Are they really the 'good 'ol times'?

I was looking at some pictures on facebook and saw some pictures of my old friends. Both when we were all still hanging out and new ones without me. It made me realize that yes, I do miss them from time to time. I miss how close we all were and how we were like family.

Does everyone else feel like this sometimes? From time to time I feel like I abandoned them, but in a way they abandoned me too. So who's in the wrong for us not being like a family anymore? Is it me for moving on and finding someone new? Or is it them for not forgiving me for finding someone new, who might I add makes me extremely happy. I thought they would want that for me, if not all of them at least my 'best friend'. I try to talk to them from time to time, but its really just small talk. They don't really care what I've been up to and I don't really care what they've been up to. So maybe we're both to blame...

But seeing those pictures also made me realize that I am in such a better place now. Its sad that we all have to grow up and move on sometimes but that's just the way life is. I am so happy with where I am right now (except for the job situation but I'm working on it), and know that I would be stuck in the same old rut if I had stayed where I was 9 months ago. :D

It's nice when you wake up (not literally) one day and see how perfect everything really is. But on the other hand its hard because you, at least I do, feel like you are taking things for granted. I'm really trying to work on that, but its a working progress. One day at a time. :D

Oh, I wanted to share this with you... I am reading this book called "Morality Tale" by Sylvia Brownrigg. The beginning is about this woman who is married to a man with an ex wife and two little boys and how hard it has been for her to play that role. The first hundred pages or so talks about this man she meets, his background, her background, and her husband's background. To me, the woman is having an emotional affair. And in the summary they call her a 'heroine'. That is not heroic to me. She may not have touched this other man yet, but to me, it's still cheating. What do you think? Hmm... I'm baffled. Because some of the people I've talked to about it think it is completely harmless. Maybe I am just changing as I grow up and as I realize what true love is. Or maybe it's just two different opinions. Here are some of this 'heroine's' ideas:
"Nobody wants to be a second wife.....in a country where a divorce occurs every thirty seconds, there will be a sizable number of divorcees getting remarried. Therefore, second wives. If it turns out to be you, if that's the straw you happen to draw--tough luck. You're never going to get the kind of joy you might have hoped for when you walk into a marriage that used to belong to somebody else. it's like moving into a new house that still has half the previous owners furniture in it. You'd like to get rid of the all-plaid living room set, but somehow you're suck with it, forever."
So, it's funny right. But still very very cruel and sad. How could you think this of your marriage/husband.
Here she is talking about how her husband would lie to his then wife about where he was while he was with our 'heroine':
"This was not edifying to watch, though it did provoke reflections on how different adultery must have been in the olden days, when we were not able to track one another with the ruthless precision we have now, chasing our loved ones with queries and ringtones. Trust must have been a great airy balloon in those days, light and round and full of mystery, because the weeks would have long hours in them during which you'd have no expectation of speaking with your spouse or beloved (if these happened to be one and the same person). A few years from now infidelity will be even more of a challenge, as jealous partners the world over will implant chips in the other's wrist so they can monitor his or her geographies on a screen set up in the bedroom."
Now, as true as this is, it still bothers me. I normally read to get away from my own thoughts and to relax for a little bit, but this book is not helping me to relax. Yes, it is a good story, but it's so sad and upsetting. And not in the "Romeo and Juliet" or "The Great Gatsby" kind of sad. It's just not sitting well with me...

WE ALL FALL DOWN former BYU prof., Steven Jones, insists planes were not to blame for 9/11

