Osaka Buys Snake Oil

Oh well! Richard Gage definitely won over the audience again!

And yet, there were so many utterly blatant distortions going on in his presentation.

I asked him, again, where the sounds of explosions were in the videos of the collapse of WTC7 given that he had used the testimony of Kevin McPadden as evidence of one of the characteristics of a controlled demolition. He said, and this is verbatim, "There are several videos which have explosions and there are several videos that don't have explosions, I could play some for you that do. It's very interesting that the audio appears to have been manipulated in some cases but we have several witnesses who have indeed, in fact, in the case of the Twin Towers dozens and dozens of witnesses talking about explosions."

I forgot to ask him about a million questions which were all screaming for attention, such as whether or not he thought the Red Cross were part of the conspiracy. I did ask one of his cohorts this question, and I may have phrased it awkwardly, "Do you think the Red Cross exploded WTC7?" or words to that effect. He corrected me and said that it was a Red Cross guy listening to the countdown on his radio. I realize there's an important distinction, of a kind, but pointed out that someone in the Red Cross still seems to have been implicated in this conspiracy all the same (and that seems completely contrary to what the Red Cross are [I]supposed[/I] to do). He said, "Well, yeah, honestly I don't think it is a good clip to play because it isn't really verifiable and frankly I wouldn't include it in the presentation." Oh yeah? "Yeah, because we have far more testimony about that and so many witnesses that say they heard explosions..."

He asked me if I had ever heard of Willie Rodriguez... Sure! I asked him if he had ever heard of Arturo Griffith. He said, of course, but that I should remind him again who he was. So I did, and suddenly we were talking about another group of people. I was told about Mr X and Mrs Y who heard an explosion while both towers were still standing and also that it is documented fact that many, many firefighters had heard explosions. I opened my mouth to speak and was told, "No, that is a documented fact." (I see, and what was the rest of what you tell me?)

There's plenty more, as after the show I did get to ask the man himself a few questions.

It would seem impolite of me not to say that he gave me every chance to ask him questions and that he was open to letting me go to dinner with him and the rest of the group.

First I told him I thought it was quite dishonest of him to present to the audience pictures of the WTC7 from the (relatively undamaged) North side and the East side and then ask them if the building looks like it is in danger.

I told him that there were a number of firefighters who had said the building was about to fall down and a number of them who testified to the massive structural damage of the building. He disputed the idea that there was massive structural damage and said there was no photographic evidence. I told him that there was eyewitness testimony that the building was beyond saving, He seemed to lose his temper a little (this was the only time I thought I saw him lose his cool) and said it didn't matter what they said, there was no video or photographic evidence that this was the case. I pushed a little more and said that the smoke probably obscured it and we still have the witness testimony.

He did tell me that the fires weren't that bad and I did reach into my bag to try and retrieve my copy of "Debunking 9/11 Myths" in which I had scrawled the numbers of floors on which fires had been seen but before I retrieved it he said something along the lines of "Why are we even talking about fires anyway, what about the evidence for controlled demolition?" I was a little taken aback by this and realize now that I should have dismissed it and carried on. "What evidence?" I asked. To my shame, I let him get away with this one, "The molten steel!" I should have said either, "Nevermind that, let's get back to the fires which are NOT irrelevant." or "Who said molten steel was a characteristic of a controlled demolition?" But instead I picked a quibble, because I knew that his presentation had conflated molten steel and molten metal and we ended up having a weird conversation about whether bits of metal retreived from the site were molten.

(I asked whether the "meteorite" was actually molten metal. He said, "yes". He also said talked of "meteorites" in the plural which suggested to me that there were lots and lots of pools of molten steel or iron. We had a brief talk about how hot temperatures could get to in the pile of rubble if there was no thermite. Gage said no more than about 600 degrees if it was an office fire. I said that I don't think we're really talking about an "office fire" and whether or not he thinks things could get much hotter in the rubble pile...)

Finally, I asked him if he was thinking of defending Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as surely his trial would provide the perfect platform for the evidence he has. Mr Gage didn't seem very happy at the prospect and said that for all he knows Khalid Sheikh Mohammed could have been involved in the plot. I said that under the circumstances that he (Richard Gage) has uncovered some very important evidence for "reasonable doubt" (to say the least). Mr Gage then said that his organization don't really want to be branded by the media as "terrorist huggers" or some such. I countered that he shouldn't be too worried about it if the media already marginalize the Truthers and anyway if it was an inside job then those in Guantanamo Bay are INNOCENT (presumably). [I]I wish I had remembered the exhortation that Mr Gage himself had provided to the audience at the end of the night. Martin Luther King once said, "The time comes when silence is betrayal." [/I]He did then say that while AE9/11Truth won't be part of the defence team for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, they do have friends and associates who will be. I forgot to ask him if he meant Kevin Barrett.

In all honesty, Mr Gage bested me when it came to properties of certain materials (which I don't know enough about) and he also won over the audience very handily. A Truther friend of mine told me that any open-minded and unbiased person would be convinced by Richard Gage's presentation. He's absolutely correct if that person had not done any research into the events on 9/11. This is because most open-minded and unbiased people who listen to something like this will have a certain trust in the person talking to them. But the fact is that this wasn't being presented honestly.