Okay, was settling down for the weekend with a really good Margarita and checking my e-mail and the usual places, when suddenly the news comes out about a big piece of the landing gear from one of the 9/11 planes being found in a tiny wall gap between the backs of buildings at Park Place and Murray Street. If you’ve followed my blog you know I have skin in the game regarding 9/11. Pass me a Klonapin, please.

As usual, the blogosphere was full of contentions about what the appearance of the landing gear says (or doesn’t say) about the events that Tuesday. As if on cue, there were posts all over saying that this definitely disproves all the things the 9/11 truth advocates have been saying all along. Actually, no. except for the fringers saying ‘the planes were holograms, man‘, the discovery doesn’t change anything. In fact, BBC, which has generally been dismissive of 9/11 conspiracy theories, stirred the pot yesterday, noting there was  rope wrapped around the debris  (possibly) indicating the part was lowered into place.

The alley (really a crawlspace) the part was found in is a narrow gap between the backs of two buildings, one of which is the site of the much maligned Muslim Community Center at 51 Park Place. People who suspect a conspiracy regarding the fact the part went undiscovered for ten years should understand that many buildings in Manhattan have similar crawlspaces. Nobody explores them because, you know, rats. If you don’t know, ponder this–per an AIA lecture I attended regarding the new Liberty Tower, the speaker noted that many curtain-wall buildings experience hundreds of bird-strikes a day. The birds fly into the glass and are knocked unconscious and fall to their deaths. Notice how few dead birds you see on downtown streets? Thank the nocturnal rodent cleaning squad. Also, note that thanks to the shoddy job done in forensics post 9/11, there have been repeated findings of remains in the area.

Anyway, the landing gear’s appearance doesn’t change most conspiracy theories. Pull up Google Maps. Type in ’51 Park Place New York’. Choose ‘satellite view’. Zoom out until you can see the footprints for Tower 1 and 2. By my rough measurements, there’s a distance of some 800′ or more from the towers to the gap between Park Place and Murray Street. How did a big heavy piece of hardware like a landing gear get thrown some 800 feet north? The trajectory seems wrong for the pieces to be thrown from the initial fuel explosions. And if the landing gear was somehow ‘ejected’ when the building collapsed, that’s also problematic. The Towers fell more or less into their own footprint, and the ‘official story’ is that fire had weakened the steel structures to the point where they collapsed. But if the landing gear was in the middle of the fuel-fed fireball until the collapse, wouldn’t it also show damage from melting? And then there’s the rope–is this part of a new campaign by supporters of Pam Geller to cause problems for the community center? If so, the timing is perfect thanks to the new round of Islamophobia raised by Boston.

Gives me a headache.

Lots of people are going to be watching the metal forensics on this part, and it will be interesting to see how people react to the findings. In the meantime, as the man called Jerry warns you in my play HOW TO STOP THE EMPIRE WHILE KEEPING YOUR DAY JOB:

“People call me a conspiracy theorist for saying that Obama signed the NDAA military detention act because the Occupy Movement had started. And I say to them, if you DON’T believe the two things are connected, then YOU are a COINCIDENCE theorist”.