WE ALL FALL DOWN
The equation for free fall is pretty basic. Drop anything—from a dime to a rock—from a tall building, for example, and once that object hits an acceleration of 9.8 meters per second squared it’s free falling. This equation applies to everything, even buildings.
In the fall of 2005, Brigham Young University professor Steven Jones presented this simple principle in a BYU campus auditorium packed with hundreds of people to illustrate how several of the World Trade Center towers fell too quickly on September 11, 2001, to have only been hit by planes. To reach free-fall speed, Jones explained, the building’s floor supports would have needed to be blown apart. In other words, carnage of 9/11 would have required another catalyst of destruction beyond hijacked planes—an explosive to cause the buildings to implode.
The discussion ran two hours and only ended because students began arriving for a class to be held in the room. Before concluding, Jones asked if anyone was not convinced more investigation was needed. Only one professor raised his hand. “And he tracked me down the next day on campus and told me I changed his mind,” Jones says.
Jones’ speech began his rise as an outspoken skeptic of the official 9/11 report. But, it was also the beginning of the end for his career as a college professor.
Jones and his colleagues theorized that a military-grade explosive called nano-thermite sliced through the building supports and brought down the buildings. Recently, they bolstered their theory with analysis of a mysterious powder collected from around New York City, a powder they asserted in the April 2009 Open Chemical Physics Journal was nano-thermite.
If the theory sounds like bad science fiction, it is because a similar explosive substance, “nanomite,” was used by Cobra (the bad guys) in this summer’s over-the-top action movie, G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra. In the movie, Cobra uses nanomite to disintegrate buildings and national monuments in a cloud of green dust.
Nano-thermite, however, is no green powder from comic book fiction—its actually a red-chip substance that Jones and his researchers have matched specifically to an explosive residue using electron microscopy.
But before Jones recent red-chip research came to fruition, he continued to speak frankly about other pieces of the puzzle: the reported sounds of explosions on 9/11, molten steel at the site, steel beams shooting out horizontally like missiles from the buildings, and the sloppy federal explanations about what happened at World Trade Center 7, the third building that collapsed and the only one that did so without being hit by any planes.
Jones now casually rattles off the official testimony that claimed air defenses were called off and describes suspicious stock deals that netted mysterious individuals billions of dollars in profits from the 9/11 disaster.
“The problem in this country is that we accept one conspiracy theory,” Jones says. “That it was Al Qaeda—that’s the official conspiracy theory. OK, but that doesn’t explain the lack of air defenses that day, it doesn’t explain why World Trade Center 7 came down the way it did, and it doesn’t explain the billions made off these extremely suspicious stock trades. So, there really is a lot of evidence for foul play,” the professor says matter of factly.
Beyond the figures and formulas, perhaps Jones’ most incendiary conclusion is that the explosions were the result of an inside job. Ironically, Jones says his theory is supported by Occam’s razor: the principle that states where there are multiple competing theories, the simplest one is better. For Jones, the simplest theory is that the U.S. government conspired to commit terror on its own citizens and kill thousands in the process. The storm Jones has stirred up speaking out on 9/11 eventually forced him, in 2006, into early retirement from BYU.
Down but not out, the soft-spoken professor continues his controversial research, having created a peer reviewed journal for multidisciplinary 9/11 research. He continues to call for a complete investigation into the events of 9/11. Looking to explain this generation’s Day of Infamy, Jones fights to retain his credibility while fending off criticism from those more-or-less in his own camp for being dismissive of their 9/11 theories—laser bean attacks and holographic planes—all while reconciling his faith with his own controversial work.
Some see the exiled BYU professor as the voice of dissent again the greatest cover-up in American history. Others see a reckless professor with a messiah complex, tilting at windmills that just aren’t there.
BLESS HIS HEART
The small town of Spring City in Sanpete County is a long way from New York City. It is here, in a town dotted with quaint historic buildings, spotty cell phone service and a single gas station, that Jones spends his retirement. On a recent summer day, the town’s greatest drama seems to be an infestation of grasshoppers, dozens of which fly from under the feet of pedestrians sauntering along its sidewalks.
Despite his reputation, Jones’ home looks the way most would imagine a retired BYU professor’s to look. You won’t find images of UFOs or collapsing World Trade Center towers tacked to the walls. Rather, Jones’ living room is homey, adorned with large glossy portraits of family members and LDS Church President Thomas S. Monson. One of Jones’ children finishes practicing the piano in the living room.
A career scientist, Jones, with his quiet paternal wit, reminds one of a seminary teacher, or, again, a retired BYU professor. While Jones is like a walking encyclopedia of disturbing 9/11 facts, the inflection in his voice is not that of tinfoil-hat vitriol against the New World Order. It is the soft-speak of a lifelong Mormon who can’t help but say “bless his heart: when referring to a whistleblower in the Bush administration who claimed former Vice President Dick Cheney ignored warnings of planes headed for the Pentagon.
Jones knows his theories have made him the target of ridicule. In an exasperated chuckle, he talks about trying to convince people his research is not in league with UFO spotting or Bigfoot hunting. But his humor also surfaces in explaining how the explosive residue he and his colleagues discovered was analyzed using X-ray electron dispersive microscopy. “That will be on the quiz,” he says with a chuckle.
Jones’ political views have greatly changed since 9/11. He voted for George W. Bush in 2001, but now he only shakes his head when he reflects on a recent poll where a majority of Americans agreed that torture committed by the Bust administration was wrong but that those who executed the policy shouldn’t be punished.
