In answer to Bill Maher�s September 14 tirade on his Real Time show (just three days after 9/11), when he said, �Crazy people who still think the government brought down the Twin Towers in a controlled explosion have to stop pretending that I�m the one who�s being naive.�

He went on to say, �How big a lunatic do you have to be to watch two giant airliners packed with jet fuel slam into buildings on live TV, igniting a massive inferno that burned for two hours, and then think �well� if you believe that was the cause, stop asking me to raise this ridiculous topic on the show and start asking your doctor if Paxil is right for you.�

Ah, so if we believe 9/11 was an inside job we�re all crazy people and lunatics. But he, who obviously hasn�t taken the time to investigate more than the surface media reports, he�s top gun, Mr. Smart, with a gag a minute.

In fact, Maher�s outburst was originally reported on rawstory.com, which includes a YouTube of Maher�s kvetch, plus the riposte of a panel of smart witty 9/11 Truthers, produced in exactly the same format of Maher�s show, with the last title endorsement of six 9/11 organizations. But I am going to do something a little different (what else is new), like one by one address the various parts of this schmuck�s question.

But first, Bill Maher was a successfully mediocre comedian till he decided to do political material on his Real Time show. With a tankful of writers, he had abundant material already written and produced by the hysterically funny (if not tragic) Bush administration, which really fully bloomed with the tragedy of 9/11, the inciting incident of their �War on Terror,� and called for by former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski in his 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives.

This is highbrow stuff, Bill. But hang in there if you can.

In Zbigniew�s view, taking over the Eurasian landmass was the key to world power. Central Asia�s vast oil reserves were the sought-for prize, by hook or by crook. But of course, you couldn�t just take them by hook. You needed a big reason. And so, according to ZB, �a consensus on foreign policy issues� would be necessary in America. But, he qualified it by saying, �the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public�s sense of domestic well being.� In other words the people basically want peace unless something �huge� happens to them.

In fact, ZB found the public divided about �the external projection of American power.� Nevertheless the crook found a hook. ZB reminded everyone that the public �supported America�s engagement in World War II largely because of the shock effect of the Japanese effect on Pearl Harbor.� They considered it a knife in the back and they went to war, next day.

By the way, nearly 3,000 people died on 9/11, about the same as on Dec 7, 1941 at Pearl. We�ll put on hold for now, whether Roosevelt was aware of the gathering Japanese fleet in the Pacific, and why he told the Navy to stay out of certain lanes in which they might proceed, and why he sent his best two new aircraft carriers out to sea in the other direction.

Going forward to Zbigniew, he was a hardliner, very tight with the Bush boyz despite the fact that he had been Jimmy Carter�s NSA honcho. Brzezinski was the same guy who brought us bin Laden and the Mujihadeen in holy jihad against the Soviet atheists in the 1979-89 war (he helped create) in Afghanistan. Also, Al Qaeda, the supposed terror group that war spawned, was the title on a file in bin Laden�s laptop. It means the �base,� that is, the base of venerable fighters bin Laden had met in his 10 years at war with the Ruskies. �Al Qaeda� was a terror brand name the CIA manufactured and cultivated from Binny�s title.

Also, the subtext of intel thinking was that better Muslims fight Ruskies and better Ruskies fight into the ground with a little bit of military engineering. That is, the CIA paying for bin Laden and his boyz, their weapons, training, organization, et al. Then as now, we considered both groups, the former commies and Muslims, subhuman. Still with me, Bill? This is not a sound bite, not a quick gag, but it�s the truth.

This said, the idea of a Pearl Harbor-event, the inciting incident to create a war, somehow ended up in a position paper published online and off by the Washington, DC, Project for the New American Century (PNAC). Its proclamation for a New World Order was an invitation to the crazies (insert neocons) to create such a Pearl Harbor-type event as the basis to declare a war (it turned out �The War on Terror�) soon after, like the next day, without any further investigation in between.

Still with me, Bill? That�s why 9/11 had to be manufactured, so that soon after a �War on Terror� could be declared on Muslims and Islam. And that�s why a $40 billion US intelligence operation and a $500 billion a year Defense Department were all in the poo-poo house, or involved in 13 parallel airliner hijacking drills that day and couldn�t get a plane in the air in time to stop the so-called Muslim terrorists. Or stop the inevitable �War on Terror� Bush called for, first on Afghanistan, second on Iraq. And soon, Iran? And soon you got the prize, the world by its oil barrels. That�s called strategic thinking, Bill. Some call it brutal insanity.

But what aboutthe World Trade Towers?

