It's about time. . . .

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

    David Morris:
          Well, I usually discount vast conspiracy theories because it is 
          inconceivable to me that the huge numbers of people necessary 
          to pull off such vast operations could be completely immune to leaks. 

Me too, though as you can see, this operation is very, very leaky. And if you
read Gravity's Rainbow, the same names pop up. Also in Against the Day. 
Remember as well that Pynchon has been pumping out this variety of
Paranoid plotting for years.

          David Morris:
          Informational cracks in such organizations seem inevitable.  

As I recall, the name of one of the organizations is the C.I.A.

          . . . . Where were Secretaries James and Foster and Senator 
          Joseph, those dear daft numina who'd mothered over Oedipa's so 
          temperate youth? In another world. Along another pattern of track, 
          another string of decisions taken, switches closed, the faceless 
          pointsmen who'd thrown them now all transferred, deserted, in stir, 
          fleeing the skip-tracers, out of their skull, on horse, alcoholic, 
          fanatic, under aliases, dead, impossible to find ever again. 
          Col49, pg 83

          Dulles, Allen (1893-1969)
          268; During WWII, Dulles served with O.S.S. and, when Truman formed 
          the CIA in 1951, he was appointed deputy director and, in 1953, 
          director; "and his 'intelligence' network"

http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=D

          Be assured there are ex-young men, here in this very city, faces 
          Slothrop used to pass in the quads, who got initiated at Harvard 
          into the Puritan Mysteries: who took oaths in dead earnest to 
          respect and to act always in the name of Vanitas, Emptiness, their 
          ruler . . . who now according to life-plan such-and-such have 
          come to Switzerland to work with Allen Dulles and his 'intelligence" 
          network, which operates these days under the title "Office of 
          Strategic Services." But to initiates OSS is also a secret acronym: 
          as a mantra for times of immediate crisis they have been taught 
          to speak inwardly oss . . .oss, the late, corrupt, Dark-age Latin word 
          for bone. . . .
          GR, P271

. . . .as in Skull & Bones. . . .

          David Morris:
          9-11 being an "inside job," engineered by a secret structure within 
          our own government seems incredible for that very simple reason.

          but...

          As presented on this film, the Twin Towers collapse, not to mention 
          building #7 (which I'd never heard of), do look like engineered, 
          controlled demolitions...

There's really no escaping it. It they weren't controlled explosions, they 
would have taken out other buildings. This clip covers Silverstein 'pulling'
building #7.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRNW6rWoMqs

The small fires in World Trade Center building #7 did not 
threaten its structural integrity.

          However, such controlled demolitions require cutting of steel columns 
          at every level, not just the basement.  Collapse started at the top, 
          not the bottom, as the film implies was the case.  Controlled
          demolitions require timed explosions at all levels, and are the work 
          of teams of workers.  It is implausible that such an operation could 
          have taken place in an occupied office tower in the weeks before 9-11 
          without being noticed.

It would be easy, 'building inspectors' just doing their day to day jobs. 
Everything lined-up, wired up, press a button at an established time and boom. 
Kinda like Webb Traverse walking away from a timed charge. Particularly if the 
black ops in question work for the C.I.A. That's all the clearance you need 
right there.  And, if you follow these threads, you will find that building 
seven was pretty much run by our government, in one guise or another.

It's the Reichstag fire, part two.

          Adolf Hitler, the new Chancellor of Germany, had no intention of 
          abiding by the rules of democracy. He intended only to use those 
          rules to legally establish himself as dictator as quickly as possible 
          then begin the Nazi revolution.

http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/burns.htm

As regards the Pynchon connection, here's the very first entry on Youtube for 
'Bush Family History':

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGJfKYOWUpc

          David Morris:
          But I know this film has a mission, and will likely exaggerate and 
          obscure to make plausible its thesis, so I hesitate to swallow whole 
          what it presents.  And my initial reason for resistance still seems a
          basic hard-to-deny premise...

While what you say is true, this documentation of buildings 1,2 and 7 being 
'pulled' is an extreme case of 'what are you going to believe, me or your 
own lying eyes?'.  Again, no modern skyscraper can be taken down just by 
fire, it requires controlled explosives for the building to go down that fast, 
there is no other way, logically speaking. I think Pynchon's in on this one, 
I'll bet anything that he collects other people's conspiracy theories for 
research or just for fun. 

          David Morris:
          The film's initial investigation of the roots of Judeo-christian 
          mythology was very interesting, but what does it have to do 
          with 9-11?

Everything, it's the raging fundementalists that bought into another 'holy war' 
or 'crusade' in the east, it's an essential part of Bush's so-called 'base'. 
Bush spent a lot of time and energy establishing himself as a "Man of God' 
before 9/11. And it has even more to do with Pynchon's writing.

          In my view, the most significant revelation of the annotations is that 
          Gravity's Rainbow unfolds according to a circular design. Across the 
          novel's four parts, historical events intersect the Christian liturgical 
          calendar. . . .
          Steven C. Weisenburger, A Gravity's Rainbow Companion

Note how Pynchon constantly filps between Christian references and 
associated Astrological references. Note also the focus he gives to 
pre-christian religions and spiritual systems, particularly in Against the Day.

This essay has a number of interesting observations on the film:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0710/S00303.htm

And for those of you who didn't see it already, Here's "Zeitgeist, the Movie":

http://zeitgeistmovie.com/