“If you know something went wrong and you’re not willing to prosecute or have a fair trial and see what went wrong…it’s amazing,” Jones says. “The Constitution is set up with opportunity to petition for redress. That’s what I requested as I was going along with [the 9/11 research]—impeachment—that’s the fair thing to do. But that it was off the table—which means the Constitution is off the table, I guess,” Jones says with a frustrated laugh. “It’s like we recognize that evil was done, but we’re not willing to stop or punish it.”
Since his retirement, Jones continues his work in an online journal that publishes academic works critical of the official 9/11 account, covering air-defense deficiencies, the twin towers, World Trade Center 7 and the nano-thermite research.
To the layperson, Jones’ research boils down to ideas that don’t require much math. His paper cites the account of multiple responders and investigators who observed molten metal’s pooling and bubbling for weeks after 9/11, evidence of chemical reactions consistent with latent reactions to explosive chemicals like nano-thermite.
His research quotes Fox news anchorman at Ground Zero reporting sounds like explosions near the base of the towers. It also presents the physics of how all three buildings happened to collapse at free-fall speeds, straight down into their worn footprints—imploding in the manner of a Las Vegas casino. Which is unusual, Jones points out, because, for the buildings to collapse upon themselves, the central and strongest columns have to go first. If the towers were trees, and the planes truck them like the blow of an ax, rather than the trees falling toward the striking ax, Jones says the official account would have the trees collapsing upon themselves.
Jones and several of his colleagues made some of their most demanding arguments in the article, “Fourteen Points of Agreement with Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center Destruction” in the 2008 Open Civil Engineering Journal, where they highlighted concessions made by federal investigators.
For example, in 2002, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said that “the specifics of the fires in WTC 7 and how they caused the building to collapse remain unknown at this time.” Also, officials from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) said that, because of “the tremendous energy released by the falling building mass, the building section came down essentially in free fall.”
For Jones, there is only one explanation for what brought about the free-fall speeds of the towers’ collapse: “That’s explosives, on the face of it,” he says. “They don’t deny that, because they didn’t look into it.”
This denial is in response to a question posed by reported Jennifer Abel of the Hartford Advocate, who, in 2008, asked NIST why the agency decided not to search for evidence of explosive residue. In response, the NIST spokesman told her: “If you’re looking for something that isn’t there, you’re wasting your time…and the taxpayer’s money.”
THE RAZOR’S EDGE
The razor of “Occam’s razor” might be thought of as a blade of logic. Where multiple theories compete for a claim to the truth, Occam’s razor lays waste to theories that are too encumbered by assumptions to be true.
In the hands of scientists and investigators, wielding Occam’s razor often ends up like a knife fight. Whether its NIST cutting costs by not searching for explosives or BYU cutting off controversy by giving a professor “early retirement”—the search for truth is combative, bloody and, oftentimes, personal. Jones has been there before, of course. In the ‘80s, Jones delved into another controversial field of research: cold fusion. In 1989, while working for the U.S. Department of Energy on the emergent field of cold fusion research—creating energy fission from room-temperature environments—Jones was asked to peer review the research of Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, two University of Utah researchers who were doing similar research.
Finding certain overlaps in their research, Jones, Pons and Fleischmann agreed to submit their research at the same time. On March 24, 1989, Jones faxed his paper that claimed experiments suggested the possibility of cold fusion to Nature. Pons and Fleischmann, on the other hand, held a press conference and announced that they could create energy equivalent to nuclear fusion within a class jar filled with water.
Soon after this declaration, when the scientific community of the world could not replicate Pons and Fleischmann’s results, the duo’s research was discredited. Perhaps as collateral damage, so was Jones’.
Still, Jones says, his fusion experiments, while offering modest results, are repeatable, unlike the discredited work of Pons and Fleischmann.
“They can say what they want,” Jones says. “It’s science, it’s repeatable. It doesn’t matter if you’re Mormon, atheist, Jewish—you can check it out yourself. You do the experiment, you get the results. That’s the way science works.”
The reliability of science has always appealed to Jones. As a child, Jones’ family traveled throughout the country for his father’s work at Boeing Co. and, later Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Raised as a Mormon, Jones has never felt a conflict between his personal testimony of faith and the universal truth of the scientific process. “It’s not a subtle difference,” Jones says. “Maybe for nonscientists, it is. But for me, those are two completely different areas.”
Still, Jones has not shield away from applying scientific methods to help validate contested LDS beliefs. In the late 1990s Jones used carbon dating on archaeological evidence of a prehistoric horse species that existed in the Americas prior to the arrival of Columbus—a sticking point for LDS detractors who dispute accounts in the Book of Mormon that refer to horses on the continent prior to the arrival of European settlers.
Jones authored an article in 1999 highlighting Mayan artwork that depicted the deity Itzamna with markings on his hands, which Jones argued, were representations of the stigmata. Itzamna had other Christ like parallels, Jones says, such as the ability to heal the sick with his hands, or as a being whom it was believed would someday be resurrected.
On the Website where he presents some of his evidence, Jones concludes the article in a traditional LDS manner by bearing his testimony of truth of the Book of Mormon: “They discoveries have provided me a deeper appreciation of the reality of the resurrection of Jesus and His visit to ‘other sheep’ who heard His voice and saw His wounded hands.”