First of all, the World Trade Towers were built in the early �70�s with redundant (double) steel frames, all 1,300 plus feet of them, to withstand the weather, fire, even the hit of airliners, at that time 707s. Second, the steel frames of the Towers would not have melted at the temperatures those open fires produced on that cool September morning. The fire itself was dissipated in huge billows of black smoke. Plus, buildings with steel frames had burned for days on end without melting or falling. The Twin Trade Towers were the first two steel-framed buildings in history ever to fall. In fact, the fires were a diversionary tactic.

The explosions that can be seen, even by a myopic comedian like Maher, that occurred on that day at the tops of the buildings, then by cutter charges running down the sides the buildings, and also by explosions in the basements, were duly recorded by eye-witnesses, firemen, people working in the building, most notably William Rodriquez, the superintendent of the North Tower 1. He was there when it exploded and went down into that hellish basement to rescue as many people as he could. He was declared a hero by Bush. Today, he lectures on the explosions that brought the Towers down. He�s not sick, crazy, or taking Paxil.

In fact schmuck, excuse me, Bill, the Towers didn�t even burn for two hours, as you said. The North Tower, which was hit first, burned for an hour and 40 minutes. And the South Tower, which was hit second, burned only for about half an hour, and fell. Redundant steel. Both towers. First time in history. Get it?

The Tower thatwasn�t hit and fell

The third steel-frame tower to ever fall, Tower 7, wasn�t hit by a plane, only some scattered debris. The fires in it were put out by the firemen. But the owner of Tower 7, Lucky Larry Silverstein, decided at 3:30 pm that there had been �such pain and suffering� that he decided to have it �pulled,� which is the pro�s term for controlled internal demolition.

And so, at about 5:30 pm, hardly two hours later, Tower 7 went boom, boom, boom, boom, boom and so on, down neatly into its footprint. And Lucky Larry made $500 million on the insurance, not to mention the billions in insurance on the lease he and his partners, among them the Blackstone Group, held for the WTC; the insurance that was raised by them a month before the attack to $3.5 billion and to include attack by terrorists. Subsequently, Larry asked for $7.1 billion back because it was two hits. But he and his pals had to settle for about $4.5 billion, poor babies.

Also, all three Towers fell within a matter of 10 to 12 seconds, at the free-fall speed of gravity. That means there was nothing to impede the fall, no girders, no floors, no obstacles. Thus the explosions that preceded the falls had to be so numerous and huge as to virtually atomize the structures, which they did (into a huge thick gray white cloud that lasted and polluted our skies and lungs for months), eliminating any pancaking of floors which would slow down their fall. Down the towers went. What�s more, scientist Steven Jones notes that examinations of fragments of girders and other materials from Ground Zero turn up frequent signs of the powerful explosive thermite. Check the website of Dr. Steven E. Jones for more information.

Additionally, all evidence at the largest crime scene in America�s history was whisked away by Hizzoner Rudy Giuliani in eight months, when he had 30 months to do the job. This not only denied forensic investigators ample time to examine materials, body parts and wreckage, but it made thousands of first responders and workers at Ground Zero sick unto dying. Rudy never encouraged the workers to wear their protective face masks, just to get the clean-up over with ASAP, buried in Fresh Kills Staten Island, the steel shipped to China for smelting.

Also, in regard to Tower 7, the one thing that�s really fishy, fishy as the old Fulton Street Fish Market is that you can�t set up a 47 story building to be �pulled� in two hours, or two days, or two weeks. Maybe two months, working fast. So, it had to have been set up in advance. Like Tower 1 and Tower 2 were. And if you don�t believe me, Bill, read what architects and engineers in addition to CIA veterans, first responders, your own state Senator Diane Feinstein, 9/11 family others and other experts say at http://www.ae911truth.org. They will walk you through it, article by article, till you�ll get it.

Oh, and by the way, the company in charge of WTC Security that day was called Securacom, a Kuwait/American venture. And on its board sat Marvin Bush, George�s younger brother. Post 9/11, Securacom became Stratosec, and was subsequently de-listed from the stock exchange. Clients included branches of the Armed Forces, Department of Defense, Washington Dulles International Airport, Hewlett-Packard, EDS, United Airlines, MCI, and the World Trade Center.

Any questions, Bill?

You can also look at what really happened, www.truthaction.org, www.wearechange.org and 911 Mysteries. I know it�s a lot to ask of a guy with the patience of a gnat and an intellect to match. But try, try, Bill. So you�ll find out who is really crazy, who the real lunatics are, your government, and possibly you.

But maybe you�re �crazy like a fox.� That is, you cut a little deal with the Company. They let you go so far, in fact right to the very edge to schpritz the President and his boyz. Ah, but when it came to 9/11, it was don�t touch the keystone. That�s a no-no, a nah-nah. Touch that and you get buzzed back to nowhere, a comedy club in Queens, a borsch belt hotel (what�s left of them), the third lounge to the left in Las Vegas, where you belong.

Once there you can take all the Paxil you want. Trust me, you�re gonna need it.