Verbal

Well, the short answer is I have no idea because I haven't looked. (I know a fair bit about Flight 11 but not 77) But when these kinds of questions come up, it's not a bad idea to start from the supposition that the assumption behind the question is itself questionable. So rather than 'why no video evidence', how about 'is there any video evidence?' This is one of those stories where - hardly surprisingly - a lot more is known by officials of various kinds than is 'out there' in the public domain. This is usually for mundane, non-conspiratorial reasons - like the fact that 9/11 is still an open criminal investigation. (No one with a proven direct connection to the attacks has ever been put on trial. The idiot Zacarius Moussaoui doesn't count!)

So did you read the BBC article in that link? Care to revise your opinion? I have no doubt that this debate is essentially driven by some deeply paranoid people, so 'loonies' is a pretty good term I think. You should try engaging with these people. When my film on flight 11 went out, I was accused by 'truth-speakers' who published my address and phone number of being an 'Israeli Psyops officer'. Quite funny really. And loony.

Google 'Popular Mechanics'. They devoted a whole issue and a subsequent book to the questions that supposedly 'don't add up'. Again, it's always not a bad idea to listen to what real and dispassionate experts say, rather than the loony tunes chorus on the www.

A surprising number of those questions are addressed in The Looming Tower. I'm really not Wright's agent (!) but it should be required reading for ANYONE interested in the background to 9/11. Some of your questions are just wrong. although for understandable reasons. I can't remember the exact detail, but my recollection is that the reference to boxcutters from first-hand recorded comments by the passengers themselves only came from one flight - 77 (the one that flew into the Pentagon.) There's a bit of a backstory to the boxcutters. The airlines like the idea becase boxcutters were not at that time illegal if carried onto planes. Knives, on the other hand... I made a film about Flight 11 for the History Channel in the US and for Five here, and have listened to all the recordings made from that flight, from flight attendants to passengers. There was no reference to boxcutters. Nor did the hijackers wear headbands. Nor did the hijackers tell the passengers what they were doing. Nor did the majority of passengers even know the plane was hijacked - right up to the moment the plane crashed. All this is based, as I say, on listening to the recordings and talking first-hand to people like the wife of the captain that day, the AA ground controller in more or less constant phone contact with one of the hostesses, and spouses of passengers.

This is most certainly true. The US was lobbing cruise missiles at Al Qaeda training bases in Afghanistan after the African embassy bombings in 1998.

Baj, you're embarrassing yourself (as one is prone to do if even remotely you buy into this garbage) Did you click on the 'update' link below the article - originally written incidentally, just 12 days after the attacks? Please - go and have a look, and then come back and tell me how this possibly stands up as a 'fact'. If you can't bear to look, here's just the last paragraph. "We recently asked the FBI for a statement, and this is, as things stand, the closest thing we have to a definitive view: The FBI is confident that it has positively identified the nineteen hijackers responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Also, the 9/11 investigation was thoroughly reviewed by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States and the House and Senate Joint Inquiry. Neither of these reviews ever raised the issue of doubt about the identity of the nineteen hijackers."

Hmm. Quite bizarre, this. TDD's facts - and many. many more besides - attest to the source of the assaults, the planning, the history of the orgnaisation, the 'incubation' of Afghanistan, and so on. All true. How on earth do you jump from that to the wild assumption that Ahmed Rashid has 'links' with OBL? Or that Rashid 'peddled' OBL's message. If you knew anything about Rashid, you'd know that OBL's henchmen have made several attempts to kill him. What counts as 'facts' in this affair, as much as any other, is the reputation of those who go out and source them, then write about them. Wright and Rashid, to name but two, are right up there. Really, you just have to go and look. And PLEASE, 19C, before winding up about someone you've never read, and clearly know nothing about, go to the bookstore and buy anything by either of them. You'll see what I mean.