Jones says the Mayan artwork research was never meant to be a scientific claim but rather was “evidence hoped for.” He has no qualms about it, despite criticism that his research blurred the lines between religion and science. “Some people take any excuse they can to ignore results they don’t like because they don’t like somebody’s religion,” he says. “I’m not going to give up my religion—that’s their problem.”
Its safe to say, then, that religious belief wasn’t a factor in Jones’ “early retirement” from BYU in 2006. When asked about Jones’ retirement, BYU officials would only provide a copy of Jones’ October 2006 Statement: “I am electing to retire so that I can spend more time speaking and conduction research of my own choosing.”
Looking back, Jones is uncomfortable going into much detail about his retirement. Even professors critical of Jones in 2006 would not comment for this story. “It was very painful for me,” Jones says. In September 2006, Jones says he was placed on administrative leave. At the time, he says, administration told him he would be able to continue to publicly discuss his research so long as he stopped specifically mentioning Vice President Cheney in connection with his 9/11 claims. Soon after, however, Jones was told the leave was not temporary ad that he was being “offered” early retirement.
Jones questions the timing of being told not to say “Cheney “ and his retirement, “In April of 2007, BYU gave [Cheney] an honorary doctorate degree for public service,” Jones says, referring to Cheney’s 2007 commencement address to BYU. “I think they were rather glad I was not part of the university at that time.”
Yet among all of his critics, its unusual that some of the strongest criticism Jones has received has come from within the “alternative”-9/11-theories crowd itself.
THE DEATH STAR THEORY
“Steve is, by far, the most influential member of [the alternative 9/11 research community],” says James Fetzer, the man who, along with Jones, formed in 2005 the first academic 9/11 group, the Scholars for 9/11 truth. “But, while he likes to think what he practices is science and not politics—its not. And what it is…is completely destructive!”
Fetzer’s beef with Jones arose when he felt Jones was being dismissive of other theories. “I have a Ph.D. in the history and philosophy of science,” Fetzer says. “I know well that scientific inquiry is handicapped if you don’t consider the full range of alternative explanations.”
How broad is this range? For Fetzer, Jones’ controlled-demolition theory unfairly cuts out other ideas, such as the possibility that a directed energy beam, possibly from outer space, hit the towers.
Since Jones’ theory was more ”palatable” than others, Fetzer says Jones won over contributors from the original group into a new group, the Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice. Fetzer also claims Jones sabotages a 200 9/11 conference he organized by convincing presenter Frank Greening, a Canadian physicist, not to attend.
While Jones is ordinarily mild-mannered, he quickly grows frustrated hearing Fetzer’s allegations. His good humor disappears, and Jones asks if any theory Fetzer supports can be backed up with an experiment.
Greening sides with Jones. He says he didn’t attend Fetzer’s conference because, at the last minute, Fetzer reneged on covering Greening travel expenses—and not because of anything Jones did. But Greening acknowledges that Jones is more politically savvy that he lets on beneath his good natured, absent-minded-professor facade.
“He comes across as very meek and mild,” Greening says. “I’ve seen another side of him,” Greening says that, while Jones calls for scientific scrutiny of his theories, when actually challenged he becomes defensive and dismissive of scientific criticism.
Greening, who has a Ph.D. in chemistry and 20-plus years’ research experience in radio-analytical chemistry at Ontario Power Generation, says Jones has never seriously considered his arguments.
For one, Greening cites aluminum experts whose research shows that molten aluminum (such as what could have resulted from the melting hear of jet fuel0 falling from extreme heights could have a reaction that would be similar to what Jones attributes to nano-thermite. Greening balks at the experiments Jones uses to refute this claim.
“Jones just gently pored molten aluminum on some rusty grinders, and said, “’I hereby discredit Greening,’” Greening says, pointing out that the experiment called for the aluminum to be dropped from greater than 6 feet. He also notes how Jones quickly leapt to the conclusion that the presence of sulphur in building rubble is evidence of nano-thermite before even considering other sources, such as diesel fuel from the building’s generators. This pattern of jumping to conspiratorial conclusion is what disturbs Greening about Jones’s methods.
“If history proves him correct, people will says he’s a hero, and he stuck to his guns in the face of ridicule and pressure from everyone to drop it,” Greening says. “And I think he sees himself that way, like he’s a prophet of some top secret he’s revealed. The other side of the coin is that his work is sometimes sloppy. He’s stubborn in admitting error and he jumps to conclusions.” (For more of Jones and Greening’s exchanges visit CityWeekly.net)
WE ALL FALL DOWN
Science can be violent. Trying to carve out the truth from conflicting accounts means some theories get cut down, and at times, even the scientist espousing the theory can be silenced.
Cut off from his university hardly means that Jones is done seeking the truth. And while a man of science, his drive to continue his search is as informed by his faith as it ever was.
“The truth cuts its way, and it is getting out,” Jones says, noting his colleague James Farrer is currently giving presentation son the nano-thermite research in Europe.
Yet, even as he pursues the truth, he has serious doubts whether Americans will ever accept his account, and even if they did, if they would ever hold anyone accountable.
“I believe in God, so I know they will be justice some day,” Jones says. “People that allow their leaders to get away with, well, murder—the whole country becomes dues for justice. You see this in the book of Mormon; you see it in the Roman Empire…all these empires get to the point where the tyrant is doing stuff the citizens do nothing and pretty soon….” Jones says, as he wiped his hands apart, “the empire crumbles.”



