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Monday, March 17, 2008 12:00 AM

How photos support your own "reality"

Why do 9/11 deniers see an alternative story in pictures of the attacks? Because we all interpret images according to our biases.

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  • Sunday, March 16, 2008 10:27 PM

    @amity

    Amity,

    It really seems to me that you are throwing things at the wall in an effort to see what sticks.

    Having been involved in actual forensic post-mortem investigations of security breeches, I can tell you that this approach does not help and does not work.

    You start with the crime and you work outward from that. You have to start with the 5 "W"s of investigative journalism.. who, what when where and why.

    The classic recent example of the failure of using a pre-supposition to guide an investigation is TWA flight 800.

    The crash happened on the eve of the Atlanta Olympic games, everyone assumed that it was an act of terrorism, and the FBI was brought in.

    Turns out that a known flaw in the design of that particular jet, and airliners in general, brought down the plane.

    The evidence I have seen is irrefutable and the reason that safety precautions weren't taken are typical: it cost too much.

    It was too expensive to fit jets with systems that would filter inert gas into the fuel tanks, and it was impossible to upgrade the wiring in those sorts of jets.

    Greed, negligence and laziness are usually the most plausible causes. Millions of dollars were spent investigating what brought down Flight 800, and in the name of due diligence I cannot blame them, but much time was wasted in tracking down unlikely causes based on presumptive evidence and innuendo.

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