-90/200, Dornier 328JET

Captain Russ Wittenberg (ret)

30,000+ Total Flight Time

707, 727, 737, 747, 757, 767, 777

Pan Am, United

United States Air Force (ret)

Over 100 Combat Missions Flown

Has time in:

- N591UA (Aircraft dispatched as United 93)

- N612UA (Aircraft dispatched as United 175)

John Lear

Son of Bill Lear

(Founder, creator of the Lear Jet Corporation)

More than 40 years of Flying

19,000+ TT

23 Type ratings

Flight experience includes 707, DC-8, 727, L10-11

Jeff Latas

-Over 20 years in the USAF

--USAF Accident investigation Board President

--Flew the F-111, T38, and F-15E

--Combat experience in the F-15E includes Desert Storm and four tours of duty in Northern and Southern Watch

--Weapons Requirements Officer, USAF HQ, Pentagon

--Standard and Evaluations Flight Examiner, Command level

-Currently Captain for JetBlue Airways

Guy S. Razer, LtCol, USAF (Ret)

3,500+ Hours Total Flight Time

F-15E/C, F-111A/D/E/F/EF, F-16, F-18, B-1, Mig-29, SU-22, T-37/38, Various Cvilian Prop

Combat Time: Operation Northern Watch

USAF Fighter Weapons School Instructor

NATO Tactical Leadership Program Instructor/Mission Coordinator

USAF Material Command Weapons Development Test Pilot

Combat Support Coordination Team 2 Airpower Coordinator, South Korea

All Service Combat Identification Evaluation Team Operations Officer

Boeing F-22 Pilot Instructor

MS Aeronautical Studies, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Sorry about the omission. Here is the link to an organization called Pilots for 9/11 Truth. You can see a full list of members there, many of them highly qualified civilian and military pilots. They have come to no conclusions about 9/11 except that the official story is impossible.

http://pilotsfor911truth.org/

How rare for someone to publically admit mistakes. And how refreshing.

"Yawn... A rather pedestrian topic this time. More interesting - and ominous - is the fact that flying through a country such as the U.S., with merely an in-airport momentary stopover, can lead to being tossed in a military prison for alleged terrorism."

Good point. Can Maher Arar really be said to have "seen" Syria from his grave-like torture cell? [See story http://www.maherarar.ca/mahers%20story.php}

"The fragile psyches of Wall Street traders who played such a pivotal role in creating this mess by romping through the derivatives wonderland, are now in control of government strategy. That can't be good."

What "government strategy"? The Federal Reserve is a consortium of private banks, not a government agency. It represents private capital, not government policy. So it will always "bail out" the plutocrats on Wall street.

"The system is private, conducted for the sole purpose of obtaining the greatest possible profits from the use of other people's money, and in the interest of the stockholders and those allied with them." Charles Lindberg,Sr. (1915)

"But I have to wonder how anyone considers Charles Lindberg (an airplane pilot living in 1915) to be an expert on the nature of the bank as it exists today."

Charles Lindberg Sr. was a U.S. congressman at the time of the founding of the Federal Reserve and father to the "airplane pilot".

"What's required and what I suspect no politician will even mention much less actually do, is to aggressively redistribute income downward via taxation and spending policies. In other words, we have to increase taxes on the wealthy and continue strong government spending."

I agree completely, but since this is the exact opposite of the plutocracy's drive since Reagan to further concentrate wealth in the hands of the top 1% by screwing the middle class it will never happen.Their greed will be their undoing. By destroying the middle class, the rich will destroy the economy and their profits. They will still have their numbered Cayman Islands tax free accounts, however.

"Question: Would you put is past Bush to increase the severity of the recession so that it lasts well into he next administration, giving the Republicans a chance to regain power after a 1-term Democratic presidency? Is that thought way too cynical?"

Not cynical enough. Bush and the neo-cons (who are no more than puppets of the plutocracy) have been playing "starve the beast" for years. They deliberately waste a trillion on a war to enrich their cronies and rack up an enormous budget deficit so by the time they leave office there is no money left for middle class benefits like universal health care and good schools. It is a war between the rich elite and the working middle class. The rich are winning...

Patrick, you forgot the most important thing that fills pilots with dread - layoffs.

"In Canada, the number of people who go bankrupt because they can't pay their medical bills is... ZERO."

Actually, in Canada there are no such things as medical bills. You go to the doctor or hospital, show your health card and that's it. You have better things to think about than what treatment costs - like recovering your health.

As long as Americans accept showering the military inductrial complex (and the medical and pharmaceutical complexes) with hundreds of billions in tax money without demanding what every other civilized country in the world has, they deserve what they [don't] get.