Well, to begin with, try reading authoritative, first-hand stuff before reading and trusting internet crap. And sorry, but 'hard facts'. Are you joking? If someone tried to cover 'every single thread' of the conspiracy nuts they'd end up as crazy as them. Most 'threads', such as they are, not even worth talking about.

Bexy, I don't know where to start with this kind of wild conspiracy stuff. I suggest you read anything on the subject by Ahmed Rashid, by far the most knowledgeable and authoritative researcher on 9/11, as seen from Afgahnistan, and incidentally the journalist who's met OBL the most frequently. After Rashid, try Laurwence Wright's 'The Looming Tower' - by far the most detailed account of the lead up to and personnel involved in 9/11. It puts all the conspiracy nuts quietly out of business.

No fatuous comments? Now what do I do? Of course 9/11 was a tragedy - many hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians fewer died there than in Iraq, but still... But it doesn't mean, eight years after the event, that we have to be overly reverential - or censorious about discussing the fallout since.

Scary. Lwetterboxes are portals to parallel universes. You had a lucky escape.

Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.

Not forgetting how Geroge W set the detonator charges that brought down the Twin Towers and how the planes that flew into the towers contained no passengers. Or how Southampton can't beg a win for love nor money.

Back to the original question, you have to go back to 1972 for the answer. After Apollo 11, public interest in missions to the moon dropped alarmingly. Only the life-or-death drama of Apollo 13 briefly re-awakened public appetite in America for the Moon program. But after that, it was a bit like a mid-season episode of Big Brother. No one cared. And without public support in the US, there was no chance that it was going to continue - especially at a time when the Vietnam War was still being beamed into people's homes in all its technicolor horror. Meanwhile, NASA was thinking Big Thoughts - the Moon was too piddling. The reason the space shuttle was designed was as a first stage for building a craft in Earth orbit that would take astronauts to Mars. Of course, that didn't really excite public or political opinion either. And budget cuts limited the shuttle to little more than a service vehicle for popping up into earth orbit every now and again. To make things worse, a year after the last man stepped on the Moon, the oil crisis hit, and Western economies took a swallow dive. The technology that got men to the Moon was in many ways frighteningly crude, in others brilliantly inventive. It could be much more easily achieved today, but it would still be costly. Perhaps if Osama hadn't decied to fly those planes into the Twin Towers, we might have been back by now.

11>10=√f.all

The libel court case is going to be funny, at least.

Rubbish. I think he's an excellent manager and P*mpey would be lucky to have him.

Why don't we have a Saintsforum England Under 19s - we pick the REAL young talents in the game, forget the pros. The only problem I cna see is finding a Hampshire League ground small enough to contain the genius of our selection.

Inversions of syllables and word conflations are common among children as part of the hugely complex process of language acquisition. Most children quickly put things the right way around after practice, although some have been known to go into a fearful regression whereby they place dots throughout their sentences.

Can't argue with that.

Wow, the north London yobbos really pulled a fast one on dear old Rupes.

Ooh, a field day. I loves those. Tell me when and where.

If this the death of the 'special relationship' I'd happily stamp on its grave.

I was talking about match-fixing with my son at the weekend. He's an Arsenal supporter and we'd just watched Almunia make a frankly ridiculous challenge which allowed Rooney to go down for a pen. I'm not saying Almunia was 'fixing' - just that you never know, and that it's likely that quite a few games, especially in the Prem, have been fixed in some way. How many times have you watched a match where the ref has extended injury time until what seems like the 'right' team has scored? And refs are always going to appear to be on one side or the other to respective fans, but how many times does it appear that a ref has 'looked for' a match-changing sending off. Can absurd misses always be just momentary incompetence? And on and on. That's the danger that goes with MLT's admission sadly. It drains confidence from us as fans - we're never absolutely sure whether we've paid to watch a truly competitive game, or whether we're just pawns in a far-eastern betting scam. I'm not saying match-fixing is widespread - I just don't know. But it's a worry, and the MLT doesn't help.

If that's Serie B it looked no better than League 1. Some pretty comical defending and a really nasty, career-ending tackle.