This wonderful artice was written by Eric S. Peterson for City Weekly. If you wish to contact him his e-mail address is epeterson@cityweekly.net

Now, I realize that's quite a bit to take in all at once, but I think that every single one of you should really think about it. What does your freedom mean to you?
The whole time I was reading this, and typing it, I kept thinking about what I was doing on September 11, and how upset I was even though I was only 11. This is something that everyone will remember, but why will they remember it? Will people remember this generation's 'Day of Infamy' as a horrible terroist attack or as a horrible inside job killing thousands?
I feel it is something worth investigating. Let me know what you all think. :D I want to hear your opinions and ideas!

City Weekly

Hey everybody, you should all try and get a hold of this week's city weekly and read the main article. I thought it was very interesting. What's funny is Jen, KC, and I all had our suspicions but didn't think too much about it when no one around us believed us. We heard about this guy and were really stoked he thought what we thought, a little more in depth and scientific but still. But he's back, and with a vengeance. When I get some time, so either Saturday or Sunday I'll type it up and put it up here for those of you who don't get a chance to read it. HUGS. :D

mind turning.

So quite a lot has happened the past few weeks I see. With me, with my family, with my friends. I'm not even sure what to think about it all except I've been a shitty daughter, sister, and friend. And I'm sorry. I wish we were closer and I plan on working on it. I promise. :D

On a lighter note, I've started talking to an old friend and that's been nice. Its hard sometimes to go back to people when both your lives have changed so much in just a short period of time. But that's how we do. We come and go out of eachothers lives every 6 months or so. It's been like this since I was just a youngin. :D LOL But I am glad we're talking and hanging out again. Hopefully, maybe, things won't dissolve this time. Maybe we can hangout for more than a few months at a time. I wonder why we do that anyway. Hmm... topic we need to think about...

Well tomorrow I'm having girl's day with my mamma and I couldn't be more excited to tell you the truth. I miss her and have a lot to talk about. I feel like I'm going crazy sometimes, but 1-I don't want Jen to get sick of my complaints/nags. 2-there's some people that just don't understand because they don't know the whole story. 3-there's some people that I feel like just judge me, and that's annoying because they have no room to. and 4-my mom's always been there for me, not matter what was going on or how bad I fucked up. And I love her for that, very much.

Another thing I was thinking about today...Do you have someone you look up to? Do they know? Because I do, i have a couple actually, but I don't think I've ever told any of them. I need to get on that. But how do y ou tell them? Do you just come out and say "hey, I really respect you and look up to you." No, that just seems silly. Hmm, I'll have to figure something out.