Just discovered another photo gallery from the 9/11 Fifth Anniversary, posted on Project Rebirth, which is documenting the rebuilding at the World Trade Center site.

Most of their photos are excellent, but they also captured a few ugly shots:

A “protester” raises his voice

Here’s another photo of Alex in the Project Rebirth photo gallery.

Spent the better part of the day on Monday at Ground Zero, with Mark, Abby, and Reality Bites (from the JREF forums). A fifth debunker, Mark Ferran, was also there on his own. We ran in to him later in the day.

My day started out around 6 a.m., when I had to get over to Exchange Place, across the Hudson, and move my car parked next to the PATH station (free from Saturday night until Monday morning) to a nearby parking garage. Coming back in to the WTC PATH station that morning, the mood on the PATH train car was so quiet, and the expressions on people’s faces (mainly people going to work in nearby offices) coming up the escalators in the PATH station were so somber.

Around 8 a.m., I met up with the group and we headed back over to the PATH station where truthers with banners were already setup. One banner read “USA DID 9/11″, with some passerbys offended by it, and a scuffle broke out around 9 a.m. The truthers then had to take the banner down for the rest of the day.

More of my photos from this set on Flickr

We then headed back over to Liberty Plaza where the truthers were staging to march along Church St. Along the way, truthers kept giving us Loose Change dvd’s. In all, I ended up with a dozen beer coasters. At Liberty Plaza, we ran into Dylan, Korey, and Jason, as well as Alex Jones. We also chatted with the guy that started 911truth.org, and Abby had a chat with John Doe X?, a heavy-set guy who runs “Pilots for truth”. In all, I estimate there were a thousand truthers there, with some travelling from as far away as Los Angeles. Also ran into some regular ny911truthers, including “banner lady” and MIHOP-LIHOP, from Abby’s video. As they were lining up to march, the line stretched along only the Church Street and Liberty Street sides of Liberty Plaza.

We followed them back over to the PATH station. Along the way, stopped to chat with a nice gentleman who has been serving overseas in the Army. He was clearly annoyed with the truthers. We also ran into some news media folks from Australia. They told us, “they were here for the families and wanted nothing to do with them [the conspiracy theory nutjobs]”.

Back over by the PATH station, we ran into Dylan again. Since I was wearing a black T-shirt, Dylan may have mistaken me for one of the truthers. (didn’t see the 9/11 tribute design on the back) He posed for a picture.

More of my photos from this set on Flickr

We milled around for a while. When we came to GZ on Monday, we didn’t even really want to speak to the truthers and just wanted to be low key. But, we stepped in when truthers were lying to reporters (from minor media outlets who didn’t have press passes for the main events) and other folks. Mark was the main pointman, very articulately speaking and refuting every single thing the truthers said. Having done his homework, Mark has a binder complete with photographs that show things like deformed steel columns, and body parts, as well as numerous quotes from firefighters. Whenever he pulled out the binder, the truthers would look away. They can’t handle the truth and face the facts!

One particular heated confrontation was with Tom, a regular ny911truther there each week. Three weeks ago, he brought up the topic of Flight 93 and tried to argue that no body parts were found there. He gets this idea from Loose Change, which takes a quote out of context from Somerset County coroner, Wally Miller.

“I stopped being a coroner after about 20 minutes, because there were no bodies there” - Wally Miller, quoted in Loose Change

Of course, Wally wasn’t saying that a plane didn’t crash there, but it’s highly unlikely for entact bodies to survive the crash. Rather, body parts were torn into numerous small fragments:

“Somerset County Coroner Wallace Miller said the remains are expected to be so minute that radiology and DNA testing may be the only means of positively identifying the victims.” - Associated Press (September 12, 2001)

“We’ve been going through this area inch by inch. The remains are beginning to come,” said Somerset County coroner Wallace Miller. “It will be quite some time until we can identify whoever a person might be.” - Associated Press (September 13, 2001)

“Dennis Dirkmaat, a forensic pathologist from Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pa., said the remains had suffered “extreme fragmentation” and most would have to be identified through DNA analysis. He said experts also would use dental records, X-rays, and fingerprints and footprints.” - Washington Post (September 14, 2001)

“It would be nearly an hour before Miller came upon his first trace of a body part…some fragment of each of the dead had been positively identified, either by DNA or, in a few cases, fingerprints.” - Washington Post (May 12, 2002)

And aircraft debris:

Anyway, three Saturdays ago, Mark showed Tom pictures of body parts at the Flight 93 crash scene. Mark also provided the coroner’s contact information, as well as contact information for others on the scene in Somerset County, so that Tom could talk to them himself. On Monday, Tom once again brought up the very same topic of Flight 93 and “no bodies”. Things got heated, with Mark putting Tom on the spot “Didn’t I show you pictures of body parts three weeks ago”. Being that it was 9/11, Mark didn’t want to stoop so low and bring out body part pictures. Tom had seen them and simply was being a disrepectful idiot crackpot.

There was another very heated exchange between 9/11 truthers and an ironworker who was at Ground Zero assisting in the recovery. He said it well to them, “If you think this country is so fucked up, pack your bags and leave!”

Around 2:30 p.m., we headed over towards Ladder Co. 10 and O’Hara’s pub for a welcomed break, away from the 9/11 truthers.

We headed back over to the PATH station at around 4 p.m. for one last go. There was another exchange between a 9/11 truther who brought up “pull it”. This is when Mark brings out the binder with an image of a deformed steel column from the eighth of nine-stories of WTC5 (which stood on the spot where the PATH station sits). WTC5 was never hit by an airplane, and its columns didn’t have the weight of dozens floors to support. Nonetheless, it suffered fire hot enough to
to significantly weaken and deform steel columns.

After a while at the PATH station, we packed it up for the day. Saturday will be here soon enough, and I applaud Mark, Abby, and RealityBites for coming down each weekend. Being in DC, I can’t come each weekend, but will surely join them again from time to time. It just pisses me off that these 9/11 truthers come to Ground Zero, spewing nothing but lies and misinformation to people (mainly tourists on weekends). It’s important that their voice not be the only voice there.

More of my photos from this set on Flickr
To end the day, I came back down to Ground Zero around midnight when the FDNY had its “Freedom Truck” there. The truck was equipped with television screens that were showing footage from 9/11. Firefighters were telling stories to a small crowd of us, and people milling around outside the PATH station looking at the tributes setup along the fences.

I have arrived in NYC, where I’ll be spending a few days. 9/11 truthers were staked out at the WTC path station, and I snapped a few pictures of them.

WTC site on September 10, 2006



Old guy shouting at passerbys, standing in front of banner, “Bush regime engineered 9/11″.



9/11 truthers arguing with passerby (older guy on left).



9/11 truthers arguing with passerby. These guys look familiar to me. Can’t remember if they were in Abby’s video or something else. Who are these guys?



9/11 truthers at GZ. This guy looks familiar to me, who is he? Can’t remember if he was in Abby’s video or what?