September 11, 2001

Reposted from last year:

I was on a bus. I was standing in a crowded bus from downtown Salt Lake City heading to the University of Utah campus, and I overheard other students talking about a bomb in Washington. When I arrived at the campus I went to the library to study a bit before class started, and they had a tv set up just outside the computer lab with a pretty big crowd around it. As I walked through the library towards my usual study table I stopped off at a bank of computers to check email. A library worker came by and told us that "because of what happened" there was a lot of traffic that morning and so the internet wouldn't work very well.

The rest of the morning is kind of a blur. I slowly began to get more information as word trickled through about what had happened. I skipped my first class. I later went to my behavioral management class where the professor told us not to be afraid because that's what the terrorists want.

At that time I worked as an intern in the federal building downtown. I got there around 12 or 1 and it was a very somber place. I wasn't there very long before they sent us home. I found out later that shortly after I left someone called in a bomb threat.

I rode the train home and watched the news with my family the rest of the day. I was stunned. It was as if the earth itself had paused in disbelief.

The next days were powerful and emotional. Thousands of people had died at the hands of Middle Eastern terrorists. My boss at the federal building was called to active duty. Before he left, he told us of being on the train with a middle eastern man and noticing everyone was quiet and staring at him uncomfortably. My boss spoke up and told everyone they were being stupid. Others later succumbed to the same stupidity and started a Pakistani restaurant on fire.

The next day, or the day after, the LDS Church held a memorial in the Tabernacle. Most of my office mates and I walked to Temple Square to attend. The First Presidency spoke, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang. We all joined in with the choir to sing "America the Beautiful", and few eyes were dry at the end.

The next days and weeks were unsure ones. Body counts were updated from the Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the passengers' actions on Flight 93 made news. I arrived on campus one morning to find the sidewalks covered in messages from anti-war activists urging no retaliation for the attacks. Radio stations began playing songs with audio clips from that day and the days that followed.

Nine days after the attacks, President Bush addressed the country. He confirmed that the attacks were planned and carried out by a terrorist group called al Queda, with a leader named Osama bin Laden- the same organization responsible for numerous attacks on American, and foreign, targets around the world. He praised the American spirit and resilience shown in the face of the attacks, but also pointed out that the attacks killed hundreds of citizens of other nations. He thanked foreign governments that had shown support, and criticized those that harbored terrorist groups like al Queda's. He singled out Afghanistan, and demanded they turn over all terrorist leadership in their country, but he also spoke out against any and all nations that supported terrorism, saying, "Our war on terror begins with al Queda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated."

In October, the LDS church held its General Conference. As church prophet Gordon B. Hinckley began to speak, he was handed a note saying the US had begun its attack on Afghanistan. President Hinckley then gave his prepared talk about the times in which we live. He concluded by saying,

"Now, brothers and sisters, we must do our duty, whatever that duty might be. Peace may be denied for a season. Some of our liberties may be curtailed. We may be inconvenienced. We may even be called on to suffer in one way or another. But God our Eternal Father will watch over this nation and all of the civilized world who look to Him. He has declared, "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord" (Ps. 33:12). Our safety lies in repentance. Our strength comes of obedience to the commandments of God.

Let us be prayerful. Let us pray for righteousness. Let us pray for the forces of good. Let us reach out to help men and women of goodwill, whatever their religious persuasion and wherever they live. Let us stand firm against evil, both at home and abroad. Let us live worthy of the blessings of heaven, reforming our lives where necessary and looking to Him, the Father of us all. He has said, "Be still, and know that I am God" (Ps. 46:10).

Are these perilous times? They are. But there is no need to fear. We can have peace in our hearts and peace in our homes. We can be an influence for good in this world, every one of us."

Is The Democratic Party Responsible For 9/11?

No, not Bill Clinton. The Democratic party of Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson.

The party that said it was okay to "meddle" in the affairs of other countries. The party that said,

The fact of the matter is that we, this generation of Americans, are the first generation of our country ever to be involved in affairs around the globe. From the beginning of this country, from the days of Washington, until the Second World War, this country lived an isolated existence. Through most of our history we were an unaligned country, an uncommitted nation, a neutralist nation. We were by statute as well as by desire. We had believed that we could live behind our two oceans in safety and prosperity in a comfortable distance from the rest of the world...

...We find ourselves entangled with apparently unanswerable problems in unpronounceable places. We discover that our enemy in one decade is our ally the next. We find ourselves committed to governments whose actions we cannot often approve, assisting societies with principles very different from our own...

...We cannot return to the day of the sailing schooner or the covered wagon, even if we wished. And if this Nation is to survive and succeed in the real world of today, we must acknowledge the realities of the world.

Today, Democrats, and others like Ron Paul, Osama bin Laden, and Jeremiah Wright, say that the terrorists attack us because we have meddled in their affairs. We have bases in their countries, we support Israel too much, etc. Basically, it's our own fault that they don't like us, and if we would just stop all the meddling then they would leave us alone.

That meddling started with Democrats half a century ago.

Rosie O'Donnell Agrees With Mormons.....At Least One Of Them Anyway

Rosie O'Donnell is in the news lately for her statements on tv's The View regarding September 11 skepticism. Here's the video of what she said:



A major September 11 conspiracy theory group's co-founder is Steven E. Jones, who was a BYU physics professor. In November 2005, Salt Lake City Utah's Deseret News reported on a paper that Mr. Jones had posted on BYU's physics page that offered his research on the subject. The paper has since been removed and Mr. Jones was put on paid leave and subsequently retired from BYU last fall. However, the paper, titled "Why Indeed Did the World Trade Center Buildings Collapse?", was published in the book "9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out" and can be found at journalof911studies.com. The Deseret News provided the following quote:

"It is quite plausible that explosives were pre-planted in all three buildings and set off after the two plane crashes — which were actually a diversion tactic," he writes. "Muslims are (probably) not to blame for bringing down the WTC buildings after all,"

Professor Jones was also interviewed by a local Salt Lake City news program:



Mr. Jones has done numerous interviews and has spoken at many conferences explaining his findings and answering questions.

However, many organizations are skeptical of the skeptics, including the folks at Popular Mechanics. Their March 2005 cover story was devoted to debunking the debunkers. After Rosie's comments stirred the controversy again, Popular Mechanics revisited the issue. Here are some pertinent quotes:

debris from the 110-floor North Tower hit WTC7 with the force of a volcanic eruption. Nearly a quarter of the building was carved away over the bottom 10 stories on its south face, and significant damage was visible up to the 18th floor.

The North and South Towers of the World Trade Center weren’t knocked down by planes—they both stood for more than a half-hour after the impacts. But the crashes destroyed support columns and ignited infernos that ultimately weakened—not melted—the steel structures until the towers could no longer support their own weights. Ms. O’Donnell fundamentally misstates the case with her use of the word “melted”.

Popular Mechanic's website has many valuable photographs of the towers and the damage done to them by the two planes. They also reveal that WTC7

"housed the city’s emergency command center, so there were a number of fuel tanks located throughout the building—including two 6000-gal. tanks in the basement that fed some generators in the building by pressurized lines."

Popular Mechanics also refutes Mr. Jones's claim that the towers were felled by explosives by saying that wiring the buildings for a controlled demolition "would present insurmountable logistical challenges."

The 9/11 conspiracy groups are not satisfied with these explanations however. Nor, I suspect, will they ever be. Rosie O'Donnell says she would like to have physicists on the show to discuss the issue. Hopefully they will have physicists from both sides of the argument so a real discussion might be possible. Maybe she'll invite Mr. Jones. It might possibly be the only time she ever agrees with a Mormon.